Taking a stance: evaluative adjectives in a corpus of written economics lectures

Recent studies have focused from different angles on evaluation in academic discourse. Limited attention, though, has been devoted to evaluation in hybrid genres, as written published economic lectures. Thus, this study analyses the use of evaluation by economists while taking a stance in their academic lectures. The quantitative methodology is integrated by a qualitative interpretation of the emerging data. The findings indicate: a) a typology of evaluative adjectives used by the economists to foreground what s/he considers relevant; b) the attempt to persuade, implicitly/explicitly, the reader to accept particular viewpoints through the use of the adjectives linked to reinforce the economist's academic position.