Stance in spoken and written university registers

Numerous studies have investigated the linguistic expression of stance and evaluation in university registers, focusing especially on academic research writing and to a lesser extent classroom teaching. The present study extends previous research in two ways: (1) it compares and contrasts the use of a wide range of lexico-grammatical features used for the expression of stance (rather than focusing on a particular feature), and (2) it describes major patterns of register variation within the university, comparing the marking of stance in academic versus ‘student management’ registers, within both speech and writing. The study shows that the expression of stance is important in all university registers. However, at the same time, the study shows that there are important register differences in the particular kinds of stance meanings that are expressed, the grammatical devices used to express stance, and in the overall extent to which stance is expressed at all.