Establishing a presence: Self-mention in L2 (Czech) doctoral and expert writing in linguistics
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| Year of publication | 2025 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Self-mention is the most prominent form of stance expression, by which a writer clearly establishes their presence in a text to enhance the persuasiveness of their arguments. Although self-mention has been widely researched in student and expert academic writing, surprisingly little attention has been given to writing at the PhD level in Europe and the Czech Republic. This lack of awareness of doctoral students’ specific writing needs may create challenges for teachers when developing academic writing courses and instructional materials. To address this gap, this contribution reports on a corpus-based study investigating the use of self-mention by Czech doctoral students and expert writers in linguistics. The aim is to compare the writers’ use of self-mention across the sections of 30 English-medium PhD theses written by Czech doctoral students and 30 published research articles written by Anglophone scholars. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the frequency, forms, and rhetorical functions of self-mention is carried out in Sketch Engine, based on Hyland’s (2005) model of stance and engagement. The findings may inform future academic writing instruction on self-mention for Czech doctoral students aiming to publish internationally. |
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