How economists modify their claims. A cross-linguistic study of epistemic and attitudinal stance in the diachronic LexEcon corpus

This study examines how writers express epistemic and attitudinal stance in English and Italian economic texts from 1900 to 1929. It analyses a corpus of treatises and textbooks to identify stance markers and their role in argumentation. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, the frequency and use of these markers in the two languages and general language corpora are compared. The findings show that economic claims are expressed in similar ways but with differences in marker frequency. Italian writers tend to explain, evaluate, and quantify, while English writers favour cause-and effect reasoning. The qualitative analysis highlights how stance markers shape different arguments, influencing how economic discourse is structured in each language.