Despite a growing interest in the study of the introduction sections of research articles, there have been few studies to investigate how academic writers engage with other voices and alternative positions in this academic genre. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to show how native-speaking (NS) and nonnative-speaking (NNS) writers take position and stance in research article introductions. For this purpose, engagement resources based on the appraisal framework were investigated in 60 articles written by English NS and Iranian NNS writers published in journals of applied linguistics. It was found out that the mean occurrences of heteroglossic items in both corpora was larger than those of monoglossic items but comparing the means of monoglossic engagements between the two corpora, it was revealed that NS writers’ corpus had larger mean occurrences of monoglossic engagements than NNS writers’ corpus implying the natives’ stronger authorial stance in the texts. The results also revealed that there was no significant difference in the use of contractive and expansive engagements by NS writers (t = -0.995, p > 0.05), indicating a balanced use between the two options. However, the higher mean occurrences of expansive options compared with contractive options in the NNS corpus may suggest that NS writers open up more dialogic room for alternatives positions in the introductions. The findings of this study may help writers to better perceive the creation of a strong authorial position using appropriate engagement resources in research article introductions. پرونده مقاله

The purpose of this study was to show how expert and novice writers take position and stance in Research Article and Master of Art theses Introductions, so Engagement resources were investigated in 30 Research Articles and 30 Master of Art theses written by non-native Iranian speakers. Through paired samples t-test analysis, we found out that the mean occurrences of heteroglossia items in both RA and Master thesis Introductions were larger than those of monoglots items, indicating the awareness of both groups of writers to ‘engage’ alternative positions in Introduction sections. The results also revealed that wide choices were preferred over contractive options in both corpora, implying both groups of writers’ respects to alternative voices cautiously by welcoming rather than closing down the possibility of different perspectives and stances. Furthermore, unlike novice academic writers who used more Attribute features than Entertainment ones in their MATs introduction sections, expert academic writers employed a balanced number of Entertainment and Attributed in their RA introduction sections. The balanced deployment of Entertain and Attribute features in RA Introductions by expert writers might be characteristics of the writers’ demonstration of politeness, which is commonly accepted as an essential feature in academic writing discourse. Finally, through qualitative analysis, it was demonstrated that MAT writers as novice academic writers suffered from lacking appropriate evaluative stance and authorial voice towards propositions پرونده مقاله