Comparative Examination of Attitudinal Language Usage in Academic Writing by English and Persian Authors

Abstract

Academic writing frequently incorporates evaluative strategies aimed at conveying the attitudes and perspectives of writers towards individuals, objects, and situations discussed in their texts. This study explores how writers use language to project their attitudinal assessments and establish their presence in academic writing. To do so, we analyzed four texts authored by scholars in applied linguistics – two in Persian and two in English – using the appraisal framework developed, specifically focusing on the category of attitude. Our findings indicate that while writers tended to avoid expressing their feelings and making judgments about people, they preferred to use attitude as appreciation when evaluating objects.