Whose stance is it, anyway? A corpus-based study of stance expressions in science news articles

Communicating scientific research to the public is as important as ever. Several studies have investigated the ways that science news writers communicate personal feelings and assessments, otherwise known as stance, in their writing, reporting somewhat mixed results. In this study, I examine the grammatical stance marking of science news articles. I compare the ways that writers and the researchers that they quote uniquely contribute to the overall expression of stance in these articles. Results reveal that the researchers' talk substantially contributes to the overall stance of science news articles compared to their writers, indicated by a greater use of modal verbs, stance verbs and adjectives controlling that complement clauses, and stance adverbials, including a greater use of 'boosters'. This study suggests that researchers' talk in science news articles co-participates in the newsworthiness of science and offers an alternative perspective on academic research that complements research writing.