A Comparative Study On Stance Nouns In The Conclusions Of Masters’ Theses In English Linguistics By Chinese And American Learners From The Perspective Of Appraisal Theory

In recent years,there are more and more researches on stance of academic writing.The proper use of stance nouns in English academic discourse is important for Chinese English learners to improve their academic writing.The conclusion of the thesis is the last opportunity for the author to clarify his views and persuade the reader to accept his own views,which is the essence of the whole paper.However,most of the existing studies focus on stance adverbs,and there is a lack of research on the use of stance nouns in the conclusion section of degree thesis.Since Martin(2005)pointed out that “Appraisal Theory can be used to analyze the attitude and stance of the author and the speaker”,there have been a lot of researches on stance markers based on Appraisal Theory.However,the study of stance nouns from the perspective of Appraisal Theory is rare.In order to enrich the research on stance nouns and Appraisal Theory,and improve the academic writing level of Chinese English learners,this thesis,from the perspective of Appraisal Theory,takes the stance nouns in the conclusions of Chinese and American masters’ theses as the research objects to conduct a comparative analysis of the use of stance nouns in the conclusions of Chinese and American masters’ theses,so as to find out the deficiencies in the writing of Chinese masters’ theses.It is hoped that this thesis will provide useful enlightenment for Chinese learners in learning English academic writing.This thesis is designed to answer the following questions.(1)Are there any differences in the number and type of stance nouns in the conclusions of M.A.degree theses in English linguistics written by Chinese and American learners?(2)Are there any differences in the appraisal function of stance nouns in the conclusions of M.A.degree theses in English linguistics written by Chinese and American learners? If there are differences,what are the possible reasons for the differences?This thesis adopts the qualitative and quantitative research method based on two self-built corpora,and makes a comparative study of the two small corpora,names Chinese Linguistics Masters’ Theses Corpus(CLMTC)and American Linguistics Masters’ Theses Corpus(ALMTC).Ant Conc will be used to count the types and numbers of stance nouns in two self-built corpora,then makes a comparative analysis of the specific usages of stance nouns under different appraisal resources,and uses SPSS software to test whether there are significant differences and finally analyzes the reasons for the differences.The results show that,first of all,the total types of stance nouns used by Chinese and American learners are almost the same,while the subcategories used by Chinese learners are obviously insufficient.American learners use more stance nouns than Chinese learners.Secondly,as for the function of Appraisal Theory,Chinese learners hardly use negative appraisal resources in the attitude subsystem.In the engagement subsystem,American learners use dialogue contraction resources more than Chinese learners to express the stances and opinions.In the graduation subsystem,compared with Chinese learners,American learners use more force resources than focus resources.The main reasons for these differences may be the social and cultural backgrounds of China and the United States and the differences in the use of the two languages.This thesis also has some limitations.First of all,due to the limited ability and time,only 40 samples were selected.Secondly,the qualitative analysis of stance nouns is inevitably subjective.Therefore,more data should be collected in the future research to improve the study of stance nouns in academic discourse analysis from the perspective of Appraisal Theory.