Authorial stance in English, Arabic and EFL applied linguistics research: An appraisal study

Abstract

This study examines how academics from different sociocultural contexts use Attitude to project authorial stances that build convincing arguments and naturalise certain communities of shared values and interests. Specifically, the study investigates the use of the Appraisal resources, Affect, Judgment and Appreciation (Martin and White 42-69), in the introductions of Applied linguistics research papers that are written in English and Modern Standard Arabic by: (1) published English-speaking academics, (2) published Saudi academics and (3) Saudi EFL Master's degree students. Results revealed that writers preferred different Attitude options leading to varying degrees of subjectivity in the texts. Cross-cultural contrasts also pertained to the nature of the entities and ideational fields of discourse that were appraised. Results also showed that the stance construed by the EFL writers did not reflect the exclusive influence of any of the two cultures involved, but represented an inter-genre with a blend of different features coexisting in the same text. The study has implications for EFL writers and for tertiary academic institutions. Explicit instruction of discipline-specific Attitude conventions is required to achieve rhetorically-effective arguments from the perspective of the target discourse community.