在我有关引文本质的文章被牛津教授双引号引用后，有关博文得到大家热烈响应之后(文章被牛津的教授双引号引用 )。我给我所认识的所有外国朋友发了一封信，说了相关情况。Loet Leydesdorff收到信后，和我就有关引文本质的问题进行了对话。

 他首先祝贺我有关引文本质的文章获得了成功，说我的研究丰富了他对引文的理解，然后他给我发了两篇他早年在这方面的实证性研究

 我问他是否介意，我把我和他的对话发表在我的博客上，他说会感到很荣幸，并把他的两篇文章的full references发给我（如下所示）。

 他说他现在认为引文具有重要的社会和修辞的功能，我不大懂，然后问他引文的修辞功能是什么意思，然后他详尽地给我解释了有关引文本质的探讨过程，他说引文的修辞功能基于引文在争论中的建构作用而引起。也就是历史上的说服论。然后从说服论又引申到与之相对的一个认可论上来，认可论起源于默顿。这两种相反的有关引文的理论曾在历史上引起激烈的争论。相关争论参见(Cozzens, 1989; Woolgar 1991),中文文章可以参见刘宇, 李武. 引文评价合法性研究——基于引文功能和引用动机研究的综合考察[J]. 南京大学学报(哲学•人文科学•社会科学), 2013(6): 137 -148。

然后他又指出Small和Wouters在引文对文章相关科学内容的指代作用（Small, 1978；Wouters, 1998)。他说在他看来，在网络时代，这种对（科学）内容的动力学研究会变得更加重要。而在刊物时代，人们对内容的兴趣不大，而更关注不同学科之间交互的方法之类的东西。所以，引文在揭示文章内容方面的功能日益重要，而那些认为新的引文比旧的引文更重要的那种，仅仅只是考虑引文的形式，而不是引文的内容。

 我给他回信说，我倾向于认为引文是基于所调查的现象如何认识而形成的一种争论。他把我的这句话摘录出来，说，这太好了。（引文）是在科学内容上的争论和说理，如果这些说理是具有争议性 ，也就包含社会过程。

 说实话，一直觉得默顿，Small，Gilbert, 还有wouters之类的应该是教科书中的人物，没有想到Leydesdorff能把我和他们并列起来，构成有关引文本质探索的一个连环。当然，leydesdorff本人也应该是教科书中的人物。

他在这里没有提，1998年Scientometrics第43卷第1期围绕着他的文章“theories of citations”组织过引文理论的专期讨论。当时活跃在科学计量学研究前沿的科学计量学家们广泛参与到这次讨论当中。一年后，Leydesdorff & Wouter对各种意见进行了总结。但这次讨论并没有对引文形成共识性理论。这些文章，我都认真读过，其中有一篇文章，甚至说，引文是人造的怪物。

和leydesdorff的对话，让我对我的理论更加有信心。Leydesdorff是我博士论文评审委员会成员，在答辩的时候，他问的问题就是有关这方面的。他的认可，对我是莫大的鼓励。

为防止编译错误，特附原文如下：

 Dear friends,

Attached you will find one article quoted my conclusion on the essence of citation when they tried to define citation precisely. They said that "the act of bibliographic citation – a scholar referencing the published work of others,that usually originates “from the interestingness of the phenomenon that has been addressed in the old article and considered again in the new one” (Liu and Rousseau, 2013)

 In the first page we can see a note: This paper has been developed from the same textual source material from which was distilled a short Comment piece entitled“Open Citations” recently published by David Shotton in Nature. these articles are about to establish citation ontology. since ontology has both sense of revealing the essence and cognitive process of this essence. it may mean that the potential function of citation we expounded in our article “Revealing the evolution of science and reviving the cognitive process of an investigated phenomenon" can be realized through the ontology of citation.  

 this article is a part of my doctoral thesis. we distilled an article from my thesis. it was published in the name of me and Prof. Ronald Rousseau, but it was actually an intellectual product of all my doctoral committees. I thanks them again here. It was rejected many times. JOD accepted our article at the discretion of the Editor because of my award of EmeraldEFMD outstanding doctoral research.we acknowledged that this article is a kind of Speculation. Now it seems that our conclusion was accepted by the scientists outside of our field. as the citation ontology was established, my speculation will have a means to realize. Now we dream that scientometrics tool can combine quantitative evaluation and qualitative assessment together. I think the citation ontology will make the dream to come true.

I noticed the authors of this article are from Computer department and library. Prof.  David Shotton is a cell biologistin department of zoologist in the university of Oxford. interestingly, the DORA also initiated by some biologists.  the scientists outside of our field are trying to explore what deep inside of citation has. while we, as bibliometricians who work with publications and citations,always stay at the superficial phenomenon.

