A Corpus-Based Comparative Study On Stance Markers In Abstracts Of Academic Papers

Language can be used not only to transmit knowledge and information, but also to express one’s emotion, attitude and evaluation towards things. In recent decades, researchers at home and abroad have conducted a large number of studies on stance markers (e.g., Chafe,1986; Holmes,1988; Biber & Finegan,2006; Hyland,2005; Li Jian,1999; Li Zhanzi,2001; Ni Xiying,2002; Yang Xinzhang,2003). However, most of them have concentrated on journal articles and compared use differences in them. It is not common to compare the stance markers used in Chinese master’s students’ theses and the journal articles. The current study focused on the use of stance markers used in the abstracts of the Chinese master’s theses and the British and American journal articles.The research adopted a corpus-based method to collect data for the investigation and used different software like WordSmith, SPSS and Office processing as tools to support the organization and analysis of the raw data. The theses written by students majoring in English and civil-engineering were chosen as the subjects. Hyland’s classification of stance (2005) and Brown & Levinson’s Face Theory (1987) were used as the theoretical foundation for the current study.From the results, a much higher frequency of use of stance markers was found in the abstracts of British and American journal articles (averagely 500 words per 10,000 words), showing those authors’awareness of interactive nature of academic writing and concern with the maintenance of face for both readers and themselves. The Chinese master’s students used stance markers with an average of 197 words per 10,000 words, showing their inadequacy in using stance markers. This means that the students were less concerned with the interactive nature of academic writing and paid less attention to the maintenance of face. Also differences existed in the various types and sub-groups of different types of stance markers. These differences were probably due to the disparate Chinese and English academic cultures and also showed Chinese master’s students’ inadequacy in using stance markers in academic writing. The Chinese students focused more on the objectivity of academic writing, while the journal article authors laid more emphasis on interaction with readers to maintain readers’ and their own face.The Chinese master’s students of two majors showed no significant difference in their general use of stance markers. The students majoring in English had a relatively higher frequency in using stance markers, possibly because of their higher proficiency in using English in academic writing. Also they were more influenced by English academic culture than their engineering counterparts.The current research has pedagogical values in helping students improve their skills in writing academic papers and will shed light on the studies on stance markers, for it provides a relatively integrated understanding of the use of stance markers in academic writing.