Title: Specialization of Legitimation Code Theory and Its Application in Research Articles Analysis

Abstract: Specialization, which can be interpreted from epistemic relation and social relation, is one of the important dimensions in Legitimation Code Theory. This article begins with an introduction to the concept of specialization, and then studies its application to the analysis of research article abstracts in two different disciplines, namely, applied linguistics and education, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The analysis finds that applied linguistics manifests stronger epistemic relation while education lays more emphasis on social relation. The study suggests that the specialization dimension can be applied to the investigation of semantic features of academic texts in different disciplines, and it provides more angles for the study of knowledge structure across disciplines.

Keywords: Legitimation Code Theory, specialization, epistemic relation, social relation, research article

Author: Geqi Wu, Associate Professor, School of Foreign Languages, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China