CHAPTER 11
MAKING STANCE EXPLICIT FOR
SECOND LANGUAGE WRITERS
IN THE DISCIPLINES: WHAT
FACULTY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT
THE LANGUAGE OF STANCETAKING
Zak Lancaster
Wake Forest University
Expressing an authorial stance in contextually valued ways may be
especially challenging for English as a Second Language (L2) writers
(in addition, certainly, to many L1 writers), as the subtle ways that
writers in the disciplines go about evaluating evidence and positioning
the reader toward their views are largely tacit and therefore not often
made explicit to students. In response to this problem, this chapter discusses ways that writing specialists can assist faculty in the disciplines to
become explicitly aware of stance expressions in their students’ writing.
Drawing on analysis of student writing in two disciplinary contexts
(political theory and economics) as well as interviews with the course
instructors, I ofer examples of stance features that appear to be valued
in these two contexts even though they run below the instructors’ fully
conscious awareness. I then discuss ways that disciplinary faculty can
be assisted to identify these features explicitly. he larger goal of this
chapter is to argue for a way of reading students’ disciplinary writing
that is sensitive to the details of stance-taking and to the languagerelated problems that many students experience when writing in the
disciplines.
Students in upper-level writing in the disciplines contexts are expected,
often implicitly, to construct stances in their writing in ways that are recognized
by readers as appropriate and authoritative—i.e., assertive, knowledgeable,
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critically distant, and aligned with a speciic disciplinary culture. To meet these
stance expectations, writers must use language in specialized ways, as revealed
by linguistic analyses of speciic disciplinary discourses (see, e.g., Charles,
2003; Hyland, 2004, 2005; Macken-Horarik & Morgan, 2011; Schleppegrell,
2004; Soliday, 2011). hese specialized ways of using language, however, are
not typically recognized as such by faculty in the disciplines, due largely to
assumptions about the transparency of academic discourses (Turner, 1999). In
particular, there is not often conscious awareness of the ways that disciplinary
stances are accomplished through language, for example through wordings that
subtly foreground valued epistemologies, construct a critical reader-in-the-text,
or otherwise index the stance of a student who is engaged with the disciplinary
discourse.
As brief illustration, consider the following two texts written by students in
an advanced economics course.
(1a) Using an ex post analysis of share prices and product
prices, I was able to show that the Supreme Court decision
had negligible efects on the industry, and therefore a better
outcome could have been achieved. (Eric)
(1b) Using my personal opinion to analyze the remedies used
in this case, I determined the District Court was correct in
allowing the merger to proceed. (Nancy)
hese texts are from students’ inal essays in the course. One diference
between them, as suggested by just these concluding sentences, is that Eric
adopts a contrastive stance toward the reasoning of Supreme Court, while
Nancy adopts a stance of agreement (the District Court was correct). Subtler
diferences can be found in the details of the language. Eric’s text, for instance,
thematizes (or linguistically foregrounds)1 the analytic framework that he uses
to reach his judgment (Using ex post analysis of share prices and product prices),
while Nancy’s text thematizes the subjective basis of her judgment (Using my
personal opinion to analyze the remedies used in this case). hrough these and other
language resources, Eric’s text conveys more critical distance and authority.
It is unlikely that many faculty think in such explicit terms about stance when
evaluating student work. his lack of explicit attention may not cause problems
for students who have learned “organically” how to construct valued stances in
their writing, i.e., through trial and error and unconscious noticing of patterns
in genre exemplars. It can present problems, however, for students who have
diiculty meeting implicit stance expectations, due either to limited exposure
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to academic registers and genres or to a variety of linguistic, socio-cultural, and
individual factors. To provide meaningful support for these students, it would
be useful for faculty to be aware of the various linguistic means through which
valued stances are realized in their discourse contexts. With such awareness,
they could learn to read student work in new ways and provide feedback that
takes into account the complexities involved in taking on a disciplinary stance.
Recent research shows that stance-related challenges may be especially acute
for English as a Second Language (L2) writers (Chang, 2010; Feak, 2008;
Hyland & Milton, 1997; Lancaster, 2011; Schleppegrell, 2004; Tardy, 2009).
When L2 writers’ styles of stance-taking are not explicit enough, inconsistent
in evaluative position, not measured enough, too measured, or otherwise
subtly of the mark, the students can be judged as having vague “language” or
“grammar” problems and thus directed to the campus writing center, where
writing specialists who are likely untrained in the disciplinary context may or
may not be able to help (Feak, 2008). Students can also be judged in a very
diferent way as having problems comprehending the subject matter (Lancaster,
2011). Speciically, faculty may interpret what are actually problems in linguistic
expression of stance as problems with thinking, understanding, or even efort.
(See Zawacki & Habib [this volume] for similar faculty explanations of L2
student error, many of which could be attributed to inappropriate stancetaking.) For instance, in some disciplinary genres, inconsistent use of “hedges”
(e.g., perhaps, research suggests, it appears/seems that) may contribute toward the
impression that the writer has not engaged in suiciently cautious reasoning.
In other disciplinary genres, foregrounding of personal opinion, as in Nancy’s
text, may be perceived as insuicient “analytic rigor.” Evidence that stance does
matter can be found in research that reveals connections between the types of
stances students project and their grades or scores (Barton, 1993; Coin, 2002;
Lancaster, 2012; Soliday, 2004; Wu, 2007).
hat adopting an efective stance in disciplinary writing comes with linguistic
challenges presents a conundrum for writing instruction, one well known
to writing scholars. he conundrum is that, while faculty in the disciplines
best understand the close text-context interrelations in the disciplinary genres
that they themselves have mastered and are asking their students to engage
with, they typically feel ill-equipped, under-prepared, or under-motivated to
deal with “language” in their classroom instruction. While linguistic issues in
writing may fall under the expertise of writing specialists, discipline-speciic
ways of using language are best understood (at least potentially) by experts in
the respective disciplines.
In response to this knotty and long-standing problem, I suggest ways in this
chapter that writing specialists can work with faculty in the disciplines to become
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explicitly aware of stance expressions in student writing. My main suggestion
is that, if faculty are to develop strategies for reading and commenting on their
students’ papers in ways that are sensitive to expression of stance, they need to
be able to identify textual patterns in their students’ writing that are more and
less related to valued disciplinary stances. he capacity to identify patterns of
stance in students’ texts, furthermore, requires a meaningful metalanguage (or
language about language), one that potentially can be used to assist students to
recognize how valued stances are realized through language.
I begin by clarifying what I mean by “stance.” I then ofer examples of
patterns in stance-taking that faculty could be assisted to identify. My examples
are pulled from two distinct disciplinary contexts, an upper-level course on
economic regulation and antitrust policy (henceforth Econ 432) and an upperlevel course on twentieth century political theory (henceforth PolSci 409). In
the larger research project from which my examples are taken, I used appraisal
theory from systemic functional linguistics (Martin and White, 2005) to
analyze argumentative essays written by consistently high- and low-performing
students. I also interviewed the course instructors about their goals and values
for student writing in order to interpret how patterns of stance were related
to valued meanings in the contexts. I describe these methods more fully in
Lancaster (2012). After discussing relevant patterns in example texts, I inally
turn to speciic strategies for assisting faculty to read student work in terms of
stance-taking.
