Abstract
Communicating scientific research to the public is as important as ever. Several studies have investigated the ways that science writers communicate personal feelings and assessments, otherwise known as stance, in their writing, reporting somewhat mixed results. In this study, I examine the grammatical stance marking of science news articles. I compare the ways that writers and the researchers that they quote uniquely contribute to the overall expression of stance in these articles. Results reveal that the researchers’ talk substantially contribute to the overall stance of science news articles compared to their writers, indicated by a greater use of modal verbs, stance verbs and adjectives controlling that complement clauses, and stance adverbials, including a greater use of ‘boosters’. This study suggests that researchers’ talk in science news articles co-participate in the newsworthiness of science and offer an alternative perspective on academic research uncommon in research writing.
References
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Mehlenbacher, A. (2017). Crowdfunding science: Exigencies and strategies in an emerging genre of science communication. Technical Communication Quarterly, 26(2), 127-144.
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Myers, G. (1989). The pragmatics of politeness in scientific articles. Applied Linguistics, 10(1), 1-35.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2017). Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Palca, J. (2006). Broadcast science journalism. In D. Blum, M. Knudson, & R. M. Henig (Eds.), A Field Guide for Science Writers (2nd Ed.), (pp. 73-78). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pérez-Llantada, C. (2021). Grammar features and discourse style in digital genres: The case of science-focused crowdfunding projects. Revista Signos: Estudios de Lingüística, 54(105), 73-96.
Peters, H. P., Brossard, D., de Cheveigné, S., Dunwoody, S., Kallfass, M., Miller, S., & Tsuchida, S. (2008). Interactions with the mass media. Science Communication, 321, 204-205.
Qiu, X., & Jiang, F. (2021). Stance and engagement in 3MT presentations: How students communicate disciplinary knowledge to a wide audience. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 51, 1-12.
Sidler, M. (2016). “The Chemistry Liveblogging Event: The Web Refigures Peer Review.” In A. G. Gross & J. Buehl (Eds.), Science and the Internet: Communicating Knowledge in a Digital Age (pp. 99–116). London & New York: Routledge.
Valeiras-Jurado, J., & Bernad-Mechó, E. (2022). Modal density and coherence in science dissemination: Orchestrating multimodal ensembles in online TED talks and youtube science videos. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 58, 1-12.
Varttala, T. (1999). Remarks on the communicative functions of hedging in popular scientific and specialist research articles on medicine. English for Specific Purposes, 18(2), 177-200.
Ye, Y. (2021). From abstracts to “60-second science” podcasts: Reformulation of scientific discourse. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 53, 1-13.
Bauer, M.W., & Falade, B.A. (2014). Public understanding of science: Survey research around the world. In M. Bucchi and B. Trench (Eds), Routledge Handbook of Public Communication of Science and Technology, (pp. 140-159). New York: Routledge.
Biber, D. (2006). University language: A corpus-based study of spoken and written registers. Amsterdam & New York: John Benjamins Publishing.
Biber, D., & Conrad, S. (2019). Register, genre, and style. (2nd Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
Blanchard, A. (2011). Science blogs in research and popularization of science: Why, how and for whom? In M. Cockell, J. Billotte, F. Darbellay & F. Waldvogel (Eds.), Common knowledge: The challenge of transdisciplinarity (pp. 219-232). Lausanne, Switzerland: EPFL Press.
Buehl, J. (2022). Graphical abstracts: Visually circulating scientific arguments. In C. Hanganu-Bresch, M. J. Zerbe, G. Cutrufello, & S. M. Maci (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of scientific communication (pp. 290-306). London & New York: Routledge.
Calsamiglia, H., & Ferrero, C.L. (2003). Role and position of scientific voices: Reported speech in the media. Discourse Studies, 5(2), 147-173.
Dunwoody, S. (2014). Science journalism in the digital age. In M. Bucchi & B. Trench (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Public Communication of Science and Technology (pp. 15-26). London & New York: Routledge.
Fahnestock, J. (1986). Accommodating science: The rhetorical life of scientific facts. Written Communication, 3(3), 275-296.
Fu, X., & Hyland, K. (2014). Interaction in two journalistic genres: A study of interactional metadiscourse. English Text Construction, 7(1), 122-144.
Gilbert, G. N., & Mulkay, M. (1984). Opening Pandora’s Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientific Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Halliday, M. A. K., & Martin, J. R. (1996). Writing Science. Bristol: The Falmer Press.
Hilgartner, S. (1990). The dominant view of popularization: Conceptual problems, political uses. Social Studies of Science, 20(3), 519-539.
Hunston, S. (2010). Corpus approaches to evaluation: Phraseology and evaluative language. New York: Routledge.
