The Journal of Social Sciences Research
ISSN(e): 2411-9458, ISSN(p): 2413-6670
Special Issue. 1, pp: 22-30, 2019
URL: https://arpgweb.com/journal/journal/7/special_issue
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32861/jssr.spi1.305.313
Original Research
Academic Research Publishing
Group
Open Access
Authorial Stance-Taking and Engagement by Iranian PhD Candidates of TEFL
in Writing Their Dissertations
Farrokh Ghadimi Gheidari
PhD candidate, Hakim Sabzevari University
Mohammad Davoudi
Assistant Professor, Hakim Sabzevari University
Saeed Ghaniabad
Assistant Professor, Hakim Sabzevari University
Gholamreza Zareian*
Assistant Professor, Hakim Sabzevari University
Abstract
Writing has a special role in academic society as most of the information is transferred though publications. It has
various aspects and among them stance taking and engagement have received less attention. The current study aimed
at investigating how Iranian PhD candidates take stance and engagement in their dissertations. The participants of
the study included Iranian PhD candidates and corpus for text analysis contained PhD dissertations written by them.
Discourse analysis was carried out on the corpus to identify stance taking and engagement based on the framework
proposed by Hyland (2008). Overall, it was found that Iranian PhD candidates use all the elements of stance taking
although some elements were more present than others. For instance, the use of stance makers of boosters like
actually, believe(s), believed, certain, clear, definite, demonstrate(s), demonstrated, and establish were present in the
dissertations about 12.38% while the use of self-mention like I, me, my, our, us, we, the researcher, and the
researchers were present about 39.04% out of all instances of stance markers used by the PhD candidates. With
regard to the engagement, it was found that all the engagement markers were present in the dissertation except
engagement markers such as Questions and Directive (imperative). As in stance taking the elements of engagement
were present with various degrees. For instance, the use of interjections like the use of word Key was 12.42% while
that of modals such as have to, must, need, ought, and should was 59.62%. The results were discussed and their
implications were presented.
Keywords: Authorial stance; Stance; Engagement; Text analysis; Writing; Academic writing.
CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0
1. Introduction
The word "stance" represents the lexical, grammatical, and textual resources that speakers/writers apply in
making an authorial event in their text (Hyland, 2005). In academic writing, like other written discourses, stance
taking comprises moves in order to spot one's level of commitment to declarations, explain the importance of
evidence, build cohesion with fictional readers (for example, by making concessions and shaping public
information), explain predictable misinterpretations, and other interactive values (Hyland, 2005). According to a
study conducted by Hyland (2005), these interpersonal changes constitute the most formal and objective of
corrective discourses, and they are directed by writers' consciousness of the social dynamics that are at play in the
discourse setting. As Biber (2006), noted gaining consciousness of these social dynamics brings about complexities
for students who are expected to produce academic writing.
The degree to which the writer can logically establish or covey self-assertiveness in academic discourse has
given rise to many controversies. Accordingly, multiple textbooks or style manuals have clearly stated that
objectivity is a writing convention which is globally recognized in academic writing, especially in scientific writing
(Engelbretson, 2007). Therefore, a lot of academic writers seek to suppress their roles as authors. This is
accomplished by writers' tendency to hide themselves behind arguments through refusing to make use of selfmentions (Hyland, 2005). However, as the persuasive, analytical and informative aspects of academic writing entail
the active and more or less subjective contributions of the writer, so as to decide which reference to review, which
data set would stand for arguments writers intend to make, or how to interpret results, recommending that academic
writers continue to be objective and at the same time meet the above-mentioned rhetorical purposes of academic
writing is contradictory (Biber, 2006).
The challenges and difficulties of academic writing are related to making of knowledge claims and authorial
stance-taking to create a reliable writing, mostly interpersonal meaning making (Engelbretson, 2007). These include
the problems that adult L2 writers deal with in managing their authorial stance and voice in academic writing. The
evidence shows the urgency in facing L2 writers' longstanding problem with employing an effective stance
*Corresponding Author
22
The Journal of Social Sciences Research
(Engelbretson, 2007). A lot of attention has been paid to stance in recent years from writing researchers and linguists
of different theoretical backgrounds (Biber, 2006; Engelbretson, 2007; Hyland, 1998; Martin and White, 2005;
Soliday, 2011).
