A Contrastive Study Of Stance Bundles In English Argumentative Writing By Chinese And Native College Students

Stance bundles,as a category of lexical bundles,can help writers to express their feelings,attitudes and assessment.A close observation of them may help us better understand writer’s efforts at interacting with readers and building up their engagement.With their awareness of the importance of stance bundles,many researchers focus on the relevant distribution characteristics in different registers.However,the evaluative use of stance bundles by Chinese college English learners has not been examined in perspective.As a response to this situation,this present study attempts to make a contrastive study of stance bundles in English argumentative writing by Chinese and native college leaners to answer the following three questions:(1)What are the most frequent three-word and four-word stance bundles in English argumentative writing by Chinese and native college students?(2)What are the differences in the use of stance bundles between Chinese and native college students?(3)What are the differences in the evaluative meaning expressed by stance bundles between Chinese and native college students?Stance bundles data are extracted from the Written English corpus of Chinese Learners 2.0(WECCL)and the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays(LOCNESS).The stance bundles found in both corpora are categorized based on the framework proposed by Biber et al.(2004)to specify the differences in expressing different evaluative meanings between Chinese College English learners and the native college students.The corpus-based investigation shows that there are discrepancies in their use of stance bundles and the evaluative meaning making although Chinese college students have acquired the ability to express their feelings,attitudes and assessment with stance bundles in their argumentative writing.Chinese college English learners significantly overuse stance bundles in six categories(i.e.desire bundles,evaluation bundles,ability bundles,epistemic stance bundles,directive/obligation bundles and boosters)and underuse in two categories(i.e.prediction bundles and hedges).Moreover,some discrepancies in the use of stance bundles may lead to insufficient negotiability,objectivity and credibility,and thus weaken the Chinese student writers’ expression of evaluation and their efforts at interaction in the argumentative writing.