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Article published In: Language and Covid-19
Edited by Michaela Mahlberg and Gavin Brookes
[International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 26:4] 2021
► pp. 469–497

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Stance nouns in COVID-19 related blog posts

A contrastive analysis of blog posts published in The Conversation in Spain and the UK

ORCiD logo with link | Coventry University
ORCiD logo with link | Universidad de Murcia | Cambridge Language Sciences
Published online: 14 September 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.21080.cur
Abstract
Research dissemination through academic blogs creates opportunities for writers to reach wider audiences. With COVID-19, public dissemination of research impacts daily practices, and national and international policies, and in countries like the UK and Spain, The Conversation publishes accessible COVID-19 themed research. Such academic blogs are important to the global academy, yet the role of authorial stance therein is notably under-investigated. This paper presents a corpus-based contrastive analysis of “stance nouns + that/de que” in a comparable corpus of English and Spanish COVID-19 themed academic blogs from The Conversation. The analysis identifies similarities and differences across languages that reflect how COVID-19 is framed in each language. For example, Spanish academics use Possibility and Factualness nouns when self-sourcing their stances with expanding strategies, while English academics use Argument and Idea nouns with external sources in contracting strategies. Overall, this paper adds to current linguistic knowledge on academic blogs and scientific communication surrounding COVID-19.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Academic blog writing and authorial stance across cultures
  • 3.Data and methodology
    • 3.1CONVIDES: A Corpus of COVID-19 in The Conversation UK and Spain
    • 3.2Corpus-based contrastive analysis of SNTQ structures
      • 3.2.1The semantic categorisation of SNTQ structures
      • 3.2.2Authorial voice: Source attribution and engagement strategies
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Stance nouns + that/de que in English and Spanish academic blogs
    • 4.2Stance noun semantic categories, use of sources, and rhetorical functions
    • 4.3Disciplinary variation
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
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