That- stance Found in Discussion Sections in Applied Linguistics Research Articles

Abstract

This study identified the use of evaluative ‘that’ stance embedded in rhetorical move structures in applied linguistics research articles in discussion sections written in English and published in international and Thai journals. The study aimed to investigate the uses of the evaluative ‘that’ stance in discussion sections for observing the evaluative ‘that’ stance practices in both international and Thai journals. The data was gathered from 80 research articles. The rhetorical moves from the discussion sections were analyzed. Occurrences of the evaluative ‘that’ stance were identified and counted within the embedded rhetorical move-step. The results revealed that international journals and Thai authors employed a similar amount of evaluative ‘that’ stances, although they occurred in different moves and steps. The International authors used an evaluative ‘that’ stance for commenting on results, whereas Thai journal authors tended to use an evaluative ‘that’ stance for reporting results. In the subtypes of evaluative ‘that’ stance, Doubt stance was heavily used in move four: commenting on the results from the international corpus. The findings confirmed that Certainty stance was found in the same contexts from both corpora. Surprisingly, the international journal authors tended to use only a few instances of Neutral stance for commenting on the results. The findings show the differences in the common convention between both journals that could provide information in terms of how the discussion section moves and the evaluative ‘that’ stance presented to help novice EFL scholars to write discussions that comply with international conventions.