Evaluative Stance in L1 and L2 Argumentative Essays: A Corpus-Based Comparison

Academic writing is often perceived as objective and impersonal; however, writers strategically use language to convey evaluative stance and engage readers. While much research has focused on stance in expert academic genres, relatively less is known about how student writers—particularly those using English as a foreign language—employ stance markers in their academic texts. This study investigates the use of stance features, including hedges, boosters, attitude markers, and self-mentions, in argumentative essays written by British university students (L1) and Korean EFL students (L2). Adopting a corpus-based approach, the analysis focuses on the frequency and distribution of stance markers across the two groups, with particular attention to L2 writers' proficiency levels. The results show that L2 writers, especially those at lower proficiency levels, tend to use more boosters and self-mentions but fewer hedges than their L1 counterparts. In contrast, higher-proficiency L2 students demonstrate increased use of hedging devices and a noticeable reduction in self-mention, patterns that more closely resemble native-speaker usage. These findings highlight the complex interplay between language proficiency and rhetorical choice in academic writing and reveal distinctive stance-taking conventions in L2 learner texts. The study underscores the importance of explicit instruction in stance and voice in EFL writing pedagogy to help learners develop a more nuanced and context-appropriate academic voice.