Stance in climate science: A diachronic analysis of epistemic stance features in IPCC physical science reports

This diachronic corpus-based analysis investigates the use of epistemic stance devices inreports from United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)from date its first report physical science climate change in 1990 to itssixth contribution 2021. Applying framework (Biber & Finegan, 1989),the study focuses upon changes markers modal verbsand adverbs across approximately 30-year period. To empirically measure thestrength trends these devices, Kendall’s Tau correlation coefficientwas calculated for each item using their normalized frequencies six reports.Analysis displayed that verbs has consistently decreased thisperiod time which scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic origins ofclimate expanded and solidified. Additionally, greater than twenty stanceadverbs displaying consistent trajectories period, majority theseitems were emphatic declining use.