Construction Of Stance Research Articles

What is evaluated, and how, in academic research writing?

This study explores the ways in which academic writers employ expressions of attitude in the construction of evaluative stance in the introductory sections of research papers. The study draws on the theoretical base of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) (Halliday, 1994; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004), and in particular on Appraisal theory as a modelling of interpersonal meaning at the level of discourse semantics (Martin, 1992, 2000; Martin & Rose, 2003; Martin & White, in press). Attitude is explored from two perspectives: how it is expressed in the discourse, and what it is employed to evaluate. In addressing the second issue, the focus is on the general field (subject matter being constructed in the text) rather than on specific entities. The study is also concerned therefore with how different fields are identified in the texts, and how they relate one to another. The research contributes some significant dimensions to the modelling of attitudinal meanings in the register. Analyses reveal that the register of academic research writing is characteristically constructive of two fields, the knowledge domain being investigated and the research activity conducted in relation to that domain; that these fields are in a relationship of projection one to the other; and that each field is evaluated in quite different ways. The findings contribute at a theoretical level to an explanation of the apparent contradiction between the dual demands of persuasion and ‘objectivity’ in the register, and at a practical level provide a new dimension to frameworks for deconstructing and negotiating evaluative stance with novice academic research writers.

Subjectivity, intersubjectivity and the historical construction of interlocutor stance: from stance markers to discourse markers

This study draws upon the techniques of corpus linguistics, discourse analysis and historical pragmatics to provide an account of the ways in which speakers recruit markers of epistemic stance to capture their construction of the attitudes of their interlocutors, addressees, or audience. It then examines the ways in which selected markers lose their subjective force over time, whether expressive of the speaker’s attitude or the speaker’s sense of the interlocutor’s attitude, to become interactive markers of the exchange involved in an exchange. The article thus tracks the subtle shifts from speaker subjectivity to the speaker’s projection of subjectivity to the addressee (intersubjectivity), to the association of an expression with the dynamics of the interactive process itself (interactiveness). The article examines instances of semasiological change, that is, changes of meaning associated with the lexical expressions, you know, you see, and you say.

The development of generic maður/man for the construction of discourse stance in Icelandic and Swedish

The paper compares two lexical items, Icelandic maður and Swedish man , for the construction of a detached, general discourse stance (Berman, Ragnarsdóttir and Strömqvist, 2002). Both forms mean ‘man’, but they can also be used in a generic sense. In that usage, Icelandic maður is associated with several semantic, pragmatic, and stylistic constraints, whereas Swedish man is more freely applicable across contexts and genres. Data derived from 632 discourse tokens produced by 158 subjects were analyzed, focusing on frequency distributions of generic usages of maður/man with respect to age (10–11, 13–14, 16–17 years, adults), genre (narrative, expository), modality (speaking, writing), and language (Icelandic, Swedish). Both Icelandic and Swedish revealed a clear preference for using maður/man in expository discourse, a finding which validates the assumption that these terms play a role in the construction of a depersonalized, general discourse stance. Further, Swedish man was used considerably more frequently than Icelandic maður , a finding which is explained as due to the difference in the constraints restricting the domain of use of the apparently equivalent term in the two languages. By and large, two main factors were found to underlie the distributions of maður/man : general socio-cognitive development and culturally specific stylistic constraints.

‘This mystery…’: a corpus-based study of the use of nouns to construct stance in theses from two contrasting disciplines

This study investigates the construction of stance through nouns in two corpora of theses, 200,000 words in politics/international relations and 300,000 words in materials science. It examines nouns which are preceded by sentence initial deictic This and which serve to encapsulate earlier propositions. Such forms are called ‘retrospective labels’ by Francis G. (1994). Labelling discourse: an aspect of nominal-group lexical cohesion. In M. Coulthard (Ed.), Advances in written text analysis (pp. 83–101). London: Routledge, and can be exemplified as follows: ‘Despite its lack of physical basis, the Potts model… has been very successful… This mystery…’. It is shown that through encapsulation, such nouns organise the text and indicate to the reader how the information is to be understood. In so doing they enable the writer to take a stance as a competent member of the discipline. Disciplinary differences are seen in the choice of noun, with higher frequencies in the politics corpus of both metalinguistic nouns (e.g. ‘argument') and nouns that are inherently marked for stance (e.g. ‘confusion'). It is argued that this variation is due to differences between the disciplines in research practices and the construction of knowledge. I suggest that this use of nouns is important for thesis writers, as it constitutes a valuable resource for the construction of convincing arguments and the expression of appropriate stance.

Multi-modality in girls’ game disputes

This paper examines embodied procedures for producing disagreement turns in the midst of the children’s game of hopscotch. Turn shape, intonation, and body positioning are all critical to the construction of stance towards a player’s move in the game. In particular, in formulating a player’s move as ‘‘out’’ foul calls can state unambiguously, without doubt or delay that a violation has occurred. Turn initial tokens in disagreement turns include cries of ‘‘OUT!’’, negatives (‘‘No!’’), or response cries (nonlexicalized, discrete interjections such as ‘‘Ay!’’ or ‘‘Eh!’’). Players make use of pitch leaps, vowel lengthening, and dramatic contours (for example, LHL contours) to vocally highlight opposition in the turn preface. Whereas the normal pitch range of a speaker’s talk in ordinary conversation can be between 250 and 350 Hz, in opposition moves the pitch may be considerably higher, around 600 Hz. Affective stance is also displayed through gestures such as extended points towards the person who has committed the foul or the space where the foul occurred. Explanations or demonstrations (frequently embodied re-enactments of the player’s past move) constitute additional critical components of disagreement moves as they provide the grounds for the opposition. Disagreement moves and trajectories within children’s games provide demonstrations of the practices through which girls build and display themselves as agents in the constitution of their social order. Data for this study consists of videotaped interaction of working class fifth grade girls on the playground: second generation Mexican and Central Americans in Los Angeles, and African American Southern migrant children. Ethnic differences in the display

Deliberate dispute and the construction of oppositional stance

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