Modality, polarity, and legibility in academic abstracts: a multidisciplinary comparative analysis

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30612/raido.v19i48.20339

Keywords:

readability, positivity, modality, PhD thesis abstract, academic discourse

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between modality, polarity, and readability in academic abstracts from 40 doctoral theses across four areas of knowledge – Exact Sciences, Natural Sciences, Health Sciences, and Social and Human Sciences. The methodology is based on advanced natural language processing techniques to examine how readability, the discursive construction of polarity (positive/neutral/negative), and the involved modalities vary, reflecting the epistemological and methodological specificities of each scientific domain. Readability is assessed through indices that measure ease of reading. The analysis of the level of polarity in the abstracts focuses on the lexical analysis of positive, neutral, or negative values. The modality dimension centers on identifying modal elements that express the different modalities (epistemic, deontic, and desiderative) present in the abstracts. By analyzing these three dimensions, the study offers a holistic perspective on academic writing, allowing for the mapping of discursive patterns that characterize different areas of knowledge.



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Author Biographies

Sílvia Araújo, University of Minho/CEHUM

Sílvia Araújo concluded her PhD in Language Sciences / Romance Linguistics in 2008 at the University of Minho / Université Paris 7 - Denis Diderot. She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Romance Studies at the University of Minho. With her extensive background in Language Sciences and Digital Humanities, she has been a pivotal figure in spearheading projects funded by FCT, including "Per-Fide: Portuguese with six different languages Português, Español, Russian, Français, Italiano, Deutsch, English, PTPC/CLE-LLI/108948/2008" and "PortLinguE: Multilingual Portal for Specialized Languages: mining open data for cross-language information retrieval, PTDC/LLT-LIG/31113/2017" Her leadership in these initiatives, coupled with her numerous indexed publications and supervision of master's and PhD students, underscores her expertise in corpus linguistics, natural language processing, and the application of AI technologies to education. She is also (co)organizer of several conferences and workshops, (co) editor of journals and books and reviewer of many indexed journals, books and conferences on these topics. Additionally, she is the Director of the Master's Degree in Digital Humanities and coordinates the Digital Humanities Research Group at the Center for Humanistic Studies of the University of Minho. Actively involved in the Center for Innovation and Development of Teaching and Learning at the University of Minho, she conducts accredited training sessions on integrating technologies into education at various levels.

Micaela Aguiar, University of Minho/CEHUM

Micaela Aguiar is a researcher at the CEHUM – Centre for Humanistic Studies at the University of Minho. She holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics (Discourse Analysis), completed in 2021 with support from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). Her doctoral research, titled Presidential Images in Inaugural Addresses during the Hundred Years of the Portuguese Republic, resulted in the first compiled corpus of Portuguese presidential inaugural speeches, previously scattered across various historical sources. She has worked on several funded research projects, including PortLinguE (a multilingual portal for specialized language resources) and PAFSE (Partnerships for Science Education). Her research interests lie at the intersection of discourse analysis, digital humanities, and corpus linguistics, with a particular focus on political and academic discourse. Micaela is also an Open Science Ambassador within the Arqus Alliance and currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of H2D – Revista de Humanidades Digitais.

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Published

2025-12-13

How to Cite

Araújo, S., & Aguiar, M. (2025). Modality, polarity, and legibility in academic abstracts: a multidisciplinary comparative analysis. Raído, 19(48), 278–295. https://doi.org/10.30612/raido.v19i48.20339

Issue

Vol. 19 No. 48 (2025): Olhares cruzados sobre a escrita universitária

Section

Eixo 3

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