ABSTRACT
Stance refers to the ways writers present themselves and convey their judgements, opinions and commitments in their writings. Thus, authors express ‘a textual voice or community recognized personality …’ as well as ‘stamp their personal authority onto their arguments or step back and disguise their involvement’ (Hyland 2005, 175). The study of stance-taking in discourse takes a cue from the understanding that a speaker’s or writer’s internal thoughts, opinions and attitudes about a topic being conveyed can be expressed implicitly or explicitly through certain words or grammatical forms the writer chooses (Biber 2006). Hence, Biber and Finegan (1989, 124) define stance as ‘the lexical and grammatical expression of attitudes, feelings, judgements, or commitment concerning the propositional content of a message’.