I wrote an blog on what sense of this development will make for our field. I pasted it the day before yesterday. Now it has been read more than fourteen thousand people. it has paqued a lot interests on the new development of ourfield, which you can find here.http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=215715&do=blog&id=916125

Best wishes,

 Yuxian Liu

 DearYuxian,

Congratulationswith the success of your ontology. I would nowadays argue that citation alsohas important social and rhetorical functions. Let me take the liberty toattach two old papers in which Olga Amsterdamska and I tried to workempirically on the issue. You probably know them already; this research coloredmy perspective on “citation”.

 Best,

Loet 

DearLoet,

Thankso much for sending me the interesting articles. Do you mind that I paste your email in my blog?

Best,

 Yuxian

 At2015-08-30 13:41:13, "LoetLeydesdorff" <loet@leydesdorff.net>wrote:

 Dear Yuxian,

 I would feel honored. J

In that case, you may need full references:

Amsterdamska,O., &Leydesdorff, L. (1989). Citations: Indicators of Significance?Scientometrics 15(5-6), 449-471.

Loet Leydesdorffand Olga Amsterdamska, Dimensions of Citation Analysis, Science, Technology andHuman Values 15 (1990) 305-335.  

Thelatter has a preprint version online.

Thank you for doing this.

Best,

Loet

DearLoet,

I am thinking how I should formulate our conversation so that I could write an appealingblog. But I just realize that I don't understand what the "rhetoricalfunctions". I looked it up in the dictionary:

 1.Using language effectively to please or persuade,

 2,high flown style; excessive use of verbal ornamentation.

 which one do you mean?

 the first one is positive, the second one is negetive.

ifit is the first one, please find attachment one article published by Prof.Ronald Rousseau and me.

Moreover,I understood why you copy our emails to Prof. Ronald Rousseau. You know I am a student of Prof. Ronald Rousseau, he hopes that someday I could become an independent researcher. that's why I am trying to do something without him.

Best,

 Yuxian

 Dear Yuxian,

Thank you for the paper about Nobel Prize winners. I’ll no longer cc to Ronald. J

Therhetorical function of citation is based on the relevance of a citation in theconstruction of an argument. Often, people fill out the citations after writingthe text in order to legitimate it. For example, one finds in the manuscript “referenceneeded” and then adds an appropriate reference, sometimes without reading thetext (“cross-citation”). This function of citation is also called aconstructivist one as different from the normative appreciation of citationthat goes back to Merton. Actually, there has been a “citation debate” in the literature opposing these two appreciations.

 Cozzens,S. E. (1989). What do citations count? The rhetoric-first model.Scientometrics,15(5), 437-447.

 Woolgar,S. (1991). Beyond the citation debate: towards a sociology of measurementtechnologies and their use in science policy. Science and Public Policy, 18(5),319-326.

 See also about the semiosis of citation in texts:

 Small,H. (1978).Cited documents as concept symbols. Social Studies of Science 8(3),113-122.

 Wouters,P. (1998). The signs of science.Scientometrics, 41(1), 225-241.

 In my opinion, this textual dynamics has become more important in the internet age and given also the emergence of journals (e.g. PLoS One) which are less interested in content, but more in methodologies across disciplines. Citation then becomes increasingly a functionality of the text. For example, a recent citation may be more attractive than an older one. That is typically a consideration of style rather than content.

 Hopefully,this is helpful.

Best,

 Loet

 Dear Leot,

 I tend to regard that citation is a kind ofargument which based on how the investigated phenomenon is recognized. Why itis need for scientists to do research is that they think they have a newperspective which is difference from the old concepts of this phenomenon, thenthey argue...

 I attached an article written by Prof. Small.I think he make some some good observations on the knowledge modalitycategories ordered from most to least certain. you can see the table 1. but Idon't know Small didn't publish this article in a journal. How do you think ofthis article?

 Best,

Yuxian 

 “I tend to regard that citation is a kind of argument which based onhow the investigated phenomenon is recognized.”

 Yes,this is nice: an argument in a text or line of reasoning, but expected tocontain knowledge content. If the argument is controversial, a social processis also induced.

 Best,

Loet

Dear Yuxian,

I translated our conversation to Chinese(attached, I suppose you understand Chinese?). it need a title. a plain title is a conversation  between me and Leydesdorff  on essence of citation. a sensational title is that Leydesdorff agree my conclusion and feel honored to publish his endorse on my blog. which one do you prefer?

Thank you for doing this. I feel honoured, indeed. Nevertheless, the plain title may be more accurate. I am happy to leave it to you, eventually.