Evidentiality In The Conclusion Section Of Applied Linguistics Journal Articles

This thesis compares the usage of evidentiality in the Conclusion sections of applied linguistics journal articles written by Chinese and foreign scholars.A review of literature reveals that although evidentiality studies have witnessed a recent surge of interest,relevant studies aiming at academic discourse are still scarce.And among the already small number of researches on evidentiality in academic discourse,empirical studies dedicated to comparing Chinese and foreign scholars’ evidentiality use in the specific Conclusion section of research articles have so far,to the best of our knowledge,been pitifully out of sight.In view of this context,the present study intends to explore whether scholars from different cultural backgrounds differ in their adoption of different types of evidentiality in writing the Conclusion section,and attempts to identify the motivations behind the potential commonalities and discrepancies.Evidentiality is regarded in the thesis as a semantic category capable of indicating information source or writer’s commitment to the reliability of the information presented.The research data for this study are gathered from two leading journals,and are compiled into two separate corpora for the sake of comparative analyses.Altogether 71 articles are collected,with the ENG corpus consisting of 34 articles and the CHN corpus 37.By adopting Yang’s(2015a)classification of evidentiality,the lexicogrammatical realizations of the four types of evidential markers are identified in the corpora.Frequency distributions of different types of evidentials are calculated with the help of the software AntConc 3.5.0.In addition,the concordance window of the software enables us to gain further knowledge about the more nuanced differences regarding the specific lexicogrammatical realizations of certain types between the corpora.SPSS software has also been utilized to check whether there exist significant differences in the use of evidentiality between the two groups of scholars.Several rounds of data coding and repeated examinations of the original materials are carried out to guarantee the reliability of the study,which in return produces fruitful and informative findings.Firstly,various types of lexicogrammatical realizations are found to be able to mark evidentiality of different types.The relationship between evidential types and lexicogrammatical realization forms is complicated.One type of evidentiality can be realized by a variety of lexicogrammatical forms or structural devices,and one form of lexicogrammatical realization can mark different evidential types.Secondly,both groups of scholars show good awareness of evidentiality usage in their RA Conclusion sections,which is instantiated by the adoption of a large quantity of evidential markers.Thirdly,the overall frequency distributions of evidentiality usage are identical across the corpora,with generous employment of reporting and inferring evidentials and sparse utilization of sensory and belief evidentials.It is believed that Chinese and foreign scholars have rightfully observed the objective nature of RAs.Fourthly,wider distributions of sensory and belief evidentials exemplified from the ENG corpus indicate that foreign scholars have more confidence in expressing their opinions,hence better in observation of the evaluative requirement of RAs.Fifthly,foreign scholars have also demonstrated a better knowledge of the interactive characteristics of RAs,keeping a balance between authorial stance and solidarity with the reader.The near-average adoption of specific human source and non-human source in marking reporting evidentiality neatly proves this argumentation.The thesis consolidates the theory of evidentiality in that it further justifies that evidentiality is a pervasive linguistic phenomenon and can be employed to fulfill various rhetoric and interpersonal functions in academic discourse.In practice,the comparative analyses enhance Chinese scholars’ recognition of the proper use of evidentiality,which is conducive to the improvement of their academic writing competence.