STANCE: WHAT IS IT AND WHY IS IT SO TRICKY?
Stance is a slippery concept that faculty across the disciplines, including
writing faculty, have diicultly discussing with their students in clear terms.
As Soliday (2011) points out, students are frequently advised to “take your
own position” and ofer judgments, but to avoid sounding “biased” (p. 39-40).
Similarly, they are expected to show commitment to their arguments and even
“passion” for their topics, but also to remain “objective” or critically distant.
Other potentially contradictory messages that students may hear include:
Use your own words, your own “voice,” but don’t be colloquial in your use
of language; use “I” in your writing, but not too frequently; write assertively
and with authority, but don’t forget you’re a student and lack expertise; engage
with others’ views and voices, but don’t just summarize what others have said;
display understanding of the target material, but don’t just reel of facts; try new
things, experiment with new ways of thinking and arguing, but be sure to write
clearly and concisely. he cumulative efect of these apparently contradictory
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instructions can lead students to the (not unreasonable) conclusion that every
instructor wants something diferent: Instructors have their own idiosyncratic
tastes for what counts as an efective style of stance taking.
Stance has been hard for linguists to pin down, too, as suggested by the
wide range of deinitions that have been ofered (see, e.g., Engelbretson, 2007;
Hyland, 2005; Jafe, 2009; Martin & White, 2005). Furthermore, in some
traditions of applied linguistics, stance has been treated as nearly or completely
synonymous with the construct of voice. Hyland (2011), for instance, equates
the two constructs when he explains that “stance refers to the writer’s textual
‘voice’ or community recognized personality” (p. 197).
In this chapter, I am using the term stance rather than voice because I examine
how writers’ interpersonal moves (like use of counterargument strategies) relate
to issues of reader positioning. Expressing stance is both a writer-oriented and
reader-oriented concept, a point that is relected in Johnstone’s (2009) deinition
of stance as “the methods, linguistic and other, by which interactants create
and signal relationships with the propositions they utter and with the people
they interact with” (p. 30-31). I am, in fact, equally comfortable referring to
the linguistic construction of an “authoritative voice” as I am an “authoritative
stance,” but other textual qualities that I discuss below, like contrastiveness, have
to do with the signaling of relationships with others’ views and voices. hus a
“contrastive stance”—or adopting a stance of contrast towards others’ views—
makes more intuitive sense than a “contrastive voice.” Likewise a dialogically
expansive or contractive stance (as explained in White, 2003, and discussed
below) makes more intuitive sense than a dialogically expansive or contractive
voice.
Stance, then, refers to the ways that writers—as they go about analyzing and
evaluating things, making assertions and recommendations, providing evidence
and justiications and so forth—project an authorial presence in their texts, one
that conveys attitudes and feelings and that interacts with the imagined readers
by recognizing their views, identifying points of shared knowledge, conceding
limitations, and otherwise positioning them as aligned with or resistant to the
views being advanced in the text. According to this expansive deinition, stance
expressions are pervasive throughout disciplinary genres, including ones often
thought of as objective and “faceless” like research articles and lab reports. (See
the Appendix for examples of stance moves from various disciplinary contexts.)
As suggested by the discussion so far, expressing stance in academic writing
requires more complex decision-making than whether or not to adopt a formal
tone or use the active voice or the pronoun “I.” It requires making decisions
(usually tacitly) about such matters as when to tune up or down one’s level of
commitment to assertions; whether and how to comment on the signiicance
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of evidence; when and how to engage with alternative perspectives; how
to construct a text that engages with the imagined reader; and many other
interpersonal considerations that can vary widely according to genre and
disciplinary context (Hyland, 2004; 2005). hese subtle interpersonal moves
can be highly challenging for both L1 and L2 student writers. hey can also be
diicult for experienced writers to think about consciously and to identify in
discourse explicitly, as they tend to be so deeply embedded within their social
knowledge of genre.
In terms of my own diiculties as a writing specialist, I can only go so far in
conjecturing whether or not certain stance features, such as the ones I identiied
in Eric’s and Nancy’s texts above, are valued or not in their contexts, as I am
not trained in economics or political theory. Eric’s stance is both more “critical”
(or contrastive) and critically distant than Nancy’s. hrough my analysis (in
Lancaster, 2012), I showed that these and other qualities do correlate with
students’ grades in the courses. hat is, the high-performers more consistently
adopt stances marked by contrastiveness and critical distance, among other
qualities. he diiculty for me lies in pinpointing why a particular pattern or
type of wording might be valued, either with regard to the pedagogical purposes
of the assignment or the epistemological values of the disciplinary culture—or
a combination of the two. Is the stance that Nancy projects not as efective
as the one that Eric projects? If so, is this because it is in agreement with the
District Court’s reasoning and thus is not “critical”? Or is it because her text
foregrounds the subjective basis of her reasoning? I can, of course, speculate
that foregrounding personal opinion is not the most efective way to go about
recommending a course of action in the context of an economically-driven
public policy analysis. But the person who is in the best position to comment
on these meanings, and perhaps connect them to other important meanings
in the context that I have not identiied, is the course professor. his is why it
would be ideal for him and other faculty in the disciplines to gain experience
in identifying patterns of stance that are more and less valued in their own
students’ writing.
EXAMPLES OF LINGUISTIC PATTERNS THAT
REQUIRE INSTRUCTIONAL ATTENTION
In this section I focus in more detail on types of language use that my research
suggests warrant close attention, especially in disciplinary contexts that call for
evidence-based arguments. I begin with the case of Econ 432. My analysis of
high-and low-graded papers in this course revealed that the wordings in bold
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italics in the sentences below are instances of a larger pattern of language use
that can present particular diiculties for L2 writers.
(2a) Of the defendants involved in Utah Pie Company’s case
only one seems to have emerged as exceptionally successful.
Continental, now known as Morton Frozen Foods Division,
had a 13, 11, and 13th percentage share of the market in
1974, 1975 and 1976 respectively (see table 1).
(2b) It appears that maximum price ixing does the greatest
harm when set below a competitive level.
(2c) he rise of Mrs. Smith’s, fall of Utah Pie, and relative
success of Continental in the resulting time frame suggest
internal management, and not the Supreme Court, played
the most signiicant role in market performance and conduct.
hese highlighted wordings appear signiicantly more frequently in the highperforming students’ writing in the course, and for this reason they may warrant
instructional attention. Given that, how can they be discussed?
Often referred to in the applied linguistics literature as hedges (see Hyland,
2004; 2005), these devices are used to weaken authorial commitment to
claims and signal openness to alternative views. In the speciic sentences above,
hedging is realized through appearance-based evidential verbs (appears, seems,
and suggest), which highlight the evidence-based nature of the reasoning and
represent the writers’ judgments as “based on plausible reasoning rather than
certain knowledge” (Hyland, 2005, p. 179). Hedging can also be realized
through low-probability modal expressions (e.g., could, might, may, perhaps,
possibly, I think)—in addition to a variety of other lexical and grammatical
means for expressing a claim as a possibility rather than fact or pronouncement.
