Stance nouns in argumentative essays by L2 Malaysian undergraduates

Stance nouns are an important feature of academic writing since they indicate to the readers how writer’s stance and the arguments are to be interpreted. However, there is a lack of studies in investigating how the L2 undergraduate students use stance nouns in L2 argumentative writing. With the aim...

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Main Authors: Teh, Hui Lin, Lee, Geok Imm, Nimehchisalem, Vahid, Abdullah, Ain Nadzimah
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2025
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/120868/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/120868/1/120868.pdf
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author Teh, Hui Lin
Lee, Geok Imm
Nimehchisalem, Vahid
Abdullah, Ain Nadzimah
author_facet Teh, Hui Lin
Lee, Geok Imm
Nimehchisalem, Vahid
Abdullah, Ain Nadzimah
author_sort Teh, Hui Lin
building UPM Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Stance nouns are an important feature of academic writing since they indicate to the readers how writer’s stance and the arguments are to be interpreted. However, there is a lack of studies in investigating how the L2 undergraduate students use stance nouns in L2 argumentative writing. With the aim to gain more insights into patterns of use of stance nouns in L2 academic writing, this study employed summative content analysis to analyse the patterns of stance nouns in 100 argumentative essays by the L2 first-year undergraduate students in a private university in Malaysia. Based on the classification of stance nouns model by Jiang and Hyland (2015), the frequencies of the three types of stance nouns (entity, attribute and relation) were identified to determine the patterns of use of the stance nouns. The findings show that L2 students used more manner nouns and status nouns (attribute type), and event nouns (entity type) that reflected more epistemic evaluations and evidence-based reasonings in their stance. The classification of stance nouns indicates how writers use them to express stance and influence how readers interpret the arguments presented. In conclusion, different variants of stance nouns can help writers to strengthen their arguments in argumentative writing. This may inform the development in corpus-based teaching materials as the findings on patterns of use of stance nouns can be used as examples in the teaching and learning of argumentative writing.
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spelling upm-1208682025-10-14T03:59:11Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/120868/ Stance nouns in argumentative essays by L2 Malaysian undergraduates Teh, Hui Lin Lee, Geok Imm Nimehchisalem, Vahid Abdullah, Ain Nadzimah Stance nouns are an important feature of academic writing since they indicate to the readers how writer’s stance and the arguments are to be interpreted. However, there is a lack of studies in investigating how the L2 undergraduate students use stance nouns in L2 argumentative writing. With the aim to gain more insights into patterns of use of stance nouns in L2 academic writing, this study employed summative content analysis to analyse the patterns of stance nouns in 100 argumentative essays by the L2 first-year undergraduate students in a private university in Malaysia. Based on the classification of stance nouns model by Jiang and Hyland (2015), the frequencies of the three types of stance nouns (entity, attribute and relation) were identified to determine the patterns of use of the stance nouns. The findings show that L2 students used more manner nouns and status nouns (attribute type), and event nouns (entity type) that reflected more epistemic evaluations and evidence-based reasonings in their stance. The classification of stance nouns indicates how writers use them to express stance and influence how readers interpret the arguments presented. In conclusion, different variants of stance nouns can help writers to strengthen their arguments in argumentative writing. This may inform the development in corpus-based teaching materials as the findings on patterns of use of stance nouns can be used as examples in the teaching and learning of argumentative writing. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2025 Article PeerReviewed text en http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/120868/1/120868.pdf Teh, Hui Lin and Lee, Geok Imm and Nimehchisalem, Vahid and Abdullah, Ain Nadzimah (2025) Stance nouns in argumentative essays by L2 Malaysian undergraduates. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, 25 (3). pp. 777-795. ISSN 1675-8021; eISSN: 2550-2131 https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/article/view/83318 10.17576/gema-2025-2503-11
spellingShingle Teh, Hui Lin
Lee, Geok Imm
Nimehchisalem, Vahid
Abdullah, Ain Nadzimah
Stance nouns in argumentative essays by L2 Malaysian undergraduates
title Stance nouns in argumentative essays by L2 Malaysian undergraduates
title_full Stance nouns in argumentative essays by L2 Malaysian undergraduates
title_fullStr Stance nouns in argumentative essays by L2 Malaysian undergraduates
title_full_unstemmed Stance nouns in argumentative essays by L2 Malaysian undergraduates
title_short Stance nouns in argumentative essays by L2 Malaysian undergraduates
title_sort stance nouns in argumentative essays by l2 malaysian undergraduates
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/120868/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/120868/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/120868/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/120868/1/120868.pdf