Moreover, a large number of studies conducted on different dimensions of academic discourse, especially
linguistic features that have to do with writers‟ self-representation, have indicated that academic writers do not
always suppress their roles thoroughly from texts; instead, they seek to project themselves carefully and
appropriately by assessing the relevant contextual factors as well as making choices accordingly (Hyland,
2000;2001). One of the main challenges for second language (L2) writers at the postgraduate levels is authorial
stance-taking in research writing. This enables a writer to connect with readers, evaluate and analyze the work of
others, admit alternative assessments, and argue for a situation (Hyland, 2004). Failure to present a real authorial
position often causes poor assessment of a writer's research perspective (Barton, 1993; Schleppegrell, 2004; Wu,
2007).
According to Hyland (2008), engagement markers are a text characteristic which reflects the writers‟
recognition of their potential readers. As Hyland maintains, when writing, writers need to assume the presence of
their readers and, pull them along with their arguments, focus their attention and consider them as discourse
participants to finally lead them to the right interpretations. Engagement markers as proposed by Hyland (2008),
which will be considered in the current study fall into five categories including reader pronoun, imperative,
questions, directives, and shared knowledge.
According to Engagement framework proposed by Martin and White (2005), interpersonal meanings are
comprehended in the interaction of two broad voices, which are monogloss and heterogloss. In projecting an
authoritative stance, writers need to show a satisfactory balance of assertion (e.g., when offering the main argument
and the rationale for the study) and openness (e.g., making room for accepting other viewpoints and exchanging
them with readers). The suitable positioning of interpersonal assessment can help present one‟s corrective
identifications through projecting a professionally suitable personality and attitude (Martin and White, 2005). By
engagement, they mean the arrangement of voice in the form of monogloss or heterogloss in order to connect with
readers. In monoglossic statements, substitutions are not recognized, as they do not obviously place other voices or
distinguish alternative situations. Moreover, statements presented in the form of the monoglossic are often a crucial
point for debate or argumentation, or contain propositions that are taken-for-granted and assume that reader shares
the writer‟s position (Martin and White, 2005). The focus in Martin and White (2005), however, is on the
explanation of heterogloss, and the Engagement framework proposes that heterogloss statements can be considered
as either expanding or contracting. According to Martin and White (2005), the difference is in the allowances for
dialogically alternative locations and voices (dialogic expansion), or otherwise, challenge or limit the possibility of
such (dialogic contraction).
The studies focusing on writer‟ voice have viewed stance from different angles focusing on notions like hedging
devices to express possibility (Hyland, 1998b), self-mention (Hyland, 2001) and reported speech (Hyland, 2000). All
these features, although very revealing about stance taking, touch on a particular aspect of stance. Therefore, the
current study made use of the model by Hyland (2008), which was more elaborate and more theatrically supported
(Hyland, 2008). As stated by Zhao (2014), voice is a construct that does not have a well-established theoretical and
operational definition. As they maintain, not many studies have so far attempted to formally explore whether and
how the strength of an author's voice in written texts can be reliably investigated. In a study, Zhao (2013), employed
a mixed-method approach, to develop and validate an analytic rubric measuring voice strength in second language
argumentative writing. The findings of their study indicated that authorial voice in written discourse is realized
primarily through the following dimensions: “(1) the presence and clarity of ideas in the content; (2) the manner of
the presentation of ideas; and (3) the writer and reader presence.” (p. 201). The model proposed by Zhao (2013), was
based on the one by Hyland (2008), and only measures authoritative stance in argumentative writings which was not
suitable for other writing genres. Therefore, it was concluded that it was still safer to use the model proposed by the
Hyland (2008), which had wider scope and is more general.
The purpose of the present study is to investigate to what extent do Iranian Ph.D. Candidates of TEFL take
stance and engagement in writing their dissertations. As a review of the previous studies indicates, no study, to date,
to the researchers‟ best knowledge has explored to what extent do Iranian Ph.D. Candidates of TEFL take stance and
engagement in writing their dissertations.