In the case of genres that require evidence-based argumentation, it is useful
to distinguish between two sub-types of hedging: evidentializing (e.g., the
research suggests; based on these facts it appears/seems) and conjecturing (e.g.,
perhaps; it is likely/possible that; in my view), which are terms that I borrow
from Tang (2009). Both are instances of hedging, with the diference being
that evidentializing expresses sustained consideration of evidence—a process
that shifts focus somewhat away from the immediate subjective experience
of the writer—while conjecturing expresses an internalized process grounded
in the subjectivity of the authorial voice. My analysis of Econ 432 papers
revealed that high-graded papers used more instances of evidentializing, while
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the lower-graded papers used more instances of personalized conjecturing (or
“personalizing”), for example it seems to me and in my view. As I discuss below,
this diferential pattern does not hold for the case of PolSci 409 writing because
this context calls for a diferent kind of evidence-based writing.
In Econ 432, the speciic pattern of evidentializing that was revealed as
especially valuable, because it works to construct an authoritative stance, involves
three elements. hese comprise an initial presentation of facts, which are either
categorically asserted or strongly boosted, followed by a hedged judgment of the
evidence, and inally a statement of recommendation. his sequencing strategy
allows the writers to adopt a stance marked by cautious evaluation of evidence.
Examples are provided below. (Key wordings are in bold italics.)
(3a) From Ken’s high-graded essay
Presentation of Evidence
(boosted)
As shown in a recent survey of physician satisfaction
by Harvard Medical School, physician autonomy and
the ability to provide high-quality care, not income, are
strongly associated with changes in job satisfaction.
Judgment (hedged)
hus, it seems reasonable to assume that health care
providers would take advantage of the greater bargaining
power to improve the quality of care.
Recommendation (hedged)
Such measures might take the form of measures included
in many state patient protection bills ...
(3b) From Luis’s high-graded essay
Presentation of Evidence
(boosted)
Clearly, Von’s did not accomplish what it set out to
achieve: countless subsequent antitrust cases have
completely ignored the reasoning set forth by the Court.
Judgment (hedged)
It would seem, then, the Von’s decision was a failure. his
statement leads to a natural question: if the Court got
it wrong in Von’s, what might the correct decision have
been?
Recommendation (hedged)
For several reasons, the Supreme Court should have ...
In these excerpts, Ken and Luis are moving from analysis to recommendations.
To accomplish this move in an authoritative manner, they ramp up persuasive
efort through strategic use of hedging and boosting.
Boosters (see, e.g., Hyland, 2005; Perales-Escudero & Swales, 2011) are
something of a counterpart to hedges in that they increase authorial commitment
while closing down discursive space for other views. Analyzed as resources of
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high-force graduation in Martin and White (2005), boosters express the writer’s
involvement with the topic. hey also draw attention to the importance of the
ideas, persuading the reader to accept the proposition being put forth. Instances
of boosting are seen in 3a and 3b in the stance expressions strongly, clearly,
countless, and completely. Cooperating with these boosters is the verb shown and
the explicit denials (not). Like boosters, these latter devices—endorsements and
denials—work to shut down space for alternative views (White, 2003). Ken
could have chosen less committed wordings like as suggested or indicated in,
but instead he chose as shown in, which expresses a stronger endorsement of
the survey results. He further closes down room for negotiation in this phase
of discourse by directly denying a possible alternative view (not income). he
result of these maneuvers is a highly committed stance. However, when ofering
his most general judgment, Ken reduces authorial commitment and opens up
the discursive space by hedging (seems reasonable to assume). he wording here
expresses a very diferent kind of stance than if Ken were to have written It is
therefore obvious/certain/clear that. he use of hedging enables him to express a
carefully reasoned stance, which may be rhetorically useful before proceeding
to ofer recommendations.
In general, the movement from boosting to hedging in Ken’s and Luis’s
texts creates the impression of highly involved but cautious analysts. Such
a stance is likely to be valued in academic genres calling for evidence-based
recommendations. It is also likely to be one that is diicult to construct and
sustain for many L2 writers (as well as many L1 writers), especially those who
have not had prior training in working with academic registers.
Hedges are used somewhat diferently by the high-performing writers in
the political theory course (PolSci 409). his is an important point to make
because the diferences in use suggest that faculty must go further than simply
telling their students that hedges are valuable; they also need to understand
whether, where, and how hedges are used to create valued meanings in their
contexts. In the PolSci 409 essay, which requires interpretation, explanation,
elaboration, and critical juxtaposition of theoretical arguments, hedges are used
less to convey cautious consideration of evidence and more to mitigate the force
of critical challenges to others’ arguments.
Ofering challenges to texts by the likes of Michel Foucault, John Rawls,
Nancy Fraser, and others assigned in the class is a delicate procedure, especially
for student writers. Abruptly executed problematization moves can project a
stance marked by brashness or under-appreciation of the assigned readings.
When using the rhetorical strategy of problematization, which involves
“showing that a prevailing assumption, idea, view, or situation needs reexamination, reconceptualization, or reevaluation of some kind” (Barton, 1993, p.
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748), hedges are often useful to suggest a stance of openness and willingness
to negotiate critical positions. his dialogically open stance can be seen in 4a
and 4b.
(4a) In this sense, the trial somewhat contradicts Foucault’s
theory of the modern exercise of power. In modernity
(according to Foucault), power is difused so much as to
make it impossible to locate the source of power. In the trial,
however, the source of power is clearly identiiable; therefore,
the trial seems to be more in line with Foucault’s pre-modern
concept of justice and power. (Maria)
(4b) Fraser prefers the transformation strategy, which would
reconigure the social structure by eliminating the groups as
such. While this method may be more decisive in eliminating
the injustice, it appears to have the drawback of not being
in the immediate interests of any group, as they would stand
to lose their identities. herefore, while Fraser’s matrix may
help soften there distributive-recognition dilemma, it doesn’t
ofer any obvious solutions to the problem of recognition in
modern society. (Ethan)
Problematization is a highly valued argumentative practice in academia
(Barton, 1993; Wu, 2006), and it may be implicitly expected across academic
discourse contexts. Even if students are aware of the need to be “critical” in this
way, however, many struggle to do so in genre-appropriate ways, for example by
maintaining a carefully-reasoned or critically distant stance. In an interview, the
professor of PolSci 409 praised one of the top essays in the class for being, in his
words, both “critical” and “sympathetic” toward the main text under analysis.
Both Maria’s and Ethan’s texts are examples of how hedging can be used to
bring these two potentially contradictory stances together.
In contrast to these two writers, two of the self-identiied L2 writers in
PolSci 409, Victor and Ryan, had trouble with this stance of critical sympathy,
but for diferent reasons. Victor’s writing suggests that he was not aware of
the implicit expectation to adopt a critical or contrastive stance when carrying
out the assignment. His essay, in fact, was one of the few that did not use
problematization strategies at all. Consider, as illustration, the diferent ways
that Ethan (the high-performing writer of 4b above) and Victor respond to the
same essay prompt in their introductory paragraphs. he prompt is reproduced
here, and key stance diferences in the students’ writing are in bold italics.
