A comparative Study of Attitudinal Language Employed by English and Persian Authors in Academic Writing

Academic writing might incorporate evaluative strategies with the aim of construing and registering attitudinal positioning of writers towards other people, objects, and state of affairs included in the texts. Thus, this study is done in order to explore and explain the way that language is employed by authors to project their attitudinal assessments of objects and entities, and also to clarify how authors apply evaluative stance to establish their presence. In this regard, four texts of applied linguistics writers, two Persian and two English, were selected and then analyzed on the proposed model of Appraisal by Martin and White (2005), particularly the one which is about Attitude. Results showed that writers were disinclined towards expressing their feelings as well as judging people as Affect and Judgment in construing their arguments; however, they showed marked preference for coding Attitude as Appreciation which is concerned with positive and negative assessments of objects.