A Study On The Use Of Evidential Markers In Undergraduate English Majors’ Argumentative Writing From The Perspective Of Engagement

As an important linguistic device,evidential markers are widely used in argumentative writing to show the source of information stated and its reliability as well as the negotiation of interpersonal functions.The present study attempts to explore the use of evidential markers in undergraduate English majors’ argumentative writing as well as the interpersonal functions realized by these evidential markers from the perspective of engagement within the framework of appraisal theory,thereby providing significant implications for the teaching of English writing.Two corpora are applied to conduct the present study: The Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners(WECCL 2.0)and the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays(LOCNESS).Two sub-corpora are generated based on WECCL 2.0 and LOCNESS with three variables controlled(linguistic competence of students,writing genre,and time limit of writing): 90 timed argumentative essays on different topics written by grade four Chinese undergraduate English majors(Undergraduate Corpus),and 87 timed argumentative essays on different topics written by native speakers(Native Corpus).Among them,the former is an observed corpus while the latter is the reference corpus.Meanwhile,adopting Yang Linxiu’s(2009)classification of evidentiality,and taking the engagement system of appraisal theory as the theoretical foundation,this study is conducted to examine the frequency and distribution of the evidential markers,the interpersonal functions realized by evidential markers,and the error features of the evidential markers in undergraduate English majors’ argumentative writing.On the basis of analyzing the use of evidential markers in the selected corpora,adopting a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods,the following are the main findings achieved in the present study.Firstly,generally,with reference to the Native Corpus,the frequency of the evidential markers appears insufficient in the undergraduate English majors’ argumentative writing.Specifically,Chinese undergraduate English majors use more sensory and belief evidential markers in their argumentative writing than native speakers while they use fewer reporting and inferring evidential markers than native speakers.Furthermore,regarding the means of linguistic realizations of the four types of evidential markers,Chinese undergraduate English majors demonstrate a lack of multiformity in the choice of evidential markers and tend to overuse the verb forms.Secondly,as a linguistic device,evidential markers in argumentative writing mainly fulfill three interpersonal functions: negotiate theinterpersonal relationship,implicitly persuade and show stance.Thirdly,the error features of the evidential markers in undergraduate English majors’ argumentative writing are typically reflected in three aspects: preposition errors,collocation errors and errors of parts of speech.The present study is expected to provide great enlightening significance for the teaching of English writing.