ABSTRACT
Language allows speakers and writers to communicate information and, equally importantly, to express opinions and attitudes. Traditionally, however, academic writing has been seen as presenting information in an objective way which avoids the intrusion of personal opinion and focuses on the research activity being reported. The common occurrence of passives in scientific writing is a frequently quoted example of this type of language use. This view of academic language ignores the ongoing debates between researchers and the importance of persuading other members of the academic community of the importance of research findings or views on the subject (Latour and Woolgar, 1979; Bazerman, 1988; Swales, 1990). It downplays the writer’s stance towards the research that he or she is discussing. To avoid such oversimplification, we can consider academic writing as composed of both the information or content matter under discussion and as reflection on that content. The latter involves markers of stance such as certainly, probably, likely and modals and semi-modals such as should, must, need to. These grammatical devices allow writers to express attitudes, assessments, and judgements on the propositional content that they are writing about, i.e. to project their opinion. Through such expressions, the writer influences how the reader interprets and evaluates the content matter.