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Prompt: Nancy Fraser argues that conventional “distributive” theories
of justice cannot address contemporary problems related to the politics of
“recognition.” Explain and elaborate on Fraser’s argument. hen consider how
Rawls or Nussbaum would respond to Fraser’s view.
(5a) from Ethan’s introduction (high-graded) ...
... Fraser’s proposal posits that “the remedy for cultural
injustice ... is some sort of cultural or symbolic change.” She
calls this cultural change “recognition.” Rawlsian theory,
however, disputes Fraser’s sharp division between socioeconomic and cultural injustice. In fact, Rawls would respond
to Fraser by saying that his theory fairly addresses cultural injustice, and her attempt to redress cultural injustice through
recognition may actually lead to unjust outcomes.
(5b) from Victor’s introduction (low-graded) …
... Both Fraser and Nussbaum put forward ideas on how
to eliminate social and economic inequalities and provide
justice to people, although Fraser is more concerned with
the means of bringing justice to people who need it, whereas
Nussbaum looks at the ends by which we can evaluate if
justice is provide or not. herefore, in my opinion their
views complement each other by providing suggestions on
two aspects of the same problem: how to provide social and
economic justice and the grounds on which we can judge if
this goal is accomplished.
Ethan’s text in 5a assumes a contrastive stance by positioning Rawls in a
critical relationship with Fraser. Ethan maintains this stance throughout his essay
by engaging in frequent problematization moves. Victor’s stance, in contrast,
is focused on complementarity. hroughout the course, in fact, his writing
displays a desire to locate points of agreement among diferent thinkers’ views
(and possibly a reluctance to problematize). Partly for this reason, his writing
elicits such feedback from the professor as “simple compare and contrast” and
“you’ve done a good job summarizing, but you haven’t developed an argument.”
Victor’s stance of assumed agreement seems to have caused his diiculty in
critically juxtaposing texts in speciic ways.2
Victor’s writing, then, suggests that he may not have been aware of the
implicit expectation to place the texts under analysis in a critical relationship
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with one another. In contrast, another L2 writer in the course, Ryan,3 had
diiculty executing problematization moves in genre appropriate ways. In
example 6, Ryan attempts to problematize an aspect of Foucault’s argument as
a way to transition into a discussion of Walzer. But he realizes this move in a
way that relects lack of critical distance. (Wordings that I discuss below are in
bold italics.)
(6) One thing that Foucault doesn’t address, not saying that
he should have because it isn’t one of his ideas, is whether
the old form of public executions and the new form of punishment is an act of dirty hands or not. According to Walzer’s argument I think the act of public executions would
deinitely be an unjustiied act of dirty hands, but what
about the new forms of punishment such as jail time? Giving
someone jail time for a crime that they’ve committed seems
to be completely necessary, but is there a better way of taking
care of the problem? (Ryan)
As indicated in this excerpt, Ryan seems to be aware of the expectation to
assume a critical stance and to negotiate positions with the reader. But his prose
does not demonstrate control over that critical stance. It is at times diicult to
tease apart material he is attributing to others from his own assertions, as seen
in the second sentence (According to Walzer’s argument I think). In addition, the
imagined reader that Ryan projects in his text appears to be the course professor
rather than a peer discussant. his is seen in the quick personal aside that
qualiies the problematization of Foucault (not saying that he should have because
it isn’t one of his ideas), his personalizing move (I think), and conversational
register (e.g., one thing, deinitely, but what about). hese features relect a tenor
marked by closeness and familiarity. Ryan could learn to mitigate the force of
his problematization moves in a more critically distant way through the use of
register-congruent hedges, such as those used above in examples 4a and 4b.
To sum up, there appear to be at least two diferent reasons why L2 writers
experience diiculty constructing an authoritative stance in their writing.
Students like Victor, may not see the educational stakes in adopting a critical
stance or may even resist doing so. hen there are students like Ryan who may
be aware of the value in adopting a certain kind of stance but do not command
the discursive resources needed to project an authoritative stance in their texts.
here is research evidence that this second diiculty may be more common.
Hyland and Milton (1997), for instance, found that the English L2 writers
in their study tended to respond to the implicit expectation to project an
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authoritative stance in research report writing by repeatedly expressing their
views in direct and highly committed forms (e.g., it is certain that; this will
deinitely)—which can result in a hasty or ill-considered stance—instead of by
strategically modulating between doubt and certainty. Similar problems among
L2 writers in controlling valued linguistic resources for expressing stance are
reported in Schleppegrell (2004) and Wu (2007). In light of this research,
simply advising students in abstract terms to adopt an authoritative (or critical,
critically distant, measured, etc.) stance would be insuicient for assisting them
to project these stances in their texts and to make choices about the types of
stances they wish to convey. Many students need help in identifying the stance
moves that are prototypical and valued in samples of the discourse they are
being asked to write. hey could be supported in this efort by faculty who are
aware of the complexities involved in constructing interpersonal meanings in
academic writing, ones that more often than not go unnamed and therefore
unnoticed by students.
ARGUMENTS FOR AN EXPLICIT STANCEFOCUSED METALANGUAGE
When pointing out valued stances and rhetorical strategies to students,
should speciic stance-related terms like hedging, evidentializing, conjecturing,
boosting, and problematizing be used? Behind this question are at least three
more pointed pedagogical questions:
Is it necessary or beneicial to draw students’ attention to ine-grained levels of
textual detail (or sentence-level strategies) when discussing stance in disciplinary
writing?
Is a speciic analytic terminology or metalanguage useful for faculty and students,
or could it be burdensome or distracting?
How can faculty who are untrained in text analysis be assisted to read students’
texts for ine-grained expressions of stance and to develop a vocabulary that connects
micro-level textual choices to epistemological values in the discipline?
In terms of the irst question, the research and examples discussed above
suggest that L2 writers (in addition, certainly, to many L1 writers) need to
be shown instances in texts—possibly their own texts—in which abstract
rhetorical efects like an authoritative stance are achieved. hey also need ample
opportunity to relect on the discursive resources that are available to them for
realizing important stances in their writing. Class activities that can help achieve
these aims include instructor-led discussions with students about what sorts
of “critical” stances are valued in certain disciplinary genres; tasks that require
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students to rewrite excerpts from students’ papers that they ind problematic
in terms of stance and reader-positioning; and tasks that require that students
relect explicitly on their own stance-taking strategies while writing, for example
by inserting meta-relective comments in the margins of their papers. See
Lancaster (2011) for more detailed discussion of these activities.
