Stance in unpublished student writing
An exploratory study of modal verbs in MICUSP’s Physical
Science papers
This exploratory study investigates modal verbs
as stance features in the Physical Sciences sub-corpus of the
Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers (MICUSP). The study
adopts Biber’s (2006)
stance framework, including modal verbs in three categories:
possibility, necessity, and prediction. Focusing on one feature
within one sub-corpus afforded closer consideration of the units of
analysis (discipline, level of study, nativeness, and register) that
could contribute to variation in the use of modals as stance
features. The findings show that possibility and prediction modals
are the most common in the Physical Sciences sub-corpus. The study
provides a description of student academic writing and considers
future research directions and pedagogical implications of stance in
Physical Science disciplines, student levels, nativeness, and
registers.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Studies about stance
- 2.1Stance in student writing
- 2.2Modal verbs as stance markers in academic writing
- 3.Methods and materials
- 3.1Corpus
- 3.2Data analysis
- 4.Results
- 4.1Possibility modals
- 4.2Prediction modals
- 4.3Necessity modals
- 4.4Disciplinary variation
- 4.5Student level
- 4.6Nativeness
- 4.7Registers
- 5.Discussion and pedagogical implications
- 6.Future directions
- 7.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
References
-
Appendix
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Cited by (1)
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Language Learning in Higher Education 14:1
► pp. 21 ff.

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