Fostering Effective Stance-taking: A Study of English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) Student Writers’ Beliefs, Deployment, and Learning of Authorial Stance in English Academic Writing

Abstract

There is a growing recognition that academic writing is a social-interactive event in which a writer uses linguistic resources to convey ideas and address social relations (Hyland, 2005c). Authorial stance, which refers to the ways that a writer conveys personal attitudes or evaluations towards the subject matter under discussion (Lancaster, 2014), has thus received increasing attention. Previous studies have revealed that novice writers, especially EFL student writers, often encounter difficulties in presenting an effective authorial stance for persuasive argumentation and successful academic writing. Yet few studies have been conducted to explore the possible factors contributing to students’ ineffective stance-taking and how to afford their learning. This research addressed the research gap and explored Chinese EFL students’ beliefs (including writing beliefs and beliefs about stance), deployment and learning of stance in academic writing by drawing on Dialogism (Bakhtin, 1981) and Sociocognitive Theory (Bandura, 1986). This research consists of a preparatory study for instrument validation and two main studies. Study One investigated the relationships between student writers’ writing beliefs, beliefs about authorial stance, stance deployment and academic writing quality. Data were collected from English-major undergraduates (n = 84) of Year 4 in two medium-ranking universities in northern China. Participants were recruited, as volunteers, to complete two questionnaires for the measurement of their writing beliefs and beliefs about stance and submit a written text. Stance deployment in written texts was measured in terms of diversity and frequencies of various stance types. Results showed that subcategories of different beliefs correlated with the frequencies of various stance types, either positively or negatively. Writing beliefs (transactional writing beliefs) and diversity of stance were found to predict the overall writing quality. Results also showed that students’ writing proficiency was a factor affecting reported beliefs, but had little impact on the frequency of different stance types deployed in writing. The findings indicate that the relationships between students’ beliefs, stance deployment, and academic writing quality are complex. Study Two was a quasi-experimental intervention study to explore the effects of explicit stance instruction on students’ beliefs, stance deployment, and overall writing quality. The writing intervention was conducted with 46 English-major undergraduates in a medium-ranking university in northern China, who were randomly allocated to two conditions: A treatment group and a comparison group. Data were collected from two questionnaires and a written text, both prior to and immediately after the period of writing intervention. Students in the treatment group received explicit stance instruction that comprised eight weekly sessions; concurrently, students in the comparison group received regular writing instruction according to the university curriculum. Stance deployment was examined both quantitatively by analysing the diversity and frequencies of stance types, as in Study One, and qualitatively by analysing the recurring patterns of various stance types. A multiple-case study was also conducted with four students to obtain in-depth information of the effects of the writing instruction on students’ beliefs. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews and writing journals. Results showed that after the writing intervention, students in the treatment group significantly outperformed those in the comparison group in overall writing quality. Their writing also exhibited substantial changes in the frequencies of many stance types (e.g., proclaim: pronounce, proclaim: endorse, entertain, attribute) and improvement in stance patterns in building convincing arguments in academic writing. Although no statistical differences were detected in beliefs, students in the treatment group reported enhanced awareness of stance and changed understanding of writing, compared to the students in the comparison group in the multiple-case study. The findings lend support to the effectiveness of explicit stance instruction in improving students’ awareness and knowledge of stance and fostering better stance-takers for effective argumentation and successful academic writing in an EFL context.