In terms of whether or not to use a speciic metalanguage with students,
there is now good evidence that use of a meaning-based (rather than traditional
grammar-based) metalanguage can assist students to gain conscious awareness
of valued linguistic resources and patterns in the genres with which they are
engaging. Such afordances have been documented by scholars working in the
tradition of systemic functional linguistics (SFL), as well as in other traditions
of applied linguistics. For example, the use of a meaning-based metalanguage
has been shown to help learners to identify subtle patterns of evaluation in
political opinion texts and thus improve their capacities for critical reading
(Perales-Escudero, 2011). It has also been shown to help teachers of history
identify language areas that create problems for their students in learning to
read history discourse (Schleppegrell & de Oliveira, 2006). For both secondaryand tertiary-level student writing, direct instruction in use of metadiscoursal
strategies has been shown to assist students to improve their writing. For
instance, Cheng & Stefensen (1996) found through interviews and analysis of
pre- and post-test writing samples that irst year composition students improved
both in their rhetorical awareness and use of metadiscoursal strategies in their
writing, including reader engagement devices like one may expect and attitude
markers like surprisingly. Focusing on the writing of twelfth grade Chilean
students, Concha and Paratore (2011) likewise found through text analysis
and think-aloud protocols that students who learned an explicit metalanguage
for relecting on issues of local coherence (LC)—which the authors deine as
“the relationship between adjacent propositions in text” (p. 37)—improved in
their ability to think and talk about LC and to control language resources for
constructing LC in their own writing.
Robust frameworks for talking about linguistic choices in rhetorical terms
are ofered by, among others, Graf and Birkenstein (2006), Hunston and
hompson (2000), Hyland (2005), Martin and Rose (2007), Martin and
White (2005), Swales and Feak (2012), and hompson (2001). Depending
on the context, the linguistic concepts identiied in these studies can be used
in focused ways to raise instructors’ conscious awareness of the ways language
creates important meanings in their disciplinary discourses and their students’
writing. For example, in the context of empirically-based research arguments,
instructors can learn to identify how evidentializing (or hedging that is based
in sustained consideration of evidence) can contribute to a more authoritative
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stance than conjecturing (or hedging that is grounded in the subjectivity of
the authorial voice). (See the Appendix for further examples of both types
of hedging.) In general, a meaningful metalanguage about the sentence-level
details of stance is needed if faculty in the disciplines are to come to notice
how language is working more and less efectively in their students’ writing to
project valued interpersonal meanings.
he third question above—how can faculty be assisted to read students’
writing in terms of stance?—is knottier. Given the inevitable time constraints
in a busy academic year and the lack of linguistic/rhetorical training among
most faculty in the disciplines, one natural objection to this chapter’s argument
is that use of a speciic metalanguage, while ideal, is unrealistic. It is unduly
burdensome. A second objection is that patterns of language use can be identiied
more informally, without employing a speciic metalanguage. I respond to the
irst objection below in detail. To the second one, I would suggest that many
linguistic features of texts cannot be recognized, at least consciously and explicitly,
without some kind of underlying concept. he accompanying terminology like
hedges and boosters may appear “jargony” because the concept is unfamiliar, or,
perhaps more accurately, because the concept is regarded as such a transparent
part of the discourse that explicit identiication appears unnecessary.
Continuing with this point just a bit, it is true that authors like Graf and
Birkenstein (2006), whose textbook hey Say / I Say: he Moves hat Matter in
Academic Writing has been used successfully with both L2 and L1 writers, use
non-specialized terminology to identify “the moves that matter in academic
writing.” To refer to attributions, for instance, they use the descriptive phrases
“introducing what ‘they say’” (p. 163), “introducing ‘standard views’” (p.
163), and “capturing authorial action” (p. 165). Below each strategy, they list
wordings or templates associated with each function. he sorts of strategies
they identify could be very useful for student-writers who are struggling with
basic discoursal resources for reviewing others’ arguments and taking a stance.
However, by keeping the description of language at the very general level that
they do, the authors do not discuss patterns of language that operate at more
speciic levels of discourse (often below writers’ fully conscious awareness) and
that create valued meanings in particular discourse contexts, such as the strategic
uses of hedging in genres calling for evidence-based recommendations. he
authors’ use of what could be referred to as a “commonsense” metalanguage for
describing academic moves, that is, may be more useful for irst year writing
courses and other general introductions to academic discourse and less useful
for advanced disciplinary contexts, such as Econ 432 and PolSci 409, where
a more specialized metalanguage may be needed to identify subtly valued
disciplinary moves.
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As an example of where a more speciic metalanguage could be useful,
consider the following examples from Graf and Birkenstein’s textbook. he
authors ofer these examples when discussing the importance of “entertaining
objections” (p. 78; 170) in academic writing.
(7a) Yet some readers may challenge the view that ...
(7b) Of course, many will probably disagree with the
assertion that ...
(Graf & Birkenstein, 2006, p. 170-171)
In light of hedging patterns discussed above, these examples are interesting
because of the second layer of “entertaining” brought into play through the
hedges may and probably. Unacknowledged by the authors, these hedges subtly
entertain objections to the claims that there are objections. hat is, some readers
may challenge the view, but they may not. In projecting this second layer of
“entertaining,” these texts convey a more measured stance than if they were
worded in a more committed manner, as in Undoubtedly, many readers will
challenge the view that ... or Of course, many will most certainly disagree with
the assertion that ... he decision to hedge rather than boost the assertion is
important in terms of the resulting authorial stance. Also unacknowledged are
the counter (Yet) and concede move (Of course). he authors do not explain
how these resources, which could trigger important interpersonal meanings
depending on the context, relate to entertaining objections.
By pointing out these more micro-level features, I do not mean to suggest
that every stance resource needs to be identiied every time discourse is
examined, and for Graf and Birkenstein’s aims in hey Say / I Say, such detail
may be unnecessary. However, research cited above shows that in more advanced
academic writing contexts rhetorical moves like hedging, boosting, subtle
countering, and conceding points are important strategies and ones with which
many students struggle. Acknowledging how these meanings are expressed in
text at the level of the sentence may therefore require a non-commonsense
way of talking about texts. Finally, Graf and Birkenstein themselves cannot
entirely avoid employing technical terms. As two instances, they refer to
“embedding voice markers” (p. 70-71; 170) and “metacommentary” (p. 123132; 176). hese (or similar) terms are necessary, as I believe the authors would
acknowledge, if they are to make the points about language that they need to
make. In general, the degree of specialization in metalanguage is inluenced by
the type of meanings and the level of linguistic detail that require attention. It is
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also inluenced, of course, by students’ level of academic discourse knowledge.
While Graf and Birkenstein’s approach may be ideally suited for irst-year
university writers, working with upper-level students in speciic disciplinary
contexts may require more specialized terminology for making disciplinary
stance moves explicit.
Returning to the irst objection, how realistic is it to propose using any
kind of specialized metalanguage in faculty development contexts focused on
stance and reader positioning? Which linguistic concepts should be addressed
and how? Above, I focused on hedging, boosting, and related concepts because
these areas proved important after detailed discourse analysis of upper-level
student writing. How can faculty in other contexts learn to identify meaningful
patterns of language use in their own students’ writing? A positive efect of this
kind of analysis would be that faculty come to recognize the complexity of the
writing they are asking their students to take on and to better understand the
nature of the diiculties that weaker student writers experience. his kind of
recognition could potentially lead to more nuanced grading and commenting
practices, as well as to strategies for making stance expectations explicit when
designing writing assignments.