2. Literature Review
A look at the studies conducted on authorial presence in academic discourse reveals that authorial stance has
been widely investigated with different analytical frameworks (Biber, 2006; Chang and Schleppegrell, 2011; Hyland,
1998;2000;2005;2008; Koutsantoni, 2006; Thompson and Hunston, 2000). Hyland (2005), proposed a model for
interaction in academic discourse that contained stance taking elements. His model contained two dimensions
namely, stance and engagement. The attitudinal dimension of the model includes “features which refer to the ways
writers present themselves and convey their judgments, opinions, and commitments” (Hyland, 2005). This model
was later empirically used by Hyland (2008), which gave the model a practical credibility. The current study takes
advantage of this model to examine the status of stance taking by Iranian EFL students. Table 1 shows the complete
model of interaction in academic discourse by Hyland (2008).
23
The Journal of Social Sciences Research
Table-1. Hyland (2008) Model of Discourse Interaction
Interaction
Stance
Engagement
Hedges
Boosters
Attitude Markers
Self-mention
Reader pronouns
Directives
Questions
Shared knowledge
Personal asides
Based on text analysis of research papers in eight different fields of the study, Hyland (2005), proposed a model
for interaction in academic discourse. Various terminologies like stance, evaluation, hedging etc. (Hyland, 2008)
have been used to capture the writer‟s voice. Hyland (2008), contained two dimensions namely, stance and
engagement. However, in the present study, the focus was on the stance dimension which was the attitudinal
dimension of Hyland‟s model. The attitudinal dimension of the model included features for expressing writers‟
personal position, judgment and opinions Hyland (2008).
As seen in Table 1, the stance dimension was composed of 4 elements of Hedges, Boosters, Attitude markers,
and Self-mention. Hedge devices such as “possible”, “might”, and “perhaps” allow writers to avoid being too
absolute. On the other hand, boosters are words such as “like”, “obviously”, and “demonstrate” clearly express
writers‟ opinion and provide an indication of writer‟s solidarity with readers based on shared information. According
to Hyland (2005), “attitude markers indicate the writer's affective, rather than epistemic, attitude to propositions,
conveying surprise, agreement, importance, frustration, and so on, rather than commitment”. Attitude markers can be
signaled by “attitude verbs (e.g. agree, prefer), sentence adverbs (unfortunately, hopefully), and adjectives
(appropriate, logical, remarkable)”. Finally, self-mention is the use of personal pronounce and possessive adjectives.
This is to signal the “propositional, affective and interpersonal information” (Hyland, 2001;2005). For the complete
list of stance markers, readers are suggested to study the list of stance marker in Appendix.
According to Hyland (2005), engagement markers refer to a text characteristic which is considered as writers‟
recognition of their potential readers. As Hyland maintains, when writing, writers should really feel the presence of
their readers, pull them along with their arguments, focus their attention and consider them as discourse participants
to finally lead them to the right interpretations. Engagement markers generally fall into five categories by Hyland
(2005), reader pronoun, imperative, questions, directives, and shared knowledge.
3. Research Question
In an attempt to address the purpose of the present study, the following research question was formulated:
RQ: To what extent do Iranian Ph.D. Candidates of TEFL take stance and engagement in writing their
dissertations?
4. Method
4.1. Students’ Corpora
The data of the present study included participants‟ dissertation written in partial fulfillments for their respective
degrees i.e. PhD. To this end, these theses was searched, found and analyzed.
4.2. Procedure
To collect the corpus of the present study, the researcher initially briefed 15 PhD candidates on the purposes of
data collection. Any questions from the participants were answered and ambiguities were removed through adequate
explanations in terms of why and how the data were used. The participants were also assured that the collected data
were used just for research purposes. Following that, the analysis of the theses chapters (1 to 5) were conducted
through identifying the participants‟ use of attitudinal devices as indicated in Hyland (2008), model. Due to the
qualitative nature of the study, two analysts analyzed the corpus and through determining the extent of agreement
between the two analysts‟ scoring, reliability of the procedure was estimated. In other words, agreements and
disagreements between the two analysts‟ scores were calculated using Holist‟s (1969) coefficient of reliability (C.
R.) which indicates the number of agreements per total number of coding decisions. Afterwards, description and
comparison on the use of stance markers (attitudinal dimension) were carried out and reported.
