Formulating Writer Stance: A Contrastive Study of EFL Learner Corpora

Abstract

The emergence of English as the predominant foreign language required for academic work in Spain has brought about a shift in the EFL teachers’ priorities regarding the teaching of writing skills. Since the early 1990s, the SPICLE1 writing research team at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid has studied argumentative texts produced by Spanish university writers, American university students and expert writers (signed newspaper editorials) in an attempt to tease apart the multiple factors influencing EFL text, including transfer of L1 features – linguistic (typological) as well as those involving the influence of L1 rhetorical conventions – novice writer aspects, EFL proficiency and educational background. We present two studies which show how these factors may subtly coalesce in order to produce certain discourse effects, especially concerning writer stance, as shown in the second study presented here. The results will be of interest to teachers of ESL and EFL writing and researchers in contrastive rhetoric.

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