To be sure, learning to track micro-level stance moves in disciplinary
discourses is a tall order. Nevertheless, while faculty in the disciplines may
not be trained in discourse analysis, they do have the clear advantage of being
trained in the disciplinary discourse itself. Valued uses of language are thus an
implicit part of their overall communicative repertoire for making meaning in
disciplinary genres. he task for faculty in the disciplines, therefore, is to learn
to identify these valued uses of language explicitly. I make some suggestions for
assisting them to do this in the next section.
SUGGESTIONS FOR WORKING WITH
FACULTY IN THE DISCIPLINES
My suggestions for working with faculty in this section are focused on two
types of metalanguage about stance, one more general and the other speciic. I
explain how these could be useful to writing specialists who aim to assist faculty
in the disciplines to track meaningful patterns of stance in their disciplinary
discourses and in their students’ writing.
he irst, more general metalanguage comprises concepts such as stance,
reader-positioning, dialogic expansion and contraction, dialogic control,
authoritativeness, contrastiveness, critical distance, and discoursal alignment.
Concepts such as these (which are illustrated in the Appendix) are “general”
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because they have to do with rhetorical efects that are abstracted away from
word/phrase, sentence, and text-level patterns. hey have to do with abstract
qualities of stance that are constructed through recurring conigurations
of language use. When examining student writing, writing specialists and
disciplinary faculty could use general concepts like these to guide their process
of identifying and interpreting more speciic patterns of language use in student
work.
In terms of how they could use these concepts, I would suggest that the
metaphorical orientation of academic writing-as-conversation, which Graf and
Birkenstein, among many others in composition studies, endorse, could serve as
a useful overarching framework for facilitating workshop activities. As I discuss
below, this metaphorical orientation could be more useful than other metaphors
about writing, such as argument-as-war (Lakof & Johnson, 1980), especially
when the task at hand is to identify patterns of stance in students’ texts. his is
because it ofers a lens through which to introduce related conceptual metaphors
about stance. hese may include reader positioning (or moves to bring the reader
into alignment with the author’s views), dialogic control (or use of language
to establish a sense of control over various participants in the discourse) and
dialogic expansion and contraction (or use of language to decrease and increase
authorial commitment and thus involve and guide the reader through the
argument). hrough the use of these dialogically-oriented concepts, other more
general stance concepts can be introduced in coherent ways.
For example, an authoritative stance can be discussed as a quality that is
achieved not just through use of highly assertive language—through boosters,
for example—but through rhetorical strategies that work to manage a dialogic
exchange among various interactants in the discourse. Connected to this,
reader-positioning can be introduced as a lens through which to examine
how student writers use language to engage and interact with the reader when
developing their arguments and thereby establish an authoritative stance. For
example, workshop participants can practice identifying textual moves for
ofering concessions to the reader and then countering (e.g., It is indeed the
case that ...; but ...), identifying points of shared knowledge (e.g., Of course,
it is widely understood among compositionists that ...), correcting potential
misunderstandings (e.g., his is not to say that ...; but rather ...), and other
strategies that extend hands of solidarity to readers, especially readers who are
not already aligned with the writer’s views.
In general, the writing-as-conversation metaphor, while certainly not new
to writing scholars, could be useful for anchoring discussions of stance with
faculty from various disciplinary contexts. Importantly, it could also lead to
the formation of new questions about student writing that motivate close
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examination of language use in student-produced texts, i.e., to the features of
language that operate to realize the abstract concepts explained above.
he second type of metalanguage is more directly tied to text-level details.
While less intuitive for instructors who have not been trained in discourse
analysis, this metalanguage—e.g., hedging, boosting, evidentializing,
conjecturing, problematizing, and other canonical discourse analytic concepts
discussed in Barton and Stygall (2002), Hyland (2004), Swales and Feak (2012),
and elsewhere—might be drawn on selectively as faculty begin to notice salient
patterns of language use in their own students’ writing. As discussed above,
identifying linguistic patterns is facilitated through a metalanguage that gives
a name to speciic linguistic concepts, and whichever linguistic features are
discussed must be determined by the discourse context.
Before suggesting speciic examples of this way of talking about stance
with faculty in the disciplines, I would like to suggest that the writing-asconversation metaphor could supplement or re-orient (rather than entirely
replace) participants’ existing metalanguage about writing. his is so they can
practice examining student texts through lenses that are both familiar and new.
Terms that might be more familiar to describe qualities of student writing,
such as evaluative descriptors like well-structured, clear, critical, engaging,
formal/informal, and awkward, could in fact serve as starting places for infusing
faculty development workshop activities with metaphors that place emphasis
on meanings related to stance. Barton (2002), for instance, explains how her
motivation to igure out what types of language use contributed to the impression
of “awkwardness” in student writing led to her to the linguistic concept of
evidentiality (deined, after Chafe (1986), as attitudes toward knowledge). She
then used this linguistic concept to systematically analyze stance in student
writing (in Barton, 1993).
I now turn to speciic examples of how faculty in the disciplines might be
encouraged to track patterns of stance in their students’ writing. Starting with
the case of PolSci 409, the professor’s term to describe efective student writing
is “control.” his is a concept he spoke about enthusiastically in our interview
and one that he reported to be using with students when discussing writing.
Understandably, however, he had some diiculty identifying speciic places
in students’ essays where control is accomplished, as well as places in Victor’s
and other low-performers’ essays where control wanes. Reining the concept of
“control” to dialogic control might usefully direct his attention to meaningful
patterns in his students’ writing for navigating between diferent theoretical
viewpoints. he question, that is, could subtly shift from how a sense of control
is accomplished in the text to how the student writer establishes control over the
dialogue between theorists. his latter question is well-suited to the particular
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essay assignment because the assignment required students to juxtapose two or
more theoretical arguments. It required that they orchestrate a critical discussion
among theorists. his can be accomplished in ways that convey varying degrees
of dialogic control.
With this subtle shift in emphasis from control to dialogic control, the
workshop discussion could explore how high-performing students use language
to control the dialogic exchange between diferent theoretical perspectives.
Identifying patterns of language use related to dialogic control could lead, for
instance, to an examination of problematization moves. his is because the highperformers in the course often used problematization as a structuring device.
hat is, in order to make the transition from one theorist to another, they
would often identify gaps in reasoning that could only be resolved by turning
to another theorist. For example, Ethan’s problematizing of Fraser’s argument
in 4b (above) worked as rhetorical motivation for turning the discussion
to Rawls. Moving the attention down to text-level features with a focus on
problematization could then open up a discussion about ways to problematize
in more and less measured ways, which might then lead to the observation that
hedges are useful for constructing a stance that is both contrastive and measured
or “aware” of other dialogic possibilities.
In Econ 432, the instructor’s metalanguage about student writing, as revealed
in our interview and his comments on students’ essays, is guided largely by the
conceptual metaphor of argument as war (Lakof & Johnson, 1980). In our
interview, he spoke about the need for students to build, in his words, “strong,”
“defensible,” and “airtight” arguments. He identiied counterargumentation as
one strategy that students could use to better defend their positions. Making this
argument-as-war metaphor explicit in faculty development workshop settings
could be useful for opening up discussions with faculty in other disciplines
about goals for student writing. Interestingly, this particular metaphor does
correspond to the highly adversarial quality of the discourse on antitrust law
and economics (McCloskey, 1985/1998), a quality which is realized in the
high-graded Econ 432 essays partly through repeated counterargument moves.