5. Results and Discussion
5.1. Addressing the Research Question
The research question of the present study sought to probe the way Iranian Ph.D. Candidates of TEFL take
stance and engagement in writing their dissertations. In order to answer this question, elements of stance based on
the Hyland‟s model of discourse interaction were identified and their frequencies were computed. Table 2 shows the
elements of stance found in dissertations and their frequency counts.
24
The Journal of Social Sciences Research
Table-2. Elements of Stance Found in dissertations and their frequency counts
Hedges
Boosters
Attitude Markers Self-mention Total
PHD dissertations 225 (23.80%) 113 (12.38%) 226 (24.76%)
441 (39.04%) 1105 (100%)
Based on the frequency count, it was found that hedges consisted 23.80 %, boosters 12.38%, attitude markers
24.76%, and self-mention 39.04% of the stance taking. Accordingly, self-mention was the most frequently used
stance element followed by attitude markers, hedges, and boosters in a descending order.
Based on the analysis hedges included such words like about, almost, apparently, approximately, around,
estimate, frequently, generally, in general, mainly, mostly, often, on the whole, quite, rather, relatively, roughly.
Following examples have been taken from the dissertations illustrating the use of hedges (boldfaced) by PhD
participants.
5.2. Apparent
It is apparent, to the teachers that were interviewed, that emotions are a fundamental way in which they
respond to their students and their institutional contexts.
The need for second language writing became increasingly apparent as a result of the international expansion
of English ….
5.3. Around
……professional identity, and spiritual identity which mainly revolve around the values embedded in English
language teaching.
------engagement of the students in subjects expressed around ideas that matter as authenticity in teaching.
5.4. Estimated
However, the model of role of cognitive and motivational individual difference variables in writing, estimated
by using …..
A full SEM model allows researchers to estimate both the links….
5.5. Frequently
….. Interpretive research methodology frequently used by social science researchers …..
edited their texts more frequently and resorted less frequently to their mother tongue while writing in…..
5.6. Generally
….and the questions asked are generally open-ended and designed to elicit detailed….
In the same regard, it is generally believed that the provision of appropriate feedback
5.7. Ingeneral
…ingeneral, account for much of the variance in their writing competence and the automatization of necessary
procedures for writing.
Her perfunctory manner in writing or her inadequate grammatical knowledge, in particular, and limited L2
proficiency, ingeneral
5.8. Mainly
…which mainly perceived the identity as non-unitary, changing, and transformative (Varghese et al., 2005).
…..language teacher identity was mainly theorized…..
5.9. Mostly & Often
The construct of motivation is mostly captured by considering learners „goals.
To revise it completely and she has mostly edited the phrases and sentences.
….and how they are often represented is crucial to the success of ELT teacher training courses…
5.10. Onthewhole
Onthewhole, self-efficacy beliefs are essential in energizing the learners to…..
Onthewhole, both psychological and applied linguistic research confirms that in order to achieve learning
outcomes…..
5.11. Quite & Rather
……Cronbach„s Alpha which is quite satisfactory for the present study.
Rather it seems to be any Iranian educated citizen.
….and how our selves are historically shaped, prevents rather than promotes real freedom….
5.12. Relatively & Roughly
…will create relatively stable features of identity, even as some aspects of a person„s identity….
25
The Journal of Social Sciences Research
…..he logs are relatively non-intrusive (Dörnyei, 2007).
…..he residuals are roughly rectangularly distributed.
It should be noted that all the instances of hedges specified in the list (See Appendix) was not found in the
dissertations and only the ones found are listed above. Similar procedure was used to identify instances of booster in
the dissertations. Based on the analysis the booster markers included actually, believe(s), believed, certain, clear,
definite, demonstrate(s), demonstrated, establish. Some of the examples of these boosters are listed below:
5.13. Actually
Actually I judge my teaching from my students' points of view.
This body of research has shown that self-efficacy is a reliable predictor of students‟ writing performance and
mediates between what they believe they can write and what they actually write.
5.14. Believes
This school believes that interpretations are all we have and description itself is an interpretive process.
He believed that the recognition of the horizons of significance ―gives a new importance to being true to
myself.
5.15. Certain
Identity is a matter of becoming and related to how an individual is positioned within certain circumstances and
responds to social conditions.
