The role of disciplinary enculturation in stance-taking in L2 academic writing

Stance-taking in academic writing reflects the cognitive and metacognitive processes underlying persuasion. However, most existing studies have either examined L2 writers at a single academic level or in genres other than MA theses and PhD dissertations or focused predominantly on East Asian contexts. To address this gap, this corpus-based study traces the same 26 Turkish postgraduate writers across their MA theses and PhD dissertations, offering a longitudinal perspective on how disciplinary enculturation shapes stance-taking development. Applying Hyland's (2005) framework (hedges, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions), we combined qualitative and quantitative analyses, with phrases as the unit of analysis. Each linguistic device was examined in context to determine whether it functioned as a stance marker (qualitative analysis), followed by frequency counts and percentages (quantitative analysis). Findings reveal that PhD writers demonstrate significant progress in stance-taking compared to their MA work, reflecting deeper disciplinary enculturation. PhD candidates employed stance more strategically: they expressed claims with reduced assertiveness, used a broader range of devices to convey confidence cautiously, and engaged more with alternative viewpoints. These practices aligned more closely with disciplinary norms while strengthening authorial identity. By examining the same writers across academic milestones in an underexplored context, this study extends prior research and demonstrates how enculturation refines rhetorical competence, enabling writers to balance authority with scholarly humility. Implications for curriculum design include explicit instruction on disciplinary conventions and iterative feedback to cultivate students' authorial voices.