A Corpus-Based Study On Interpersonal Stance Of Anticipatory It Patterns In Chinese MA Students’ Theses

Anticipatory it pattern(?del,2014),encoding interpersonal stance,plays an important role in academic writings.Previous studies focused on the overuse and the underuse of anticipatory it patterns by EFL learners compared with published writers,but little emphasis has been laid by previous studies on EFL learners’ interpersonal stance in academic writings through anticipatory it patterns or the causes of their motivations to use this pattern.This study aims to discover the distribution of anticipatory it patterns in Chinese MA students’ academic writings and look into the correlation between Chinese MA students’ perceptions of interpersonal stance and the deployment of anticipatory it patterns in their academic writings,and therefore uncover the causes of their motivations to use this pattern,with the purpose of providing some implications for the teaching of academic English writing.Drawing on functional typology of interpersonal functions of anticipatory it patterns developed by Hewings & Hewings’(2002)and Larsson’s(2017),i.e.hedges,attitude markers,emphatics and observations,the current study examines Chinese MA students’ interpersonal stance about academic writing with its actual expression through anticipatory it patterns.A corpus consisting of 80 academic writings in the field of applied linguistics written by Chinese postgraduates in four Chinese universities is built.The current study aims to make a corpus-based together with questionnaire and discourse-based interview,and tries to answer the research questions as follows:(1)How are the anticipatory it patterns encoding four categories of interpersonal functions distributed in Chinese MA students’ academic writings?(2)What are the correlations,if any,between Chinese MA students’ perceptions of four interpersonal stances and the deployment of the selected anticipatory it patterns in their academic writings respectively?(3)What are the causes of Chinese MA students’ motivations to use these selected anticipatory it patterns in their academic writings?With the help of quantitative and qualitative analyses,it can be firstly found that there are differences among the distribution of anticipatory it patterns encoding four categories of interpersonal functions in hedges,attitude markers,emphatics and observations.What’s more,Chinese MA theses adopt anticipatory it patterns maximally on observational stance and minimally on the hedging stance.Secondly,the correlations between perceptions of interpersonal stance and the deployment of anticipatory it patterns are also found to differentiate across the four categories of interpersonal functions in the present study.Positive correlations are detected between interpersonal stances(emphatic stance,attitudinal stance,observational stance)and the total frequency of anticipatory it patterns encoding them.However,no significant correlation is detected between hedging stance and the total frequency of anticipatory it patterns encoding tentativeness.According to the further questionnaire and discourse-based interview,the causes of Chinese MA students’ deployment of anticipatory it patterns in their academic writings are discovered in their weaker perception of audience awareness,authorial identity,and teachers’ instructions of overemphasizing authority and objectivity towards academic writing.The findings above are expected to highlight Chinese EFL learners’ perceptions of interpersonal stance encoded in anticipatory it patterns and illustrate different interpersonal strategies used by them,and offer illumination for teaching academic English writing in China.