| As an important component of a master thesis,literature review possesses unique objectivity and academic rigor,which helps learners gain a clear understanding of previous academic achievements and establish connections.Evaluative language plays a crucial role in the literature review,as it can obviously indicate personal attitude and stance and establish emotional resonance with readers.In order to explore the discourse characteristics of evaluative language and its stance features in depth,this study collected 240 literature reviews from master’s theses in four disciplines,including Physics,Computer science,Pedagogy,Linguistics,and established corpus of literature reviews for master’s theses in Chinese and English.By adopting a combined quantitative and qualitative research method,this study compares and analyzes the form distribution,meaning expression,and authorial identity construction of evaluative language in the literature review section of Chinese and English master’s theses.Based on Stance Markers(Biber,2006)and Appraisal Theory(Martin & White,2005),the study develops an analytical framework applicable to the research and specifically addresses the following three questions:(1)What are the distributional features of evaluative language in literature reviews of Chinese and English master’s theses?(2)What evaluative meanings do Chinese and English postgraduates express in using evaluative language?(3)What authorial identities have Chinese and English postgraduates constructed by using evaluative language?The results show that:(1)Overall,Chinese students and English postgraduates generally use three types of evaluative languages: epistemic,attitudinal,and deontic.The frequency of use for the three types of evaluative language decreases,and Chinese students use evaluative language less frequently than English students.(2)Based on the categories of evaluative language,this study has identified six types of evaluative meanings: certain meaning,precise meaning,emotional meaning,valuable meaning,analogical meaning,and committed meaning.Specifically,Chinese students tend to emphasize the limitation and necessity of their discourse,while English students are inclined to express the likelihood and importance of their discourse.(3)In Chinese and English master’s theses,students have constructed three authorial identities: researcher,evaluator,and interactor in master’s theses.However,in Chinese master’s theses,students primarily construct a researcher identity through the use of evaluative language,while English students tend to construct an evaluator identity.Through discussion,this study found that the differences in the use of evaluative language and authorial identity construction in Chinese and English master’s theses are mainly influenced by academic teaching practices and academic cultural traditions.This comparative study will be helpful for learners to understand the characteristics of evaluative language,reflect on the content of academic writing,and also provide some inspiration for academic writing instruction. |
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