Evaluative Stance and Voice in Postgraduate Research Proposals and Dissertations

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Investigating the Emergence and Development of Evaluative Stance and

Voice in Postgraduate Research Proposals And Dissertations

Eric CheungUTS-PolyU

[email protected]

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My Life Around Academic Writing• Had extensive paper

marking experience• Started research on

evaluative meaning in postgraduate writing in 2012

• Now writing academically about academic writing

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Initial Questions

• How to be ‘critical’?• What is ‘voice’ in academic writing?– How does student writers’ ‘voice’ emerge?– How is it related to ‘stance’?– How is ‘voice’ and ‘stance’ expressed in linguistic terms?

• How does ‘voice’ develop through time?– How do ‘voice’ and ‘stance’ differ between the text

which sets out to do something (e.g. proposals) and the text reporting what has been done (e.g. dissertations, research articles, etc.)?

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Voice and Stance: Linguistic Perspective

• The individuality of voice has a close relation with the concept of stance, as a result of “personal feelings and assessments” (Hyland, 2008).– Hyland refers stance and voice to the linguistic

resources writers draw on to show their understanding of both the local context of the here-and-now interaction and the broader constraints of the wider community which influence that interaction (social and dialogic)

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Voice and Stance in SFL

• Located within the realm of interpersonal meaning (Hood, 2012, p. 52)

• Two perspectives on ‘voice’– Dialogic space– Registerial role that is enacted in the choices of

APPRAISAL

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Stance and Voice from SFL Perspective

sub-selections of evaluative options within text; patterns of use of evaluative options within a given 'key’

reconfiguration of the probabilities of the occurrence of particular evaluative meaning-making options or for the co-occurrenceof options

(Martin and White, 2005; Hood, 2012)

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Research Questions

• How do students deploy APPRAISAL resources in their proposal and dissertation introductions?

• What changes are evident in– Management of APPRAISAL resources over time– Students’ self-positioning in relation to their object of

study and to other contributions to knowledge in the field

• How do these findings enhance the understanding of the development trajectories in postgraduate writing and thus inform Advanced EAP pedagogy?

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Introduction: Research Warrant

• “A discursive context in which writers both describe and persuade” (Hood, 2010, p. 6)

• Comprised by a series of descriptions and evaluative reports to construct a ‘macro-genre’ (Typically with…)– Description of the object of study– Descriptive report of the other research– Description of the writer’s study

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My Focus Today: Stu

• Research topic: rhetorical questions in speeches by the 2012 US presidential election campaign candidates

• Pilot study included in his proposal; also an additional phase of remarks in both texts

• Focus on discourse strategies that negotiate interpersonal meaning; repertoire may develop

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• Identifying the APPRAISAL resources– Inscribed and invoked ATTITUDE– Construction of voice and stance through

ATTITUDE and GRADUATION distribution• Comparing the evaluative patterning between

Stu’s proposal and dissertation– Major changes – Brief discussion of the ‘remark’ phase

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Data

• 3 NNES Pg Appl Ling students (2013-2014)• Intros (Research Warrant) of proposals and

dissertations

Analysis• Discourse analytic approach• APPRAISAL resources (manually coded)

Findings

• Distribution of APPRAISAL for evaluative stance and key

• Development of stance and voice from proposals to dissertations

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APPRAISAL system

• Categorisation of discourse semantic resources construing interpersonal meaning

• Lexico-grammatical realisations will also be discussed wherever necessary

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APPRECIATION• REACTION– our interest in appreciating the beauty of rhetoric.

[+REACTION: QUALITY] • COMPOSITION– Were there clear [+COMPOSITION] correlations

between types of question and pragmatic functions in the use of rhetorical questions?

• VALUATION– the most substantial [+VALUATION] rhetorical means

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JUDGEMENT

• Only resources representing CAPACITY are present in the proposal– Having a solid understanding of different

rhetorical devices and to apply them skillfully in speaking and writing will improve one’s ability to communicate as well as his/her persuasiveness of messages significantly.

