A Contrastive Study On Stance Construction In Argumentative Text By Chinese And American College Students

Authorial stance refers to the lexical and grammatical expression of attitudes, feelings, judgments, or commitment concerning the message, including the indication of the speaker's degree of commitment towards the truthfulness of the message. It is extremely important in writing argumentative essays.In recent years, there have been fruitful results in the study of stance. Scholars investigate stance expression from a multi-dimension perspective, including lexis, syntax, functions and etc. However, domestic study of stance has been rare. Most studies on the related topics are concerned with theoretical debate on the functions or classifications of the given subject of research. And there are few empirical studies.This study investigates the difference in stance construction between American and Chinese students in terms of the use of stance markers. 60 compositions are taken from the corpus WECCL, and another 60 American compositions with the same topics are constructed as a corpus for reference. By the study of the use of stance markers, it is found that although there is no significant difference in the overall number of stance expressions between the two groups, Chinese students tend to employ very limited ways to express stance, relying mainly on several fixed expressions. Conclusions are drawn from the following three aspects: 1) in terms of stance adverbials, Chinese students significantly underuse this type, especially single adverbs. The preference for attitudinal stance markers signifies Chinese students'authoritative attitude on demonstrating their points. 2) no significant difference is shown on the use of stance complements. Chinese students even use more stance complements than American students. However, the lexis they prefer in introducing the clauses are very simple and commonly used words, and the complement clauses mainly fall into verb+that category, which differentiates them from American students who can employ different types of clause in expressing stance. 3) Chinese students obviously overuse stance modals, especially some modals that are hard and forceful in tone like should. On the whole, it is found that Chinese students have a strong will in expressing stance in their writings, but on the other hand they cannot make use of stance expressions from a multi-perspective. The reasons for this might be attributed to their English proficiency, limited vocabulary and cultural influence.Based on empirical research, this study probes into the use of stance by Chinese EFL learners. It provides reference for English teachers in their teaching, and could promote the development of the teaching of English writing.