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Part of
Intercultural Perspectives on Research Writing
Edited by Pilar Mur-Dueñas and Jolanta Šinkūnienė
[AILA Applied Linguistics Series 18] 2018
► pp. 195–216

Chapter 9
Epistemic stance and authorial presence in scientific research writing

Hedges, boosters and self-mentions across disciplines and writer groups

| Hubei University
| Jilin University
In this study, we investigate hedges, boosters and self-mentions as main expressions of epistemic positioning and how much they are projected by explicit authorial presence in the research writings by Chinese PhD students and expert writers across four science disciplines. Results show that PhD science students used considerably more hedges, boosters and self-mentions than journal article writers. They exhibit an obvious preference for certain epistemic resources and an avoidance to hedge or boost their/others’ claims in their academic writings. The results are discussed with regard to different cultures, disciplines and writer groups, and pedagogical implications on L2 research writing instructions are also raised at the end of the chapter.
Keywords: hedges, boosters, self-mentions, research writing, authorial positioning, cultural backgrounds
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Epistemic stance and authorial identity
  • 3.Corpus and methods
  • 4.Overall distributions of hedges, boosters and self-mentions
  • 5.Disciplinary variations
  • 6.Variation across IMRC divisions
    • 6.1Hedges
    • 6.2Boosters
    • 6.3Self-mentions
  • 7.Discussion
  • 8.Pedagogical implication
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 December 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aals.18.09wan
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