Rhetorical Strategies of Authorial Presence in L2 English Student Writers’ Research Articles: Use of Hedges and Boosters with Authorial References

This study explores to what extent L2 English (L2E) RA student writers adjust explicit or implicit authorial presence by using hedges and boosters in entire research article (RA) texts or RA sections and in terms of rhetorical functions, compared to L1 English (L1E) expert writers. An L2E corpus of RAs written by Korean postgraduates and an L1E corpus of RAs written by L1E academics in applied linguistics were examined by co-occurrences of four types of authorial references (first-person singular and plural pronouns, third-person noun phrases [NPs], and inanimate NPs) with hedging and boosting expressions in a sentence and their rhetorical functions. The results of the study reveal L2E postgraduates’ rhetorical strategy shared with L1E academics: mitigating explicit and implicit authorial presence in entire RAs and all sections and also for high- and low-risk rhetorical functions; notably more association of first-person plural pronouns, but less association of third-person NPs, with hedging and boosting devices; and more frequently hedging or boosting authorial presence in the discussion sections or for more powerful authorial roles. These results elucidate Korean L2E postgraduates’ awareness of discipline-specific RA genre conventions including section-specific discourse functions in line with L1E academics. Yet significantly less association of authorial references with hedging and boosting devices in the L2E corpus illuminates L2E student writers are less likely to adjust the power of authorial presence, which might be triggered by their lack of experiences of writing RAs or linguistic resources as non-native novice academic writers.