1 Introduction

Research papers are an important medium for creating and disseminating disciplinary knowledge. The limitations of a paper are the author's comments and evaluations of research deficiencies, which are crucial for maintaining a balance between objectivity and acknowledging shortcomings in research. Position markers are a language expression used by authors to express their positions and negotiate with readers, which helps to achieve interpersonal interaction. There have been studies on position markers related to different disciplines and parts of papers, but there is a lack of attention to the limitations of agricultural papers. This study is based on Hyland's theoretical framework to investigate the evolution and distribution of position markers in the limitations section of animal medicine journal articles before and after the introduction of the New Agricultural Science, explore their usage characteristics and dynamic changes, and provide suggestions for improving the quality of academic writing.

2 Theoretical Framework

Early stance research focused on the evidential and affective aspects of language. Biber u0026 Finegan proposed the concept of comprehensive stance, which encompasses personal emotional attitudes and knowledge state evaluations. By combining stance research with evaluative research, Hyland proposes a stance analysis framework from the perspective of functional linguistics, emphasizing the interaction between academic writing and readers. This study adopts Hyland's position marker framework to explore the author's writing preferences in the limitations section, predict readers' knowledge level, reflect the author's evaluation of research shortcomings, and guide readers to recognize the limitations of the research.

3 Research questions and methods

The study aims to analyze the evolution of position markers in the limited parts of animal medicine journal articles, involving three issues: the characteristics and differences in the use of position markers between 2012-2017 and 2018-2023, the specific category usage characteristics and differences, and the implications for academic English writing. The study selected 6 cross disciplinary journals published by the top ten agricultural universities in China, and randomly selected the limited parts of 5 papers published each year from 2012-2017 and 2018-2023, totaling 360 papers with a total character count of 76056. Using AntConc 3.5.9 software, identify and count according to the Hyland position marker vocabulary, manually check to ensure the rigor of the results, count the original frequencies of four types of position markers and standardize them by ten thousand words, and use chi square value to test for significant differences between different time periods.

4 Results and Discussion

The study analyzed the frequency of use of position markers in the limited parts of animal medicine journal articles from 2012 to 2017 and 2018 to 2023. It was found that the overall frequency of use decreased, with a decrease in the frequency of use of vague restrictive language, attitude markers, and reinforcement language, while the frequency of use of self referential language increased. Fuzzy restrictive language has significantly decreased after the construction of the new agricultural science, indicating that the discipline of animal medicine places more emphasis on scientificity and rigor. The use of high-frequency fuzzy restrictive phrases such as "may", "could", and "should" has decreased, while the use of paraphrasing verbs such as "suggest" and "indicate" has increased. Although the use of reinforcement language has shown a downward trend, there is no significant difference. High frequency reinforcement language such as "found" and "show" and their variants have decreased, while the use of "established" has increased. The frequency of attitude markers is relatively low in both time periods, with the lowest frequency since the construction of the new agricultural science. Self mention is the only position marker that shows a significant upward trend, and veterinarians tend to use first person plural forms such as "we", "our", and "us", indicating that scholars have already considered the shortcomings of their research before publishing it.

5 Conclusion

Under the background of the new agricultural science, the frequency of use of position markers in animal medicine journal articles has decreased, fuzzy restrictive language has decreased, and self referential language has increased. This reflects the trend of interdisciplinary integration, where scholars tend to use deterministic expressions to enhance research commitment, while also disseminating academic contributions through self referencing language to gain recognition from the academic community. The construction of new agricultural science requires a re examination of academic English writing teaching, guiding researchers to balance the synergy and certainty of interdisciplinary research, grasp the structural characteristics of the limitations of the paper, use appropriate markers for identity construction, and win discourse authority.