• Other subtypes include NORMALITY, TENACITY, VERACITY and PROPRIETY

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AFFECT

• Least deployed among all ATTITUDE resources• Subtypes include HAPPINESS, SATISFACTION,

SECURITY and INCLINATION• Main AFFECT is +INCLINATION– a great reliance on various rhetorical strategies– a valuable opportunity to stimulate our interest

• One instance of -SATISFACTION– to criticize the others in a more direct way

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GRADUATION system

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Amplifying ATTITUDE through GRADUATION

• Pre-modifying ATTITUDE– the more [+FORCE: INTENSIFICATION] carefully-

planned and written-as-spoken political speeches– having a solid [+FOCUS: AUTHENTICITY]

understanding of different rhetorical devices • Infusing– improve one’s ability to communicate as well as

his/her persuasiveness of messages significantly

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Invoking ATTITUDE through GRADUATION

• Further to the previous work, this study reviews also Obama’s use of RQs as an additional perspective and a continuation so as to enrich the comprehensiveness of the understanding of rhetorical questions in political context

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Distribution of inscribed and invoked ATTITUDE in the introduction

• Description of the object of study– Densely coded with inscribed ATTITUDE, which is

often intensified with GRADUATION• Report on other research in the field– ATTITUDE is predominantly invoked through

GRADUATION; sporadic encoding of inscribed ATTITUDE

• Description of the writer’s own study– Predominantly invoked ATTITUDE with upgrading

GRADUATION

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The Role of Higher Level Periodicity

• HyperThemes: prominent point of departure– Often construing the generalised field and

interpersonal meaning– Predictive of what is to come in the unfolding

phase– Propagates evaluative meaning across the phase

• HyperNew: consolidate/distillate meanings

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• Each paragraph starts with an assessment over the field to be discussed

• The evaluative meaning radiates across the phase, either picked up by graded experiential meanings, or accumulating with the inscribed ATTITUDE instances

• Some phases consolidates the meanings expanded in the phase as HyperNew, often with attitudinal meaning encoded

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HYPERTHEMERhetoric – the art of persuasive speaking is a particularly important skill in different professions,

since having a solid understanding of different rhetorical devices and to apply them skillfully in speaking and writing will improve one’s ability to communicate as well as his/her persuasiveness of messages significantly…

HYPERNEWit provides us not only with diverse rhetorical resources to study in, but also a valuable opportunity to stimulate our interest in appreciating the beauty of rhetoric.

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Evaluative Prosody

• Prosody of domination: explicit coding of ATTITUDE in the prominent textual location to spread the value across the phase

• Prosody of saturation: dense coding of inscribed and invoked ATTITUDE

• Prosody of intensification: reliance on highly charged attitudinal choices

• The prosodic patterns can be combined for greater strength; can be disrupted through concessive (e.g. but, however, only, etc.)

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Kinds of voice in academic writing

• Observer: oriented towards the object of study; can use a full palette of APPRAISAL resources

• Critic: oriented towards field of research; evaluating based on comparative differences – mainly instantiated through invoked ATTITUDE

• Participant: expressed from the field of the object of study, projected by observer voice; unrestricted choice of ATTITUDE (not present in Stu’s introductions)

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Rhetoric – the art of persuasive speaking is a particularly important skill in different professions, since having a solid understanding of different rhetorical devices and to apply them skillfully in speaking and writing will improve one’s ability to communicate as well as his/her persuasiveness of messages significantly. As political speeches, especially those delivered to the public at large in election campaigns, are primarily designed for politicians to motivate followers or gain power through their style of speaking (refs…) with a great reliance on various rhetorical strategies (ref), it provides us not only with diverse rhetorical resources to study in, but also a valuable opportunity to stimulate our interest in appreciating the beauty of rhetoric.

Description of the Object of Study

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HYPERTHEMERhetoric – the art of persuasive speaking is a particularly important skill in different professions,

since having a solid understanding of different rhetorical devices and to apply them skillfully in speaking and writing will improve one’s ability to communicate as well as his/her persuasiveness of messages significantly…

HYPERNEWit provides us not only with diverse rhetorical resources to study in, but also a valuable opportunity to stimulate our interest in appreciating the beauty of rhetoric.