He also argued that ―no one would deny that part of what makes a good teacher is what they know about how
to teach certain subjects to certain students in certain contexts.
5.16. Clear
Interpreting Taylor„s horizons of significance, it becomes clear that communitarian perspectives on authenticity
takes into account both personal desires and social and external values.
This became clear as the teachers described, in response to questions asking about their satisfaction or
dissatisfaction, all kinds of emotions from joy and happiness to disappointment and anger.
5.17. Definite
As argued by Erickson (2007) divergent questions make responders explore different answers understanding this
point that there is no definite answer.
One important feature of this type of question is that it may not have a definite answer.
5.18. Demonstrate
…professional competence that teachers must demonstrate to meet institutional expectations as well as
structural factors.
…..though not always clearly demonstrated in her discussion of data, is a welcome departure from those who
leave out the body altogether.
5.19. Establish
An insider gave her several advantages. It helped to facilitate trust and confidence in the researcher-participant
relationship and allowed her to establish rapport.
In fact, many of the problems found in the students „drafts were related to the students „prerequisite knowledge
in grammar and vocabulary which should have already been established.
With regard to the use of attitude markers, all the instances of attitude markers were identified and their
percentage was computed. The attitude markers included agree, disagree, disagreed, expect, prefer, appropriately,
and expectedly and some of the examples of attitude markers in the dissertations are as follows:
5.20. Agree
…..10 teachers ignored the emails, and 5 teachers didn„t agree to participate in the study as they were busy and
the study was time-consuming.
…..who agreed to participate in this project and those who answered the emails in spite of their
disagreement to participate in the study.
5.21. Disagree
Disagreeing with appropriateness discussed in many books and papers which the participants read during the
period of being EFL learners …
You know, we can say that we agree with this or we disagree with that.
5.22. Expect
We are expected to develop our own opinions, outlook, stances to things, to a considerable degree…..
26
The Journal of Social Sciences Research
In the same regard, different individuals who benefit from various levels of cognitive abilities are expected to
perform differently……
5.23. Prefer
Fatemeh because of favoring experiential and discovery-oriented approaches to learning prefers indirect
feedback with error codes and maintains that…..
….sheprefers metalinguistic feedback with comments and explanations because she believes by
such feedback she can understand what her weaknesses are and will know how to solve her problems in writing.
5.24. Appropriately
She has used a variety of sentence structures and vocabularies accurately and appropriately.
In fact, since he is not competent enough in appropriately connecting the ideas with each other, there are many
cases of run-on sentences in his texts.
5.25. Unexpectedly
…..unexpectedly indicated that low self-efficacious individuals had higher mean scores in the two dependent
variables compared to high self-efficacious ones.
Self-mention was the last category for actualizing the stance taking in texts. Based on the framework of analysis
the self-mentions appeared in dissertation in the form of words like I, me, my, our, us, we, the researcher, and the
researcher's. Some of the examples of self-mention in the dissertations are as follows:
5.26. I
So, I was motivated to speak and show myself and my world.
I try to be different at least by introducing new books and new materials in my
Class.
5.27. Me
It was a great possibility for me to work with such a great and intelligent teacher….
…..structural and situational disadvantages made me commit myself to a more egalitarian perspective in
teaching.
5.28. My
……I could freely talk about my ideals, constructing and deconstructing them and navigating…..
……gives a new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life, I miss what being
human is for me.
5.29. Our
Furthermore, the study of emotions can deepen our understanding of the complexity of socially just teaching
…….
…….emotion that resists unjust systems and practices as well as emotion that helps create a more fair and just
world in our classroom and our everyday lives.
5.30. Us
…..and as argued by Ahmed (2004), emotions are ―what connects us to this or that.
……but also in that what we feel might be dependent on past interpretations that are not necessarily made by us,
but that come before us.
5.31. We
Whether that self is one we would want to see expressed in the classroom depends greatly on who the teacher is.
……emotions are what move us, and how we are moved involves interpretations of sensations and feelings not
only in the sense that we interpret what we feel…..
5.32. The Researcher
The researcher chose authenticity in teaching as the topic of the present study because of her contestation to
the significant growth in enrollment in higher……
……the researcher sought to develop a theory of authenticity based on the participants „experience and
conceptions of authenticity in teaching.
