ANALYZING STANCE AND ENGAGEMENT MARKERS IN RESEARCHER PAPERS AND THEIR ONE-PAGE SUMMARIES IN OASIS
Date
2024-09-23
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ORCID
0000-0002-5348-6011
Type
Thesis
Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
Open-access summaries, as a rapidly expanding academic genre, offer scholars a platform to share their work and engage in research discussions using simpler language for a wider audience in language sciences (Alferink & Marsden, 2023; Marsden et al., 2019). One example platform is Open Accessible Summaries in Language Studies (OASIS) which provides non-technical summaries of research on language learning, teaching, and multilingualism from peer-reviewed journals, highlighting key findings for educators. These summaries are often endorsed or co-authored by the original researchers.
Previous research (e.g., Zou & Hyland, 2021) shows differences in stance features between different genres such as journal book reviews and blog articles. However, few studies have compared academic papers with the corresponding summaries for broader audiences. This study examines differences in authorial stance and engagement between research articles and their one-page summaries from the OASIS database in language studies. Using Hyland’s (2005b) I analyzed stance and engagement markers in 90 research articles and summaries, published in 2022–2023 on three reputable journals.: Language Teaching Research, Language Learning, and TESOL Quarterly. Python scripts were developed to clean corpus data and extract stance and engagement markers. R packages were used for statistical analysis. In total, 22,741 stance and 2,719 engagement markers were identified in the research articles, and 1,328 stance and 229 engagement markers in summaries. The raw counts were normalized to 1000 for comparison.
The Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Tests with a Bonferroni-corrected p-value of .005 were conducted to compare stance and engagement markers between the genres. The results reveal that overall, summaries used significantly more stance markers than research articles (p = .003), but no significant difference was found for engagement markers (p = .035). Regarding individual markers, the test results indicate that summaries had higher usage of attitude markers (e.g., hopefully) and hedge markers (e.g., almost). Meanwhile, summaries used more directives (e.g., should), while research articles had a higher usage of reader mentions (e.g., you). These findings show how summary writing may need some adjustment in language and style for broader audiences, highlighting differences between academic and non-academic genres. The findings can be used to help researchers improve summary writing through using appropriate rhetorical strategies and assist teachers raise learner awareness regarding the use of
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stance and engagement markers in different genres in English for academic purposes (EAP) classes.
Description
Keywords
Stance markers, Engagement markers , Plain-language summaries,
Citation
Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Department
Linguistics
Program
Linguistics