Epistemic Stance and Authorial Presence in Sociology Research Article Abstracts : a Diachronic Study

Abstract

The thesis explores change in epistemic stance and author presence expression in sociology research article abstracts, using a sample of abstracts from The British Journal of Sociology from the years 1995 and 2025. The analysis was conducted applying Hyland’s (2005, 2017) interpersonal model of metadiscourse, the linguistic items analysed consisting of the interactional metadiscourse markers hedges, boosters, and self-mentions. In the analysis of the abstract move structure, the genre models of Bhatia (1993) and Hyland (2004) were applied. According to the results, the abstracts in 2025 use more and more varied stance devices than in 1995. The occurrence of boosters was on the rise, whereas the number of hedges showed some decline. The most significant increase, however, was attested in self-mentions, frequently combined with boosting lexical verbs in the moves presenting research results. The results affirmed the previously observed trend in research writing for more pronounced author visibility and commitment, foregrounded in the promotional abstract genre.