Based on the analysis, it was found that Iranian PhD candidates employ stance taking in their dissertations. As it
was evident in the above examples most of the elements of stance taking was present in the dissertations which
points to the fact Iranian PhD candidates know how to take stance in their academic writing.
Similar procedure was adopted to identify how PhD candidates use engagement markers in their dissertations.
Based on the text analysis it was found that use of engagement markers was much lower than the use of stance
markers in the dissertations of Iranian PhD candidates. The engagement wad carried out mainly through the use of
27
The Journal of Social Sciences Research
directive in the form of Must. Table 3 shows the frequency count of the use of engagement markers by Iranian PhD
candidates.
Table-3. Frequency count of the use of engagement markers by Iranian PhD candidates
Engagement Reader
Interjections Questions Directive
markers
pronoun
(imperative)
Percentage
315 (27.95 %) 140 (12.42%) 0
0
Directive
Total
(obligation modals)
672 (59.62%)
161 (100%)
Text analysis was done by identifying the stance markers specified in the framework of analysis. In the
framework engagement markers were specified as Reader pronouns like let us, let's, one's, our, (the) reader, us, we,
you, your, Interjections like by the way, incidentally, key, Question thought the use of questions mark (?),
Directives(Imperatives) such as add, allow, analyze, apply, arrange, assess, assume, calculate, choose, classify,
compare, connect, consider, consult, contrast, define, demonstrate, do not, don't, and Directives(Obligation modals)
like have to, must, need to, ought, should.
In the analysis of dissertations reader pronoun was realized thought the employment of words such as one‟s, and
reader by the Iranian PhD candidates. Some of the examples of the use of reader pronouns are as follows:
5.32. One’s
This study probed the conceptualization of authenticity as being true to one„s own self in choosing among the
existing possibilities in teaching and investigated its link to Iranian EFL teachers„ and learners‟ emotional life
through critical emotional praxis.
Kellner (1973) asserted that the aim of inauthenticity is to maintain one„s own standing in society and explained
that……
5.33. Reader
It creates verisimilitude, a space for the reader to imagine his or her way into the life experiences of another.
A major goal of the interpretive writer is to create a text that permits a willing reader to share
vicariously in the experiences that have been captured.
Another category of engagement was interjection that was realized thought the use of work Key by the PhD
candidates. Some examples are as follows:
5.34. Key
The observation that students and teachers do not conceptualize authenticity in teaching
principally in relation to the existential, critical and communitarian perspectives was one
of the key findings that emerged from the analysis of repertory grid data.
Another key element related to the motivation construct is the learners‟ self-efficacy beliefs which along with
their self-concept is subsumed under the learners „……..
The engagement categories of question and directive or imperative were not realized by the PhD candidates at
all. Although there were questions in the dissertations but these questions were either the research questions or the
questions in the appendix of the dissertations which did not aimed at engaging the readers?
With regard to the use of obligation modal as directives for engaging the readers PhD candidates used the words
and phrases like have to, must, need, ought, and should. Some of the examples for the use of modals as directive are
as follows:
5.35. Have to
However Sasaki (2009), proposed that due to the fact that ―foreign language students do not always have to set
goals to survive in their L2 learning situations.
If Dasein itself were a being, one would then have to question the process by which a clearing were made for it
to appear, and if that in turn were a being, one would have to question the process by which it appeared, and so on to
infinity.
5.36. Must
But this doesn„t mean that on another level the content must be self-referential: that my goals must express or
fulfill my desires or aspirations, as against something that stands.
Consequently, an attempt must be made to identify specific conditions and particular language tasks that are
maximally dependent on each set of factors and try to maximize their facilitating potentials and minimize their
inhibiting roles.
5.37. Need
…..teachers need to shift their identities to survive change. Exclusion from the workplace community of
practice can be seen as an alternative form of participation in the reform practices
….learners who need to develop their writing ability may benefit from understanding about the contributing
variables of L2 writing and their relative importance. Students „being and becoming from different perspectives
including teacher educators „and administrators „horizons.
28
The Journal of Social Sciences Research
5.38. Ought
……a struggle between what teachers are feeling and what they believe they ought to be feeling while they are
teaching.
….professional competence that teachers ought to demonstrate to meet institutional expectations as well as
structural factors.
