This section explores, as the point of entry into the data, the linguistic features through which stance can be realised in the source texts. As has been discussed in the previous chapter, Biber et al. (1999) and Biber (2006) have found that stance can be realised in English through choices among specific lexico-grammatical devices, which are used to express stance with respect to other propositions. These include the following common devices, which the analysis here is confined to: value-laden words (evaluative adjectives, main verbs, and nouns), modals, stance adverbials, and stance complement clauses. These devices are referred to in this study as stance markers. It has been argued that examining the occurrences of these lexico-grammatical markers with respect to other propositions in their immediate textual environment across individual
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source texts allows for the accurate identification of patterns of stance that are encoded in the language of these texts. For the purposes of this study, it is more appropriate to start from the linguistic realisation of stance in the language of the source texts moving upwards to stance meaning and its function in text and in relation to its context. This is underpinned by the description of the realisation of stance in English that has been already provided by Biber and colleagues and by the fact that nothing has yet been done in connection to this in Arabic. It needs to be noted that the focus here is on describing the realisation of the concept of stance, as “a linguistically articulated form of social action” (Du Bois, 2007: 139), and on identifying instances of stance in a particular corpus of texts, rather than on providing quantitative evidence of the distribution or frequencies of the lexical and grammatical devices mentioned above. So, these devices are dealt with only as a means to identify patterns of stance with respect to other propositions in the source texts and not as an end in themselves. Examining the occurrences of these devices or markers of stance in their immediate textual environment across individual source texts is the purpose of the corpus analysis in the following subsection. The findings from this analysis allow for the accurate identification of patterns of stance that are encoded in the language of the source texts and set the ground for follow-up analysis of stance meanings and their functions in the source texts and then in the target texts.
7.2.1
A manual corpus analysis of the lexico-grammatical marking of stance
The analysis in this study begins with a corpus analysis that aims at identifying patterns of stance employed in the source texts. The analysis here is based on the examination of occurrences of specific lexico-grammatical markers through which stance is expressed in these texts. The framework employed for this purpose is drawn from a previously established theoretical framework, namely the lexico-grammatical framework of stance, as outlined in Biber et al.
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(1999) and Biber (2006) (see subsection 6.3.1). Examining the occurrences of these markers in the source texts has been carried out manually rather than by means of an automated quantitative corpus-based analysis. This raises the question as to why the corpus will be analysed manually. The reasons behind this are: (1) the corpus designed for the purposes of the current study is relatively small; (2) quantitative results, such as calculation of word frequencies, are beyond the scope of this study; (3) the manual analysis of the corpus helps ensure the validity of such analysis and the findings obtained, as it is not necessary that the occurrence of any of the markers mentioned above in any utterance should indicate stance; and (4) value-laden words, as a marker of stance, represent a group of the most widely used lexical items in English and frequently they are not explicit stance markers that can be easily identified. Thus, they are extremely difficult to account for through an automated corpus-based analysis. Overall, manual corpus analysis has the advantage of ensuring that no relevant instance of stance is missed.
The manual corpus analysis has been carried out along the following lines: first, going through each individual source text which is analysed as a meaningful unit in itself, separate from other texts in the corpus; second, noting the occurrences of value-laden words (evaluative adjectives, main verbs, and nouns), modals, stance adverbials, and stance complement clauses in the language of these texts; third, identifying patterns of realisation of stance; finally, extracting each instance of stance identified with its immediate textual environment from the source texts. In this corpus analysis, the occurrences of stance markers in the language of the source texts have been examined regardless of the corresponding target texts. It is worth pointing out here that it is not necessary that all the occurrences of the above mentioned markers in any utterance should indicate stance. Patterns of stance can be distinguished from those patterns that do not indicate stance, even when they have any of the above-mentioned markers, through the immediate co-text
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and through recognising the four key components upon which any stance taken is built, i.e. stance marker, stancetaker, stance object, and stance function. These components were discussed in the previous chapter (see section 6.4).