But the argument-as-war metaphor does not account for all of the instructor’s
explanations of valued features of student writing.
For example, the instructor praised Ken for insightfully “step[ping] outside
of economics” to make his argument. his suggests a view of academic writing
as participating in a disciplinary (or interdisciplinary) conversation. It suggests
that writing is a matter of staying within or stepping outside of a particular
disciplinary area and thus perhaps participating in a disciplinary culture.
If, therefore, the conceptual metaphor for evaluating student writing were
shifted from argument-as-war to argument-as-conversation, an interesting
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question becomes, how might counterargumentation be seen and talked about
diferently? his is a question that could be put to this Econ 432 instructor.
Discussions might lead toward viewing counterargumentation less in terms of
defending positions or sealing up holes in arguments and more in terms of
increasing argumentative complexity by engaging with alternative views and
voices in the discourse.
In a faculty development workshop setting, the Econ 432 instructor could
be encouraged to consider how counterargumentation correlates with taking a
step back or outside of the discourse. Stemming from this discussion, diferent
uses of countering could be introduced to workshop participants. For example,
deny/counter pairs (it is not the case that ... rather ...) and concede/counter pairs
(yes, it is true that, but ...)—both highly assertive maneuvers—could be discussed
as reader-oriented strategies for steering the reader through the discussion and
thus controlling the conversation. In contrast, hedge/counter pairs (it could be/
possibly/perhaps ... at the same time, though ...) could then be discussed as moves for
negotiating with others’ views, for opening up the conversation and then pushing
it forward. his type of explicit language-based discussion would preserve the
instructor’s focus on counterargumentation while also shifting the concept from
one metaphorical system to another, from argument-as-war to argument-asconversation. In other words, counterargumentation moves could be explained
as a rhetorical strategy for guiding the readers through the argument.
In addition to using conceptual metaphors to facilitate interaction about
patterns in student writing, it would also be possible to build activities that
start with instructors’ comments on students’ essays (rather than with the essays
themselves). Instructors could be encouraged to examine patterns in their own
commenting practices, perhaps with a special focus on those pertaining to
language use. What types of features in student writing elicited their comments?
From there, discussions could focus on how students’ use of language index
particular kinds of stances.
For instance, the Econ 432 instructor’s comments on students’ papers
suggest that he was sensitive to their level of commitment when putting forth
critical evaluations. his was seen, for example, in his suggestion on one essay
to “use a weaker word here than ‘could’.” His suggestion for alternate wording
was “maybe ‘might’ or ‘conceivably could’?” Pausing on a comment like this
could open up space for relecting on the question of where in students’ writing
they should try to adopt a committed stance and where they should strive for a
more expansive or less committed one. he instructor’s comment about using a
“weaker word” could have left the student confused, and so this is an example
of a good opportunity to comment on rhetorical strategies in the speciic
context. In particular, if the larger goal is for students to construct an assertive,
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committed, strong argument, what exactly is the purpose of backing of from
full commitment when ofering a critical evaluation? Why not, as it were,
use the “stronger” word? Such a question ties in directly with the metaphor
of writing-as-conversation because it suggests that authoritativeness has just as
much to do with manipulating dialogic space in strategic ways, with opening
up space for others’ views and voices, as it does defending positions by sealing
up holes in arguments.
Examples of useful workshops discussions/activities could go on. But in
general, the suggestion I am making is that it is important to create opportunities
for meaningful interaction among disciplinary faculty and writing researchers
about language use in student writing, speciically language use related to stance.
his interaction can be guided by a general metalanguage about stance and
reader positioning, which could help to promote conscious noticing of patterns
in language in student-generated texts. (Zawacki & Habib [this volume] suggest
that having a language to talk about language would have been useful for the
faculty they interviewed who expressed a willingness to help their L2 students
improve their writing but also frustration with their inability to diagnose the
causes of the problems or how to ix them.)
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
he principal pedagogical implication that has emerged from my own
and others’ linguistics work on stance in student writing is greater awareness
among faculty in the disciplines of valued and less valued patterns of stance
in student writing. Sharing results of text analyses is one way to foster such
awareness. Another way that may have greater potential for sustainability is
through faculty development workshops that are designed to assist faculty to
identify subtle patterns of interpersonal meanings in their students’ writing and
in their responses to students’ wordings. Since this second option is especially
challenging considering that most faculty in the disciplines do not have prior
training in text analysis, it is important that the pedagogical stakes of attending
closely to micro-level meaning-making in student writing be made apparent.
For instance, writing specialists can assist faculty to identify how styles of
stance-taking in their students’ writing operate to position the instructorreader in certain ways—for example, as aligned or not with a shared analytic
framework or with a certain kind of epistemological and attitudinal orientation
to disciplinary concepts.
With a keener eye to the ways speciic linguistic patterns interrelate with
learning goals and epistemological values, faculty in the disciplines can become
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more relexive about how and why they respond to student writing in the ways
that they do. hey can also learn to discuss with their students in explicit ways
what rhetorical moves are valued in the course writing and why. Armed with a
rich metalanguage for making connections between texts and contexts, faculty
could enable high-performing students like Ken, Luis, Ethan, Eric, and Maria to
draw on their discursive expertise in strategic ways to respond efectively to less
familiar writing contexts. For students like Victor and Ryan, who appear to be
putting forth efort in their writing but not employing the necessary rhetorical
and linguistic strategies needed to create valued stances, it is doubly important
that faculty be explicit about their genre expectations and work with these
students to closely read genre exemplars, to identify how patterns of language
are working, and to learn to monitor and evaluate their own discursive choices.
NOTES
1. In systemic functional linguistics (SFL), the theme is the “point of departure” for the message of a text (Halliday, 1994, p. 94). he theme includes the
grammatical subject of the sentence as well as any material that may precede
the subject, for example circumstantial adjuncts (e.g., From there Microsoft Excel and Matlab were used to analyze data.), fronted dependent clauses (e.g., If
people were just as aware of the value in their endemic biodiversity, curbing
the spread of exotic species would take an easier turn), and other options.
2. here are, of course, other stance diferences that can be identiied in the
two texts above. Ethan’s stance is, for instance, more critically distant than Victor’s. But for now I point out that Victor’s stance of assumed agreement is one
reason his essay also does not use hedging strategies. hat is, he does not need to
mitigate the force of his critiques because he does not develop critiques.
3. Ryan’s native-language is Korean, and the professor’s sense was that Ryan’s
writing is more representative of “1.5 Generation” writers than it is L2 writers
because, while his control of syntax, local coherence and cohesion is advanced,
the register he selects is often highly conversational. his conversational register
can be seen in example 6. I grouped Ryan as an L2 writer in my study because
he responded that English is not his native language in a pre-term course survey.
