A Corpus–based Study Of Stance Markers In IELTS Model Writing

Stance markers are used to deliver people’s emotions,attitudes and opinions.With the unprecedented increase and fleetly development of Chinese economy,more and more students would like to choose to go abroad for further study.The IELTS grades are the basic requirement for students to go to the college.The grades of the writing part occupy 25% of the total grades and the writing part II(argumentative composition writing)is the most vital part.This thesis aims to study whether students use stance markers in IELTS model writing part II or not can influence the grades of writing part,so this thesis aims to study stance markers.Biber’ssemantic classification of stance markers are used in this paper to describe and analyze the corpus.According to the IELTS official standard,the collected data is divided into three levels: Low(4-5 grade),Middle(6-7 grade)and High(8-9 grade).Five questions are carried out in this paper:(1)What are the general characteristics of the use and distribution of stance markers in IELTS writing part II?(2)What are similarities and differences in the use of stance markers in the IELTS writing part II?(3)What are the functions of stance markers used in IELTS writing part II?(4)What are the possible reasons for these differences?(5)Does the use of stance markers have relationship with the grade of IELTS model writing part II? I use the AntConc to calculate data and the Chi – square of SPSS24.0 to analyze the collected data.Epistemic stance markers are the most frequently used by high-grade students.In epistemic stance markers,modal expressions and stance adverbials are used much more frequently than other categories.The low-grade students would like to use the attitudinal stance markers.There is no significant difference in style-of-speaking stance markers among three levels.Two functions of stance markers can be concluded in the IELTS model writing part II.They are interpersonal function and textual function.In the interpersonal function,it can be divided into four categories:(1)express politeness,(2)express personal participation,(3)avoid unnecessary risk and(4)shrink the responsibility of proposition.