A Corpus-based Contrastive Study On Nominal Stance Construction In Chinese And American MA Theses Of Linguistics

Written academic discourse is conceived to be a persuasive endeavor that involves the interaction between the writer and the reader.The writer not only presents information or knowledge but also persuades the reader to accept his or her points of view in academic writing.The writer’s proper employment of stance expressions is crucial in the process of persuasion.Over the last three decades,a great number of researchers have examined a series of linguistic stance devices from various perspectives.The nominal stance construction,however,is paid less attention to.This study,by compiling a self-created corpus of 35 Chinese MA theses of linguistics and 35 American MA theses of linguistics with Jiang & Hyland’s(2015;2016)functional classification mode,intends to explore Chinese and American graduate students’ stance features on the use of nominal stance construction.The research questions are: 1)How do Chinese and American graduate students employ the Noun Complement structure respectively? What are the differences in terms of the distribution,diversity,function of stance nouns and clausal structures as a whole and in different parts of the thesis? 2)How do Chinese graduate students differ from American graduate students in terms of their preferences on the choice of pre-modifications to stance nouns and syntactic structures? 3)What are the different features of academic writing between Chinese and American graduate students judging from the most frequently used stance nouns?Ultimately,results show that noun complement structures are significantly lessemployed by Chinese graduate students who tend to express personal views more often in literature and review part of the thesis.In contrast,American graduate students employ this nominal stance construction most in results and discussion part.Functionally,similarities and differences exist between two group students on the choice of stance nouns and the subsequent clausal structures.In terms of the use of stance nouns,both Chinese and American graduate students prefer the use of nouns in entity category best,followed by nouns in attribute category.In terms of the use of clausal structures,on the whole,Chinese graduate students make most frequent use of Noun to-infinitive clause especially on the use of manner nouns within attribute category to present subjective statements in academic writing.By comparison,American graduate students prefer the use of Noun that clause especially on the use of event nouns and relation nouns to construct stance in objective ways.Remarkable differences are also found in the use of pre-modification to stance nouns.All the findings indicate that in written academic discourse,Chinese graduate students tend to bring more personal affection into academic texts by using attitudinal evaluative adjectives.Judging from the most frequent used stance nouns,American graduate students tend to have the initiative to express points of view,while Chinese graduate students prefer to be the receivers for others’ viewpoints.It is also found that American graduate students tend to be assertive on the reliability of the evidence that serves to develop their argument,while Chinese graduate students appear to be prudent in convincing the readers of the content of their talk.Besides,although self-mention markers are employed by two group students.American graduate students prefer to use “my” in introduction and conclusion part,while Chinese graduate students tend to use “we” in results and discussion part.Through comparison between the two corpora,this study hopes to bring certain awareness on nominal stance construction in academic writing and offers advice for academic English writing.