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APPENDIX: EXPLANATION OF KEY
TERMS AND CONCEPTS
CONFUSING “TEACHER TALK” ABOUT STANCE:
Be critical: ofer judgments and critical evaluations
... but don’t be judgmental or biased
Display excitement and commitment to your argument
... but be objective
... and try not to use “I” or other self-mentions
Use your own words, your own voice
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... but don’t be colloquial and address the wrong audience
Write assertively and with authority
... but be sure to allow for other viewpoints
... and don’t forget you’re not yet an expert
Engage with others’ views and voices
... but don’t just summarize what others have said
Be interesting, experiment with new argument strategies
... but be sure to write clearly and concisely
Stance: refers to the ways that writers—as they go about analyzing and
evaluating things, making assertions and recommendations, providing evidence
and justiications and so forth—project an authorial presence in their texts, one
that conveys attitudes and feelings and that interacts with imagined readers
by recognizing their views, identifying points of shared knowledge, conceding
limitations, and otherwise positioning them as aligned with or resistant to the
views being advanced in the text.
Reader-positioning: the reader-oriented side of stance. Reader-positioning
is the use of stance strategies for engaging and interacting with the imagined
reader, including marking concessions and counters, identifying points of
shared knowledge, correcting potential misunderstandings, acknowledging
points of contention, and other strategies designed to bring the reader into
alignment with the writer’s views.
EXAMPLES OF STANCE AND READER POSITIONING
MOVES IN PUBLISHED ACADEMIC DISCOURSE
hese example texts are discussed in Ken Hyland’s (2005) article “Stance
and Engagement: A Model of Interaction in Academic Discourse,” Discourse
Studies, 7(2), 173-192.
I argue that their treatment is supericial because, despite
appearances, it relies solely on a sociological, as opposed to
an ethical, orientation to develop a response. (Sociology)
Chesterton was of course wrong to suppose that Islam denied
“even souls to women.” (Philosophy)
his measurement is distinctly diferent from the more
familiar NMR pulsed ield gradient measurement of solvent
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self-difusion. (Physics)
Our results suggest that rapid freeze and thaw rates during
artiicial experiments in the laboratory may cause artifactual formation of embolism. Such experiments may not ...
(Biology)
... two quantities are rather important and, for this reason,
the way they were measured is re-explained here. (Mechanical
engineering)
SOME KEY DISCURSIVE RESOURCES OF STANCE
Hedging: a stance-taking strategy used to reduce authorial commitment to
the proposition being forwarded, for the purpose of expressing cautiousness and/
or opening up discursive space for alternative views. Hedging is accomplished
through low-probability modal expressions (may, might, could), appearancebased evidential verbs (seems, appears, suggests), low-certainty adverbs (perhaps,
possibly) and other linguistic resources.
Evidentializing: a type of hedging that expresses sustained consideration of
evidence. e.g.:
In national terms, Pabst became the third largest brewer in
1961, three years after the acquisition, with 5.83% of the national beer market. hese numbers suggest that the anticompetitive damage done to the beer market, no matter how it is
deined geographically, must have been minimal.
Conjecturing: a type of hedging that expresses an internalized process
grounded in the subjectivity of the authorial voice. e.g., “Regulation of prices
may be left best to companies with more stable cost structures.”
Boosting: a stance-taking strategy used to increase authorial commitment
to the proposition being forwarded, for the purpose of drawing attention to
the importance of the topic and tightening up discursive space. Boosting is
accomplished through the expressions of certainty, as in strongly, clearly,
countless, and completely.
Dialogic expansion: he use of various linguistic resources, including
hedges, attributions, rhetorical questions, and others, for releasing the author
from full commitment or responsibility for a proposition. e.g.
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However, this case is not without concerns. here is the
possibility for abuse if the producer sets diferent maximum
prices for diferent retailers, allowing some to reap higher
proits. here is also a possibility that for new retailers to
enter the market they would have to charge higher prices
initially, in which case a maximum price could deter competition. It appears, then, that maximum price ixing does the
greatest harm when set below a competitive level. In Case 4
it could potentially do harm to small retailers trying to enter
the market, but does so for the beneit of consumers and the
producer. Based purely on the models, it appears that, at
the very least, maximum prices deserve a Rule of Reason approach to evaluate their cost and beneits.
Dialogic contraction: he use of various linguistic resources, including
boosters, denials, counters, and others, for increasing the author’s commitment
and closing down space for alternative views. e.g.
If what Foucault says is true ... should we abandon the idea of
a human reasoning, able to relect over choices? My answer is
no. I do not deny that we all have notions of what is right and
wrong behavior and many of these notions are without a doubt
acquired through Socialization .... However we would hardly
accept that every action is strictly a result of Socialization.
Problematization: A rhetorical strategy for “showing that a prevailing
assumption, idea, view, or situation needs reexamination, reconceptualization,
or reevaluation of some kind” (Barton, 1993, p. 748). Problematization is
often used to prepare the ground for the author’s research and argumentative
contribution to an ongoing discourse.
SOME ABSTRACT STANCE QUALITIES VALUED IN ACADEMIC DISCOURSES
Critical distance: a quality of stance marked by interpersonal detachment
toward the entities that are being analyzed and evaluated. his quality can be
accomplished by some hedging devices. It can also be accomplished through the
use of various “embedded” wordings, for example when writers use wordings to
objectify their own mental processes. e.g.
Young’s concept of the “ive faces of oppression” ofers a
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perspective from which to view the various relationships in
the novel as ones that are typical of societies imbued with
systemic oppression. Young’s deinition of oppression is also
useful in examining the diferent ways in which, and to what
degree, diferent groups sufer from oppression in the novel.
Contrastiveness: a quality of stance marked contrast against others’ views
and voices. Frequent use of contrastive connectors (e.g., however, nevertheless,
but, etc.) and denials (e.g., it is not, never, failed, etc.) index a contrastive stance,
as do frequent problematization moves.
Dialogic control: a quality of stance marked by control over a conversation
with the reader and other discourse participants. It can be achieved through
strategic deployment of dialogical expansion and contraction for regulating the
dialogic space. Problematization moves can help to construct a sense of dialogic
control, as can more sentence-level features like deny/counter strategies (e.g., I
am not suggesting that ... but rather that ...) and hedge/counter strategies (e.g.,
here is a possibility that ... However ...). Further resources can include strategic
transition devices (or “roadmapping”), as well as elaboration strategies (e.g.,
in other words, that is, what I mean is that) and exempliication strategies (for
instance/example).
Discoursal alignment: a quality of stance marked by assimilation of the
language of the discourse with the writer’s “own language.” It is often accomplished
by use of language that frames evaluations in terms of disciplinary constructs
while also positively evaluating those constructs, conveying assimilation of the
disciplinary discourse. e.g.
he realities raised by Fraser ofer important complexities to
Young’s political discourse. Young provides a useful schematic for understanding oppression both in Coetzee’s Disgrace
and contemporary society.
Authoritativeness: a very general quality of stance, one that is highly context-sensitive and construed through a coniguration of various linguistic resources. In many academic discourses, a sense of authoritativeness may be related to such qualities as critical distance, contrastiveness, dialogic control, and
discoursal alignment.
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