| English argumentative writing can test both learners’ language competence and thinking ability,thus occupies a key position in both language learning and English language proficiency assessment.In argumentative writing,the writer expresses his or her attitude toward a phenomenon or event,asserts his or her stance,makes value judgments,and engages in a dialogue with readers in an attempt to persuade or to align with them.For this reason,learners are expected to make good use of the evaluative resources in their language output,in particular these evaluative expressions in the form of lexical bundles.Until recently,insufficient attention has been paid to the ability of Chinese English majors’ utilizing of appraisal resources in English argumentative writing and their developmental pattern.Research from the perspective of lexical bundles is even more lacking.Therefore,this study takes Chinese English majors as the research object and explores the use features and developmental patterns of appraisal lexical bundles used by Chinese English majors at three different grade levels in their English argumentative writing under the framework of Appraisal Theory,aiming to provide reference for author-reader dialogue-oriented foreign language writing learning and teaching.This study mainly focuses on the following questions:(1)What are the similarities and differences in the use of appraisal lexical bundles in three sub-systems of attitude,engagement and graduation in comparison to native speakers in their argumentative writing? What are the similarities and differences between learners at different grade levels?(2)What are the use and development features of appraisal lexical bundles in Chinese English majors’ argumentative writing in terms of the total number,length distribution and cross-system distribution?On the basis of the Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners(WECCL)and Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays(LOCNESS),three observational corpora of Chinese English majors of three different grade levels,namely,WECCL-1,WECCL-2,WECCL-3,and a reference corpus of native English speakers,LOCNESS-E,were established in this study.From each of the four corpora,lexical bundles with a length of 2 to 6 words were extracted using Ant Conc.In the framework of the Appraisal Theory,all these extracted lexical bundles were then selected for a second time by examining their specific appraisal meaning in their contexts on a case-by-case basis,the main findings are presented as follows:In response to the first question,the results showed that:(1)Regarding ways of realizing attitudes,both English majors at three different grade levels and native speakers employed more adjective-and verb-based lexical bundles in their English argumentative writing to denotate their attitudes directly.The proportion of noun-based lexical bundles used to connotate their attitudes in an indirect way increased as Chinese English majors progressed into higher grade levels.(2)Within engagement system,all English majors at three grade levels used more contractive engagement lexical bundles,while native speakers were more interested in expansive appraisal lexical bundles.The proportion of contractive engagement lexical bundles decreased dynamically while that of expansive engagement lexical bundles gradually increased as Chinese English majors progressed into higher grade levels.(3)In graduation system,both Chinese English majors and English native speakers had a dominant preference for up-scaling graduation lexical bundles than down-scaling ones in their English argumentative discourse.However,the proportion of up-scaling lexical bundles used decreases as Chinese English majors progressed into higher grade levels,while that of down-scaling ones increases.Concerning the second question,it was found that:(1)In terms of general quantity of appraisal lexical bundles,as Chinese English majors progressed into higher grade levels,they employed a wider range of appraisal lexical bundles but showed a gradual decreasing tendency in total frequency.Further investigation revealed that the gradual decrease in the use of certain shared high-frequency lexical bundle was the main reason for this trend.(2)Considering length distribution,more than half of all appraisal lexical bundles are longer lexical bundles consist of 6 to 3 words in first-year,second-year and third-year Chinese English majors’ argumentative writing.Besides,3-word lexical bundles took up the largest proportion of all Chinese English majors’ appraisal resources.With the increase of grade levels,the proportion of 2-word lexical bundles used increased gradually,while the proportion of 6-to 3-word lexical bundles decreased.(3)When it comes to cross-system distribution,the uneven proportions of appraisal resources used by first-year,second-year and third-year English majors showed the same order of ranking: engagement resources dominate,followed by graduation resources,with attitude resources being the lowest.As Chinese English majors progressed into higher grade levels,appraisal lexical bundles are used in a more diverse way.However,in terms of the frequency,engagement lexical bundles increased dynamically while gradation and attitudinal lexical bundles decreased gradually.The developmental trend of Chinese English majors is as follows: compared with Chinese English majors at lower grade level,the general quantity,length distribution and cross-system distribution of appraisal lexical bundles used by English majors in higher grade levels are closer to native English speakers,showing the development feature of gradually approaching the native English speakers.Based on the Appraisal Theory,this study takes lexical bundles as the starting point to present the use and development trend of appraisal lexical bundles in English argumentative writing of Chinese English majors.Some remaining problems in English argumentative writing of Chinese English majors are revealed.Therefore,the research results may have certain enlightenment significance for the teaching and learning of English argumentative writing. |
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