In academic writing, stance is the expression of a writer’s attitude, commitment, and presence. How stance is expressed by expert writers from different disciplines and linguacultural backgrounds has been extensively researched; far less attention, however, has been given to writing by PhD students. This paper reports on a pilot corpus study exploring stance expression by Czech PhD students and expert writers in theses and research articles in linguistics. The aim is to compare writers’ use of stance devices in three corpora of introduction sections – by Czech PhD students, academics with English as L1, and academics with English as L2. Quantitative and qualitative corpus-based analysis of stance features will be carried out based on Hyland’s (2005) model of stance and engagement. The findings should indicate whether and to what extent PhD students express stance differently to academics due to their level of expertise and L1 background.