A Corpus-based Contrastive Study Of Evidentiality In American And Chinese College Students’ Argumentations

This thesis focuses on the evidentiality in both American and Chinese college students’ argumentations within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics(hereafter SFL).A survey of the literature shows that the research of evidentiality is still far from enough,and the evidentiality in college students’ argumentations are seldom concerned.On the other hand,argumentative writing plays an important role in domestic examinations,but Chinese students have common problems in writing persuasive essays of high quality.Against this background,a contrastive study is conducted to analyze the differences on the use of evidentials in American and Chinese students’ argumentations.And modeling on the different use of evidentials,the difference of their essays’ persuasive strength is also of our interest.Last,the possible reasons for these differences are explored as well.Quantitatively,with corpus-based approach this thesis adopts two corpora: LOCNESS(The Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays)and WECCL2.0(Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners 2.0),and two corpus analysis tools: AntConc 3.5.8 and LancsBox.Qualitatively,this thesis proposes an analytical framework which integrates three research perspectives: evidentiality,modality system of SFL,and engagement system of Appraisal Theory.The study first examines the differences of the frequencies and distribution patterns of evidentials in both corpora.And then in view of evidentiality,this study gives an interpretation on the difference of the persuasive strength with the help of modality and engagement system.The major findings are listed as following:(1)There are more evidentials in Chinese students’ argumentations.Chinese students use more evidentials of belief,inferring and shared knowledge,and less evidentials of reporting.In contrast,the distribution patterns of evidentials in American students’ argumentations are more reasonable.Besides,the most significant difference between Chinese and American students’ use of evidentials lies in the use of belief evidentials.Moreover,either the forms of realizing evidentiality or the vocabulary in use are more diverse in American students’ essays.(2)On the grammatical level,the high degree of subjectivity in belief evidentials and the repetitive evidential forms undermine the persuasive strength of Chinese students’ argumentations.However,with less belief evidentials and more reporting evidentials,American students’ essays appear more objective and persuasive.(3)On the semantic level,Chinese students used much more generalized information sources which are also harmful for the persuasion.While American students adopted more specific and authoritative information sources which provide readers with access to verify the information,so that their essays achieve higher persuasive strength in this aspect,too.And considering writers’ commitment to the reliability from the perspective of modality,it is found that in Chinese students’ essays,modal verbs are more likely to be preceded by the first-person pronouns.And by so doing the implicit inferences are not only turned into less implicit and more subjective ones,but also the inferences are made about themselves,which are unhelpful in achieving persuasive effect.(4)Last on the functional level,we see that Chinese students adopted more evidentials of entertain and concur features,which are commonly centered on the internal voices.It shows that they focus on the expression of their own thoughts too much but overlook the persuasive effect by introducing high quality external voices.Whereas,American students keep a better balance between the internal and external voices.Although the results also show some similarities,this thesis still focuses on the differences which offer important advices for Chinese students to improve their argumentative writings.Based on these findings,possible reasons for these differences and corresponding pedagogical implications are given too.This study is of research significance both in theory and in practice.Theoretically,it supplements the studies of evidentiality in argumentations.And in virtue of the corpus approach,this study not only guarantees the objective results,but also finds new forms in realizing evidentiality.Practically,this thesis would help Chinese students understand on which aspects they behave not as well as American students do and what they can do to improve their argumentative writings.