| Academic papers should not only present the objective research results but also express the authors’ stance.The research article introductions serve as the beginning of the article and carry plenty of information in a relatively small space.It plays an important role in expressing the authors’ stance.However,few studies probe into the authorial stance in the introductions of research articles in specific disciplines by examining each move and step of the introductions.This study compares and analyzes the stance of research article introductions written by Chinese doctoral students in geoscience and English native speakers.The introductions of 30 research articles written by Chinese doctoral students were selected from six top journals in geosciences published from 2016 to 2020,composing a corpus CPHD(20112 tokens).Similarly,from the same 6 journals,another 30 research article introductions written by English native speakers were selected to compose another corpus,NS(26842 tokens).Adopting the CARS model of Swales in 2004 and the stance model(hedges,boosters,self-mentions,and attitude markers)put forward by Hyland in 2005,this study annotates and analyses stance markers by move-steps.In addition,to better understand authorial stance,a semi-structured interview was conducted and the interview data was transcribed and analyzed with the aid of Nvivo12 to do a themebased content analysis.Based on the analysis of stance markers used in CPHD and NS,findings are as follows: 1)Hedges in CPHD cluster in M2(Establish a niche);Compared to NS,CPHD adopts more hedges to establish a territory and indicate a gap,leaving more space for readers to explore,and showing respect to previous studies.2)Most boosters in CPHD also assemble in M2.Establishing a niche by introducing previous studies with boosters;More boosters are used in CPHD to show the plausibility of the current research.3)Self-mentions in CPHD mainly gather at M3S1(Announcing present research descriptively and/or purposively)and M3S5(Announcing principal outcomes)steps,and when presenting research and results,the authorship is prominent with more selfmentions;Compared to NS,the author is invisible in introducing research and establishing a niche in CPHD.4)In CPHD,Chinese doctoral students in geosciences tend to use more evaluative attitude markers to show the importance of establishing a territory,presenting the current research,and stating the value of present research,but the types of attitude markers are very limited;Compared to NS,more attitude markers are used in M3S6(Stating the value of present research).This study can shed light on how Chinese scholars express their academic stance in English academic writing,build reader-writer relationships within the academic community,and tell the academic stories of China. |
