| Nowadays,research on academic writing has shifted its focus from lexical or grammatical devices to interpersonal features.Specifically,scholars focus on how to express stance effectively and build interpersonal relationship with readers under genre conventions.Various studies have investigated stance expressions from different perspectives.However,the noun complement structure,which serves as a key means to manifest stance,is still a relatively overlooked area.Based on a learner corpus and a reference corpus,this study examines the nominal stance constructions used by Chinese English majors of different educational levels in their theses with a reference to the use of these constructions by native English writers.To be specific,this study aims to answer the following questions:(1)How do Chinese English majors of different educational levels employ nominal stance constructions in English academic writing? How do they differ from native English writers?(2)How do Chinese English majors of different educational levels manifest stance through the use of entity head nouns in nominal stance constructions? How do they differ from native English writers?(3)How do Chinese English majors of different educational levels manifest stance through the use of attribute head nouns in nominal stance constructions? How do they differ from native English writers?(4)How do Chinese English majors of different educational levels manifest stance through the use of relation head nouns in nominal stance constructions? How do they differ from native English writers?In order to answer these research questions,this study examines the use of noun complement structures as nominal stance constructions in 45 theses by Chinese English majors(15 theses of each educational level)and 30 research articles written by native English writers,with all the theses restricted to the discipline of applied linguistics.The study yields the following major findings:(1)Chinese English majors significantly underused noun complement structures as nominal stance constructions compared with native English writers.However,no significant difference was found in the use of noun complement structures as nominal stance constructions among Chinese English majors of different educational levels.(2)Chinese English majors used entity head nouns significantly less than native English writers.As for learners of different educational levels,doctoral students used such head nouns most frequently but there was no obvious difference between undergraduates and master students in the use of entity head nouns.(3)Chinese English majors significantly overused attribute head nouns in academic writing than native English writers.In addition,the frequency of attribute head nouns declined with the increase of educational levels.(4)Relation head nouns used by Chinese English majors and native English writers showed little difference.Such kind of head nouns was quite rare in both Chinese English majors' and native English writers' theses.This study has important theoretical and practical implications.Theoretically,this study introduces another way to express stance in academic writing.The use of noun complement structures makes writers' stance foregrounded,and thus the use of this structure as nominal stance construction could influence how readers interpret and understand the information that writers convey.The current study also contributes a lot to the growing literature on stance in English academic writing.Stance markers are traditionally considered to involve adjectives,adverbs or reporting verbs,but the current study reveals the role of head nouns in stance-taking in noun complement structures.Practically,this study explores the relationship between the use of nominal stance constructions and students' educational levels and makes comparisons between native English writers and L2 learners.It could shed light on the learning and teaching of academic writing;simultaneously,it will also have implications for the design of teaching materials. |
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