Hunston, S. (1994) ‘Evaluation and organisation in academic discourse’, in M. Coulthard (Ed.) Advances in Written Text Analysis. London: Routledge. 191–218.
Hyland, K. (2007). Disciplinary discourses: Social interactions in academic writing. 2nd edition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Hyland, K. (2010). Constructing proximity: Relating to readings in popular and professional science. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 9, 116-127.
Hyland, K., & Jiang, F. (2019). Academic discourse and global publishing: Disciplinary persuasion in changing times. London & New York: Routledge.
Hyland, K., & Tse, P. (2005). Evaluative that constructions: Signaling stance in research abstracts. Functions of Language, 12(1), 39-63.
Hyland, K., & Zou, H. (2020). In the frame: Signaling structure in academic articles and blogs. Journal of Pragmatics, 165, 31-44.
Jiang, F., & Qiu, X. (2022). Communicating disciplinary knowledge to a wide audience in 3MT presentations: How students engage with popularization of science. Discourse Studies, 24(1), 115-134.
Larsson, T. (2019). Grammatical stance marking across registers. Register Studies, 1(2), 243-268.
Luzón, M. J. (2013). Public communication of science in blogs: Recontextualizing scientific discourse for a diversified audience. Written Communication, 30(4), 428-457.
Luzón, M. J. (2017). Connecting genres and languages in online scholarly communication: An analysis of research group blogs. Written Communication, 34(4), 441-471.
Luzón, M. J., & Pérez-Llantada, C. (2019) (Eds.). Science communication on the Internet: Old genres meet new genres. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Luzón, M. J. (2019). Bridging the gap between experts and publics: The role of multimodality in disseminating research in online videos. Iberica, 37, 167-192.
Martin, J.R., & White, P. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London: Palgrave.
Mautner, G. (2007). Mining large corpora for social information: the case of elderly. Language in Society 36,(1), 51–72.
Mautner, G. (2022). What can a corpus tell us about discourse? In A. O’Keeffe, & M. J. McCarthy (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics (pp. 250-262). New York: Routledge.
McGregor, J., & Fernandez, J. (2019). Theorizing qualitative interviews: Two autoethnographic reconstructions. The Modern Language Journal, 103(1), 227-247.
McKinlay, A. & Potter, J. (1987). Model discourse: Interpretative repertoires in scientists’ conference talk. Social Science Studies, 17(3), 443-463.
Mehlenbacher, A. (2017). Crowdfunding science: Exigencies and strategies in an emerging genre of science communication. Technical Communication Quarterly, 26(2), 127-144.
Miller, S. (2001). Public understanding of science at the crossroads. Public Understanding of Science, 10, 115–120.
Myers, G. (1989). The pragmatics of politeness in scientific articles. Applied Linguistics, 10(1), 1-35.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2017). Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Orpin, D. (2019). #Vaccineswork: Recontextualizing the content of epidemiology reports on Twitter. In M. J. Luzón, & C. Pérez-Llantada (Eds.), Scientific Communication on the Internet (pp. 173-194). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Palca, J. (2006). Broadcast science journalism. In D. Blum, M. Knudson, & R. M. Henig (Eds.), A Field Guide for Science Writers (2nd Ed.), (pp. 73-78). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pérez-Llantada, C. (2021). Grammar features and discourse style in digital genres: The case of science-focused crowdfunding projects. Revista Signos: Estudios de Lingüística, 54(105), 73-96.
Peters, H. P., Brossard, D., de Cheveigné, S., Dunwoody, S., Kallfass, M., Miller, S., & Tsuchida, S. (2008). Interactions with the mass media. Science Communication, 321, 204-205.
Qiu, X., & Jiang, F. (2021). Stance and engagement in 3MT presentations: How students communicate disciplinary knowledge to a wide audience. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 51, 1-12.
Sidler, M. (2016). “The Chemistry Liveblogging Event: The Web Refigures Peer Review.” In A. G. Gross & J. Buehl (Eds.), Science and the Internet: Communicating Knowledge in a Digital Age (pp. 99–116). London & New York: Routledge.
Valeiras-Jurado, J., & Bernad-Mechó, E. (2022). Modal density and coherence in science dissemination: Orchestrating multimodal ensembles in online TED talks and youtube science videos. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 58, 1-12.
Varttala, T. (1999). Remarks on the communicative functions of hedging in popular scientific and specialist research articles on medicine. English for Specific Purposes, 18(2), 177-200.
Ye, Y. (2021). From abstracts to “60-second science” podcasts: Reformulation of scientific discourse. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 53, 1-13.
Copyright (c) 2024 Jordan Batchelor
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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