A Cross-Linguistic Study of Stance Strategies in Abstracts of Linguistics Articles

Abstract

Abstracts, serving as concise summaries of academic papers, directly influence readers' interest, impressions, and evaluations of the main text. Stance markers constitute essential metadiscourse resources for conveying the author's stance and commitment of proposal within academic discourse. However, previous research has shown insufficient attention to how advanced second language learners and native speakers construct author stance features in the linguistic domain, particularly in the context of abstracts in journal articles. Building upon this premise, this study examines English abstracts from both Chinese and international linguistics journals to comparatively analyze the differing strategies employed by Chinese and international linguists when using stance markers in abstract writing. The findings reveal that English abstracts published in international linguistics journals exhibit a greater quantity and variety of stance markers compared to those in Chinese linguistics journals, with hedges and self-mention notably more prevalent in the former. This paper further delves into the differences in the use of stance markers between Chinese and international linguists, taking cultural and educational backgrounds, linguistic structures, the demands of international communication, and authors' levels of confidence and language proficiency into consideration.