The instances of stance identified in this analysis are those patterns that represent how stance is linguistically encoded in the source texts. These findings will be taken forward to a detailed analysis of the meanings these patterns of stance convey and the functions they perform in the source texts and then how they are re-conveyed or reproduced in the target texts. Those meanings and functions will be later analysed using the discourse semantic system of appraisal theory, with which the corpus analysis is combined. The full list of instances of stance identified in the corpus of the source texts can be found in Appendix A (stance markers, through which these instances have been identified, are shown in bold).
Without claiming to be exhaustive, the instances presented in Appendix A account for those stances that drive or shape the course of the overall argument throughout each individual source text and for which a series of more or less convincing arguments have been employed to justify or even legitimize these stances. An illustrative example from the patterns of stance identified and presented in Appendix A is:
- [An administration that lacks a consistent foreign policy philosophy has nevertheless established a predictable foreign policy pattern]. A popular revolt takes place in country X. President Obama is caught by surprise and says little. A few days later an administration spokesman weakly calls for “reform.” A few more days of mounting protests and violence follow. Then, after an internal debate that spills out into the media, the president decides he must do something. But hoping to keep expectations low, his
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actions are limited in scope. By this point, a strategic opportunity is missed and the protesters in country X feel betrayed.
In this example, the writer’s stance towards the Obama administration’s foreign policy is presented in the first sentence, which is marked above by square brackets. This is followed by the presentation of a series of arguments to justify the particular stance he adopts. Also, it has been found that each source text generally contains between four to seven major instances of stance that drive or shape the course of the overall argument throughout each individual source text, although one text in the corpus had as many as fourteen instances of stance (text No. 9).
The analysis has shown that writers of American newspaper opinion articles prefer to use more than one type of lexical and grammatical devices (i.e. stance markers) to encode one particular instance of stance. In the following example from ST10 (see Appendix A) (stance markers appear in bold italics):
- For Russia and the United States, Syria means not a display of Security Council clout but a potentially devastating exhibition of weakness — one that could greatly diminish the standing of both in the region.
Three different types of stance-marking devices are employed in this example, which largely contribute to the conveyance of the authorial stance towards the effect of the Syrian crisis on the position and reputation of Russia and the United States in the Middle East: (1) stance adverbs (potentially; greatly); (2) value-laden words (clout; devastating; weakness); and (3) modal auxiliary of possibility (could).
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Lexical and grammatical markers of stance were found to have different distributions in the instances identified in the source texts. The table below shows the distribution of stance markers in all the instances of stance identified:
Type of stance marker Number of occurrences Percentage Value-laden words (evaluative adjectives,
main verbs, and nouns)
202 71.38%
Modals 43 15.20%
Stance adverbials 29 10.24%
Stance complement clauses (that-clause and to-clause)
9 3.18%
Total 283
Table 7.1: The distribution of stance markers in all the instances of stance identified
The analysis points to a clear preference for using evaluative lexical items in the expression of stance in these texts, as value-laden words have been found to be the most frequently used stance marker in the instances identified (approximately 71% of the total). Also, modals are found to be relatively common in these instances, as they stand at about 15% of the total. As for stance adverbials, they tend to be less frequent than modals with an occurrence of about 10%. However, stance complement constructions are found to be far less frequent in the instances identified (approximately 3% of the total). All these indicate that the concept of stance is realised differently in the language of the original opinion articles despite the fact that its linguistic realisations operate within the same genre. These differences in encoding stance can be probably attributed to the differences in each writer’s style in expressing his/her own stance.
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So far, the analysis has been primarily source-text-based and it has shown how stance is encoded in the language of each source text, the following analysis takes the instances of stance identified forward to a description of the meanings of stance and the specific functions it performs in discourse. In fact, the analysis of the linguistic realisation of stance per se does not provide a meaningful description of the conveyance of stance. Stance is not merely a set of lexical or grammatical devices through which it is realised, but a range of meanings, including epistemic and attitudinal meanings, that perform a wide array of functions in discourse. The analysis of the linguistic realisation of stance is therefore combined with an analysis of the meanings of stance and their functions in the English-Arabic parallel corpus.