A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF LEXICO-GRAMMATICAL STANCE FEATURES IN SOCIAL SCIENCES AND NATURAL SCIENCES MPHIL DISSERTATIONS: AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

This paper explores how the lexico-grammatical features of stance are used in MPhil dissertations in the Social Sciences and Natural Sciences by taking an epistemological approach to how the academic writing conventions of a specific discipline influence academic writing. Through the lexico-grammatical framework by Biber (2006), the research is based on three broad categories of stance features, which include modal verbs and semi-modal verbs, stance adverbs, and stance complement clauses. The methodology used was that of a corpus, which included the introduction chapters of MPhil dissertations submitted to Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan. To determine the functional and rhetorical patterns of stance use, the data were analyzed with Sketch Engine, which is a combination of quantitative frequency analysis and qualitative analysis of the concordance lines. The results demonstrate apparent disciplinary differences in stance construction. Social Sciences dissertations are more expressive, argumentative, and agentive, which means that they use many prediction and obligation modal auxiliaries, evaluative stance adverbs, and communication-related complement clauses. Conversely, Natural Sciences dissertations are much more reticent and empirically wary, and highly dependent on possibility modals, restricted evaluative adverbs, and evidence-based constructions of the complement. Such tendencies demonstrate epistemological disparities in the interpretive and empirically-oriented disciplines. The paper concludes that the lexico-grammatical stance is a practice that is discipline-specific and develops early in postgraduate academic writing. The results have significant implications for the discipline-specific academic writing teaching and will add to the further comprehension of how emerging scholars negotiate knowledge and authorial identity in academic discourse.