A Study Of Evaluative Meaning Making In Chinese English-Major Ma Theses

Many studies have been conducted on the English-major theses,especially focusing on their generic features,text structure and lexicogrammatical errors as well as the patterns and standards of MA education in China.Internationally the similar trend can be identified as the number of non-native academic writers has been increased to write,publish and present their academic research in English as a second language(L2).In the international L2 research literature,there is an increase in the number of studies on the difficulties and influencing factors of L2 Academic Writing.Among these studies,much attention has been paid to language problems such as lexicogrammatical errors in the theses,but the underlying evaluative meaning making has been under-researched.The evaluative meaning making in academic writing is defined as the phenomenon that an academic writer uses appropriate linguistic resources to position himself/herself in relation to certain propositions or entities,and meanwhile he/she interacts with the readers.Therefore,it is of great significance to study the relationship between language use and the evaluative meaning making in Chinese English-major MA theses.This study can contribute not only to enriching the theoretical construction of evaluative meaning making,but also to deepening our understanding of the current situation of L2 academic literacy.Most importantly,this study can provide implications for curricular and pedagogical practices of L2 academic writing.Based upon the above understanding,the present study has raised three research questions:(1)How are the evaluative lexical resources used in Chinese English-major MA theses?(2)How are the evaluative grammatical resources used in Chinese English-major MA theses?(3)What are the features in the use of evaluative resources by the interaction between the lexical and grammatical choices?The present study has also explored the systematic features of evaluative meaning making revealed by these differences in L2 academic writing,such as evaluative stance building,attitudinal meaning expression and writer-reader relationship negotiation.In order to answer these research questions,I,first of all,have reviewed the previous research literature on language use and the evaluative meaning making in L2 academic writing with a focus on their definitions,mechanism,theoretical and empirical studies.Drawing on the literature review,I have constructed "a theoretical model of the instantiation of evaluative meaning making in academic writing".Base upon the theoretical model,I have developed "an analytical framework of evaluative meaning making in MA theses at logogenetic level" in order to identify and quantify the use of evaluative resources and the systematic features of evaluative meaning making in two theses corpora,CEMTC and NSTC,built in accordance with the principles and standards of linguistic corpus.CEMTC is composed of 50 MA theses(collected from CNKI)written by Chinese English-major graduates(hereafter Chinese student writers)from 7 different regions in the discipline of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics of Foreign Languages.NSTC consists of 50 MA theses(collected from PQDT)written by English native speakers(hereafter native student writers)in the discipline of Linguistics and TESOL,The size of the two corpora accounts for 1,675,748 tokens in total.Drawing upon the data of the two corpora,I have examined the following 3 kinds of evaluative means,i.e.,lexical resources(labeling nouns,projection verbs and evaluative adjectives),grammatical resources(personal pronoun system,modal adjuncts in mood system,and the system of modality),and interaction between lexical and grammatical resources(academic stance formulas and grammatical metaphor).Through the quantitative and qualitative analyses,this study has found:(1)In general,the Chinese student writers underused evaluative lexical resources in frequency and diversity.More specifically,they used much fewer labeling nouns and projection verbs,and they were also inclined to use evaluative adjectives in the simpler grammatical pattern.Especially,they underused the research nouns,the evidence nouns and the idea nouns,while they overused the argument nouns and the text nouns.These findings indicate that they encounter difficulties in packing information and construing abstractness in L2 academic writing.Their inappropriate use of labeling nouns leads to imprecise positioning,unclear objectivity,and low level of discursiveness in their L2 academic writing.The underuse of projection verbs suggests that Chinese student writers fail to create an appropriate dialogic space and inter-subjectivity in their L2 academic writing and tend to lay more emphasis on an alignment with their readers rather than their solidarity with them.And their overuse of positive,assertive and intensifying evaluative adjectives shows that they lack appropriate knowledge and strategies to construct objective orientation,tentativeness and authorial stance of the writer as authority in L2 academic writing.(2)In contrast with the native student writers.Chinese student writers tended to overuse the evaluative grammatical resources in general.In particular,they overused the pronoun we but underused the authorial-I.These reduce their authorial presence in the theses.Although in this way they could avoid the risk of their subjective argument,they fail to construct their academic identities,such as Writer-as-Thinker Role and Knower.In terms of the writer-reader interaction,Chinese student writers tended to enlarge interpersonal distances rather than to shorten them.Moreover,Chinese student writers overused the certainty adjuncts but underused the possibility adjuncts.These choices largely close down the dialogic space and weaken the negotiation with the readers.The variations identified in terms of modality choices demonstrate that in making evaluative meaning,Chinese student writers fail to express tentativeness,politeness,cautious argument and persuasiveness in L2 academic writing.(3)The variations identified in terms of the interaction between the lexical and grammatical resources also indicate that there are systematic features of evaluative meaning making in L2 academic writing.In contrast with their native counterparts,Chinese student writers used more stance formulas in general,especially epistemic stance formulas and evaluation formulas,while they used fewer hedge formulas.Limited co-selection both between content words and their grammar patterns and between content words and their collocations was also identified and this limitation causes a failure to realize the optimal co-selection among form,meaning and function.With regards to grammatical metaphor,Chinese student writers used fewer ideational grammatical metaphors in total frequency compared with their native counterparts.These results demonstrate that they fail to construct the information structures effectively,and fail to achieve reader-friendliness and persuasiveness in their English MA theses.In summary,there are considerable differences in the use of evaluative resources across the two corpora,and there are systematic L2 features of evaluative meaning making in Chinese student writers' English academic writing.More specifically,Chinese student writers tended to objectify the subjective orientation when the authorial stance should be highlighted.They tended to intensify assertiveness of the argument when it should be expressed tentatively,and they took risks in their interpersonal negotiation with the readers when the risks should be reduced.They failed to open the space for negotiation in their English MA theses.These systematic features show that they are not familiar with the disciplinary conventions,and lack confidence in stance-taking on the one hand,and on the other,they are not well equipped with sufficient knowledge and strategies to create dialogic space,and manifest their personal presence and authority for gaining approval for their academic work.Based on the findings,this study reiterates that it is of great importance to reexamine the negotiation and construction of evaluative meaning in Chinese English-major MA theses on the one hand,and on the other,significant implications can be provided for the curricular and pedagogical practices of L2 academic writing.Firstly,the normative conventions of L2 theses writing and the reader awareness need to be reinforced in the instruction of L2 academic writing because there are differences in the data analyses in terms of generic features,reader engagement and dialogism.Secondly,the student writers' confidence for research should be built up in relation to the authorial presence,identities and authority in L2 academic writing.Thirdly,they need to be socialized into the EFL academic culture by means of integrating into the disciplinary communities and abiding by the disciplinary conventions.Fourthly,the following strategies need to be systematically taught in academic writing classes,such as reading more target texts,avoiding the intensifying and assertive evaluative resources,reducing the negative transfer of L1 in the L2 academic writing practice.In conclusion,this study contributes to the exploration of the mechanism of evaluation as well as the logogenesis of evaluative meaning in linguistic theory building,and in methodology,it extends the corpus-based approach to the contrastive study on L1 and L2 students' academic writings.In practice,it provides a better understanding of the Chinese student writers' English academic literacy and important implications for the improvement of L2 academic writing curriculum and pedagogy.