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Evidentiality Revisited: Cognitive grammar, functional and discourse-pragmatic perspectives
Edited by Juana I. Marín-Arrese, Gerda Haßler and Marta Carretero
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 271] 2017
► pp. 225–248

Chapter 9
Evidential and epistemic stance strategies in scientific communication

A corpus study of semi-formal and expert publications

| Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

The present paper presents the results of a corpus study of evidential and epistemic strategies as stance markers in two subgenres of scientific discourse, a sample of semi-formal publications (New Scientist) and one of expert publications (PubMed). First, an onomasiological approach to evidentiality and epistemic stance is adopted, following Marín-Arrese (2015b). Second, the evidential and epistemic strategies performed in the context of the two genres are discussed, following recent research which points to the need to explore this dimension (Mushin 2012; Nuckolls and Michael 2014). Results show that within the distinction between direct and indirect markers of evidentiality and epistemic stance, both samples show a preference for indirect strategies. Within the four categories of evidentiality and epistemic stance, the semi-formal corpus shows an overall significant higher frequency of indirect markers than the expert corpus. These differences reveal communicative discourse-pragmatic strategies which underlie the discipline specific conventions and interactive motivations in the two sub-genres.

Keywords: corpus study, evidential and epistemic strategies, scientific discourse, stance
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1Evidentiality and epistemic stance
    • 2.2Evidential and epistemic stance strategies in scientific discourse
  • 3.Data and method
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Direct evidentiality
      • 4.1.1Frequency and distribution
      • 4.1.2Discourse-pragmatic strategies
    • 4.2Indirect evidentiality and epistemic stance
      • 4.2.1IIE
        • 4.2.1.1Frequency and distribution
        • 4.2.1.2Discourse-pragmatic strategies
      • 4.2.2IRE
        • 4.2.2.1Frequency and distribution
        • 4.2.2.2Discourse-pragmatic strategies
      • 4.2.3EM
        • 4.2.3.1Frequency and distribution
        • 4.2.3.2Discourse-pragmatic functions
      • 4.2.4CGA
        • 4.2.4.1Frequency and distribution
        • 4.2.4.2Discourse-pragmatic functions
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 21 March 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.271.10hid
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