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Description of the Object of Study

• Prosody of saturation + intensification + domination

• Expressed with an observer voice– The writer “manipulate the intensity of

expressions of evaluation” (Hood, 2010, p. 76)• Stance consistently positive and ‘loud’– Undisrupted by concessives– Strengthened with GRADUATION amplifying

ATTITUDE

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Report on Other ResearchIn the area of political discourse, scholars and researche[r]s have been interested in analyzing different rhetorical devices […] in political speeches (refs…). Many of these studies however applied either a relatively broader perspective by analyzing several rhetorical devices at the same time (ref…) or studied more specifically in one of these strategies, e.g. metaphor (ref…), but rarely in the case of the rhetorical question, especially in the US presidential election campaign, which is supposedly perceived as the most debated and most attention-driving election in the democracy world. Therefore, this study serves as an update to previous studies of the rhetorical question, particularly selected from the more carefully-planned and written-as-spoken political speeches between the two candidates in the 2012 US presidential election campaign.

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Report on Other Research• Prosody of domination• Expressed with a critic voice– Appraising other contributions of knowledge in the

field– Mainly invoked ATTITUDE– Alternates with observer voice appraising the object

of study comparatively• Evaluative meaning flows from HyperTheme until

the concessive ‘but’ occurs– And accumulates across the phase– Construes less dichotomising stance

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Findings up to this Point…

• Stu’s introduction mirrors the published research article introductions– Distinctive phases that present the fields of research

and the object of study– Strong and consistent stance emerged in support of the

significance of the research (not problematising it)• Establishes a basis how to identify the development of

stance and voice in his dissertation– The strategies Stu chooses to foreground his assessment– The focus of evaluation the writer chooses to emphasise

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DEVELOPMENT OF STANCE AND VOICE

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Comparing the Two Intro Texts

• The introductions in the proposal and dissertation are largely similar to the proposal introduction– Clear boundaries among stages– Same description of the object of study– Same review of literature stage– Similar attitudinal coding

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Distribution of inscribed and invoked ATTITUDE in the introduction

• Description of the object of study– Densely coded with inscribed ATTITUDE, which is

often intensified with GRADUATION• Report on other research in the field– ATTITUDE is predominantly invoked through

GRADUATION; sporadic encoding of inscribed ATTITUDE

• Description of the writer’s own study– Predominantly invoked ATTITUDE with upgrading

GRADUATION

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But…

• The dissertation introduction– Has a more refined description of the object of

study (from political speech to rhetorical strategies)– The pilot study is not presented; the Transition

stage introduces the organisation of the dissertation instead

– The ‘remark’ phase is oriented towards the ‘interesting’ aspects of the object of study (both started with ‘what is… that’

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‘Remark’ Phase in the Proposal

What is noteworthy here is that the focus of this study is not on comparing the use of rhetorical questions between the two candidates or the two parties in America […] In addition, modifications of the RQ classification in my previous work (as in section 3.2) may have to [be made] if a considerable number of President Obama’s rhetorical questions function differently from the existing one […]

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‘Remark’ phase in the dissertation

What is more interesting is that since the two candidates were significantly different in terms of their political image, campaign strategy and style of speaking, these differences enable us to elucidate politicians' use of rhetorical questions from a broader perspective. In Romney's case, [...] Obama, on the other hand, […] Generally speaking, the use of rhetorical questions afford them a useful means to engage in verbal indirectness moves, which allow them to take cover under the rhetorical questions and avoid directly engaging in face-threatening acts (Habwe, 2010).

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Summary

– Shifts the focus of persuasion from construing a meticulous research (proposal) towards a research as both applicable and interesting (dissertation)

– Sheds light upon how the writer constructs a consistent and persuasive research warrant through patterns of interpersonal meanings (also textual and ideational meanings)

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Moving Forward• Investigating the variations across Ss writers– Reflecting individual writers’ preferences over

foregrounding what kind of evaluative construct for his/her research warrant

• Interpreting the findings– ENGAGEMENT adding an extra layer for construction

of stance and voice• In what ways and by what degree the writers invite or

reject alternative propositions• How much the writers are ‘engaged in’ their own

evaluation – Implications to academic writing pedagogy

Major References

Hood, S. 2012, ‘Voice and Stance as Appraisal: Persuading and Positioning in Research Writing Across Intellectual Fields’, in K. Hyland & C. S. Guinda (eds), Stance and Voice in Written Academic Genres, Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire, UK. pp. 51-68.

Martin, J. R. & White, P. R. R. 2005, The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English, Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire, UK.

41THANK YOU VERY MUCH!Eric Cheung email: [email protected]

By Steve Macone