5.39. Should
She also suggested that the teachers‟ attempts for socially just teaching should be manifested in what they teach
and how they teach and explained that beyond these……
…..they should consider a content problem of what to write, and a rhetorical problem of how to express their
ideas in a way that suits both the topic and the audience.
6. Discussion
The present study aimed at investigating the use of stance taking and engagement in Iranian PhD candidates‟
dissertations. The corpus of the study included dissertations written by PhD candidates in the field of applied
linguistics. The framework of analysis includes identification of elements of stance taking and engagement as
proposed by Hyland (2005), After identifying the elements of stance and engagement they were tallied and their
frequency count and percentages was computed. Overall it was found that Iranian PhD candidate use all the elements
of stance taking although some elements were more present than others. For instance, the use of stance makers of
boosters like actually, believe(s), believed, certain, clear, definite, demonstrate(s), demonstrated, and establish were
present in the dissertations about 12.38% while the use of self-mention like I, me, my, our, us, we, the researcher,
and the researchers were present about 39.04% out of all instances of stance markers used by the PhD candidates.
With regard to the engagement, it was found that all the engagement markers were present in the dissertation except
engagement markers such as Questions and Directive (imperative). As in stance taking the elements of engagement
were present with various degrees. For instance, the use of interjections like the use of word Key was 12.42% while
that of modals such as have to, must, need, ought, and should was 59.62%.
Based on the above results, it was concluded that in general Iranian PhD students had ample awareness
regarding the use of stance markers and engagement and could employ them in their dissertations. This finding was
not surprising at all because firstly, they were majoring in applied linguistics and were already familiar with
linguistic concepts such academic writing, argumentations, genre etc. Secondly, PhD candidate read lots of scientific
papers which might have contributed to their use of stance elements in their writings. In this regard, many
researchers have reported that there is positive relationship between writing and reading (Almansour and AlShorman, 2014; Hany, 2007; Salehi et al., 2015; Zainal and Husin, 2011). which justifies the claim that PhD
candidate read academic articles that might have affected their academic writing.
Furthermore, PhD candidates particularly in the field of applied linguistics pass certain courses containing
theoretical discussion of English for Specific Purpose which familiarize them with expectations of discourse
community from academic writing including stance taking. Other studies have also reported that PhD candidates
pass courses related to English for Academic Purposes courses with a focus on rhetorical consciousness-raising
(Belcher, 2004; Casanave, 2003; Swales and Feak, 2000).
The general conclusion drawn from the findings of the study was that Iranian PhD candidates have adequate
awareness of the essential role of stance taking in academic writing and they do their best to have their voice and
position in their writing. Furthermore, they take stance in their dissertations and reflect their perspective in their
words although they admit in their accounts that they are not fully satisfied with their skill in taking stance in their
writings.
References
Almansour, N. and Al-Shorman, R. (2014). The effect of an extensive reading program on the writing performance
of Saudi EFL university students. International Journal of Linguistics, 6(2): 258-75.
Barton, E. (1993). Evidentials, Argumentation, And Epistemological Stance. College English, 55(7): 745-69.
Belcher, D. D. (2004). Trends in teaching English for specific purposes. ARAL, 24(1): 165–86.
Biber, D. (2006). Stance in spoken and written university registers. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5(2):
97-116.
Casanave, C. P. (2003). Multiple uses of applied linguistics in a multi-disciplinary graduate EAP class. ELT Journal,
57(1): 43-50.
Chang, P. and Schleppegrell, M. (2011). Taking an effective authorial stance in academic writing: Making the
linguistic resources explicit for L2 writers in the social sciences. Journal of English for Academic Purposes,
10(2): 140–51.
Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research methods in applied linguistics: Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methodologies.
Oxford University Press: England.
Engelbretson, R. (2007). Stance taking in discourse. Benjamin‟s: Amsterdam.
Hany, I. (2007). The impacts of using reading for writing approach on developing the writing ability of Egyptian
EFL learners and their attitudes towards writing. ERIC Document Reproduction Service NO. ED 498363:
Hyland (1998). The impact of teacher written feedback on individual writers. Journal of Second Language Writing,
7(3): 255-86.
