EFL doctoral students' conceptions of authorial stance in academic knowledge claims and the tie to epistemic beliefs

Abstract

Taking an effective authorial stance in research argumentation has been designated as both vitally important and challenging. The study investigated English as a foreign language (EFL) doctoral students' conceptions of authorial stance, the role of domains in affecting their conceptions, and the ties of the conceptions to the participants' epistemic beliefs, given that both assume a continuum of parallel values (from absolutist perspectives/assertive claims to evaluatist perspectives/tentative claims). Twenty EFL doctoral students were recruited from two disciplines, social science and pure science, for interviews and the judgment of texts. The results revealed that, while more often the participants discussed stance relevantly from a linguistic angle, their conceptions were rather superficial and polarized. Their conceptions were also affected by their disciplinary assumptions. Their epistemic beliefs, however, were quite mature, incompatible with their imprecise conceptions of stance, which may be used to novice research writers' advantage to inform and guide their learning of authorial stance.

Keywords:

• authorial stance
• epistemic views
• conceptions
• academic writing

Acknowledgements

This research work was supported by the National Science Council (NSC), Taiwan [grant numbers NSC 100-2410-H-003-165, NSC 100-2511-S-011-004-MY3, and NSC 101-2511-S-011-003-MY3]. Our gratitude also goes to the Academic Paper Editing Clinic, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan.

Notes

1. The pure science text (i.e. De Pew and Miller 2005) was taken from a journal of computational physics; the social science text (i.e. Vikas et al. 2011) addresses the topic of second language digital writing; and the domain-neutral text (i.e. Miller et al. 2000) investigates occupational stress in relation to gender.

2. A reductionist approach to the rendition of the concept of authorial stance is inevitable. The concept is highly complex in theory and pedagogical rendition is needed to better communicate the concept to learners, which is supported by a pilot test conducted by the author for a previous study.