| Stance markers are one of important interactive resources in academic writings,where authors not only need to present research findings,but also express their stance and opinions to achieve approval of readers as well as discourse community.Faced with increasing needs of academic English,there is a great concern about whether Chinese English learners‘ stance expression ability has achieved the expectation of international discourse community.This study aims to compare similarities and differences of stance markers in academic English writings of chemistry written by Chinese English learners and published writers in order to analyze the stance expression need of Chinese English learners in academic English writings.At the same time,it can serve for the stance teaching in academic writing course.Taking chemistry discipline as research object,this study respectively selects 15 academic English papers of chemistry from Chinese graduate students and published writers to build SWC and PWC two corpora.Based on stance frameworks put forward by Biber et.al(1999)and Hyland(2000),this study combines disclaim marker in Appraisal System(Martin & White,2005)to propose a new analysis framework of stance markers.Epistemic stances,attitudinal stances and self-mentions are labeled with the aid of UAM Corpus Tool.The frequencies and linguistic realization means of each sub-category are analyzed to reveal their use characteristics.The research results are as follows:(1)On the overall distribution,the total frequency of stance markers that student writers use is approaching that of published writers(respectively 289.65 and 289.79).Both present the same tendency with epistemic stances—attitudinal stances—self-mentions to decline gradually.However,according to Chi-square tests,SWC and PWC demonstrate significant differences on the overall distribution of epistemic stances,attitudinal stances and self-mentions(P=0.044<0.05).On the total frequency of epistemic stances,student writers use fewer than published writers(158.73<186.96),which shows differences between them(P=0.016<0.05).On the frequency of attitudinal stances,the former use a little more than the latter(105.72>78.58)in spite of no differences(P=0.3>0.05).The frequencies of self-mentions that student and published writers use are fairly equal(respectively 25.21 and 24.25),which exists no differences(P=0.674>0.05).(2)The frequencies of each sub-category of epistemic stances that student writers use rank as hedges(99.96)> boosters(30.10)> evidential markers(18.44)> disclaim markers(10.23),while those of published writers rank as hedges(101.34)> boosters(59.88)> disclaim markers(14.50)> evidential markers(11.24).In addition to the significant difference on the use of boosters(P=0.003<0.05),other sub-categories of epistemic stances show no obvious differences.On hedges,both tend to use modal verbs(e.g.may,will),verbs(e.g.indicate,imply,suggest)and adverbs(e.g.generally,slightly)to confine the degree of commitment to a proposition.Boosters are usually realized through adverbs such as obviously and significantly.Disclaim markers are commonly conveyed via no,not,however,although and so on.In terms of evidential resources,students use a little more than published writers(18.44>11.24),however they have not skillfully grasped reporting verbs to express evaluative meanings.(3)As regard to attitudinal stances,both affect(P=0.182>0.05)and evaluation(P=0.115>0.05)show no differences between SWC and PWC.The frequencies of used evaluation markers(respectively 4.47 and 1.49)are obviously less than affect markers(respectively 101.26 and 77.09)in both SWC and PWC.Moreover,evaluative attitudes are generally expressed through adjectives.(4)In the aspect of self-mentions,neither first person(P=0.838>0.05)nor self-reference(P=0.701>0.05)shows obvious differences.All first person pronouns occur in the plural form;while in contrast,the collocation of self-reference in students‘ papers is relatively simple.The results indicate that:(1)Although student writers have the awareness of stance expression,it is not so strong to match the level of published writers.Their abilities on using attitudinal stances and self-mentions are approaching published writers;nevertheless,more efforts are needed to make progress in using epistemic stances.(2)On the use of epistemic stances,student writers are confronted with challenges in increasing the strength of arguments and using evidential markers to show appropriate evaluative meanings,to which great importance should be attached.(3)Compared with published writers,student writers tend to use more attitudinal stances to interact with readers.(4)Student writers are lacking in the diversity of linguistic realization means to show investigator voice,which needs to make improvements.This study facilitates students of chemistry in realizing their deficiencies in the use of stance markers so that they can make improvements accordingly.At the same time,research findings can contribute to the instruction of stance teaching in academic writing courses. |