29
The Journal of Social Sciences Research
Hyland (1998b). Persuasion in academic articles. Perspectives, 11(2): 73-103.
Hyland (2000). Disciplinary discourses: Social interactions in academic writing. Applied linguistics and language
study. Longman: Harlow, England. New York.
Hyland (2001). Humble servants of the discipline? Self-mention in research articles. English for Specific Purposes,
20(3): 207-26.
Hyland (2004). Disciplinary interactions: Met discourse in L2 postgraduate writing. Journal of Second Language
Writing, 13(2): 133-151.
Hyland (2005). Stance and engagement: a model of interaction in academic discourse. Discourse Studies, 7(2): 17392.
Hyland (2008). Disciplinary voices: Interactions in research writing. English Text Construction, 1(1): 5-22.
Koutsantoni, D. (2006). Attitude, certainty and allusions to common knowledge in scientific research articles.
Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 3(2): 163-82.
Martin, J. R. and White, P. R. R. (2005). The language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. Palgrave Macmillan:
New York.
Salehi, H., Amini, M. and M., A. (2015). Effect of extensive reading on writing. Impacts of the extensive reading
texts on the writing performance of Iranian EFL pre-university students. Asian Journal of Education and eLearning, 3(1): 306-16.
Sasaki, T. (2009). Concurrent think-aloud protocol as a socially situated construct. IRAL, 46: 349-74.
Schleppegrell, M. (2004). Technical writing in a second language: The role of grammatical metaphor. Inp.Ravelli,&
r. Ellis (eds.), analyzing academic writing: Contextualized frameworks. Continuum: NY. 173-89.
Soliday, M. (2011). Everyday genres: Writing assignments across the disciplines. Southern Illinois University Press:
Illinois.
Swales, J. M. and Feak, C. B. (2000). English in today’s research world: A writing guide. The University of
Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, MI.
Thompson, G. and Hunston, S. (2000). Evaluation: An introduction. In S. Hunston and G. Thompson (eds.),
Evaluation in text: authorial stance and the construction of discourse. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Varghese, M., Morgan, B., Johnston, B. and Johnson, K. A. (2005). Theorizing language teacher identity: Three
perspectives and beyond. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 4(1): 21-44.
Wu, S. (2007). The use of engagement resources in high- and low-rated undergraduate geography essays. Journal of
English for Academic Purposes, 6(3): 254-71.
Zainal, Z. and Husin, S. H. B. M. (2011). A study on the impacts of reading on writing performance among faculty
of
civil
engineering
students.
Available:
http://eprints.utm.my/11872/1/A_Study_On_The_Impacts_Of_Reading_On_Writing_Performance_Among
_Faculty_Of_Civil_Engineering_Students.pdf
Zhao, C. G. (2013). Measuring authorial voice strength in L2 argumentative writing: The development and
validation of an analytic rubric. Language Testing, 30(2): 201–30.
Zhao, C. G. (2014). Authorial voice in second language writing. In C., A.,chapelle, the encyclopedia of applied
linguistics. John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.
Appendix
List of engagement and stance markers (Hyland, 2005)
Engagement Markers
Reader pronouns: let us, let's, one's, our, (the) reader, us, we, you, your
Interjections: by the way, incidentally, key
Questions:?
Directives(Imperatives): add, allow, analyze, apply, arrange, assess, assume, calculate, choose, classify,
compare, connect, consider, consult, contrast, define, demonstrate, do not, don't
Directives(Obligation modals):have to, must, need to, ought, should
Stance Markers
Attitudinal Markers: agree(s), agreed, disagree(s), disagreed, expect(s), expected, prefer, admittedly, amazingly,
appropriately, astonishingly, correctly, curiously, desirably, expectedly
Boosters: actually, believe(s), believed, beyond doubt, certain, clear, definite, demonstrate(s), demonstrated,
doubtless, establish(es), established
Self-mention: I, me, my, mine, our, us, we, the author, the author's, the researcher, the researcher's, the writer,
the writer's
Hedges: about, almost, apparent, apparently, approximately, around, broadly, certain amount, certain extent,
certain level, essentially, estimate, estimated, frequently, generally, guess, in general, in most cases, in most
instances, largely, mainly, mostly, often, on the whole, quite, rather X, relatively, roughly, slightly
30