Kramar N. Self-Representation of a Scientist’s Authorial Identity: Discursive and Cognitive Dimensions (Based on the Lectures and Memoirs by R. P. Feynman).

The thesis explores the self-representation of authorial identity of Richard Feynman – one of the most influential and charismatic scientists of the 20th century – through the prism of discourse studies and cognitive linguistics. For the first time in this field a corpus-based approach is used consistently with the purpose of comprehensive analysis of a scientist’s authorial identity. The study integrates metadiscursive, epistemic and cognitive-rhetorical markers of a scientist’s self-representation, shaping a holistic perspective that is lacking in available research. The study demonstrates the relevance of K. Hyland’s model of metadiscourse as stance and engagement to the analysis of a single scientist’s self-representation, as well as its applicability to the genre of academic lecture, despite the fact that so far it has been predominantly used in the research based on academic articles. It also validates the use of a corpus-based approach to the study of idiostylistic characteristics of a scientist’s works, presenting a step-by-step methodology of their computer-assisted analysis. It is argued in the thesis that a study of a scientist’s self-representation should involve аn examination of their beliefs about the nature of knowledge and science as a salient factor shaping their research approaches and accomplishments, as well as the extent of their explicit self-presence in academic discourse. Identified and described in the study are the means of constructing stance and engagement that distinguish R. Feynman’s lecture discourse. Based on his lectures and memoirs, his epistemic beliefs and the individual concept of SCIENCE are reconstructed as inherent cognitive structures that correlate with particular idiostylistic features of his academic and non-academic works. Rhetorical devices in R. Feynman’s textual and video-lectures are analyzed from the viewpoint of cognitive rhetoric as a new interdisciplinary field, which is of special relevance to academic discourse. Identitification of R. Feynman’s characteristic stylistic features, his epistemic beliefs and key concepts, along with the broad use of secondary information (primarily, the recollections of his colleagues and relatives) enabled us to reconstruct the discursive personality of R. Feynman in its entirety, which, in turn, helped to reveal distinct interconnection between its different aspects representing various levels.