A Corpus-Based Contrastive Analysis of Stance Strategies in Native and Nonnative Speakers’ English Academic Writings: Introduction and Discussion Sections in Focus

Abstract

The present study was an attempt to illustrate the interaction between writers and readers. Conveying of the writers’ voice, stance, and interaction with reader was put forward within this paradigm. Being a good academic writer is highly related to the use of these strategies. Adopting a position and persuading readers of claims are very important. This study was aimed at showing the differences between Iranian and American M.A. EFL writers in using stance strategies (hedges, boosters, attitude markers, and self-mentions) in Introduction and Discussion sections of academic papers. The corpora for this study were 40 articles (20 for American native and 20 for Iranian nonnative writers) from different journals such as Journal of Research Studies in Education, English language Teaching, System, TESOL Quarterly, and ELT. The significance and frequency of items were calculated using SPSS software version 22. Such statistical tools as frequency, percentage, and Chi-square were utilized to analyze the collected data. The findings showed that there was no statistically significant difference between native and nonnative writers in using stance strategies although native writers tended to use hedges, attitude markers, and self-mentions comparatively more than nonnatives, whereas nonnative writers used a greater number of boosters.