| In the process of writing journal articles,except for describing the research,writers also express their stance to present their opinions on,attitude to,and evaluation of a proposition.Using stance markers correctly contributes to the quality of journal articles.And not many researches investigate stance markers in English applied linguistics journal articles written by Chinese scholars and native English scholars and whether statistical differences exist in stance markers across different sections of journal articles.In order to examine stance markers in English used by Chinese scholars,the paper established two corpora-Chinese scholars’ English journal articles corpus(CSEJAC)and native English scholars’ English journal articles corpus(NESEJAC),and investigated stance markers in terms of two perspectives:(1)Differences in distribution of stance markers in each section of English journal articles in two corpora.(2)The distribution patterns of stance markers across different sections in two corpora,and similarities and differences in these patterns in two corpora.Based on definitions and classifications of stance markers by Biber et al.and Hyland,the study presents a new categorization framework of stance markers,including three major types,namely epistemic stance markers,attitudinal stance markers,and self-mentions,and six subtypes.The author ascertained frequencies of stance makers,after searching them in Ant Conc3.5 and checking manually.Moreover,the author analyzed the data obtained through Loglikelihood and Chi-square Calculator 1.0 and SPSS 22.0 and had the following findings.At first,stance markers in each section present three distribution patterns.(1)In sections of introduction,methodology,and conclusion,stance markers and self-mentions appear less frequently in CSEJAC than NESEJAC.For sub-types,compared with native English scholars,Chinese scholars use fewer first-person self-mentions,but more third-person self-mentions.(2)In results sections,Chinese scholars use more epistemic stance markers but fewer selfmentions than native English scholars.For sub-types,there are more boosters,hedges,emotional stance markers,and third-person self-mentions,but less first-person self-mentions in CSEJAC.(3)In discussion sections,stance markers,three major types,and three sub-types(boosters,evaluative stance markers,and first-person self-mentions),appear less frequently in English journal articles written by Chinese scholars than those written by native English scholars.Moreover,all the differences mentioned above are statistically significant(p<0.05).Besides,there are three types of distribution patterns of stance markers across sections.(1)Epistemic stance markers demonstrate such patterns across sections in CSEJAC:methodology<introduction<results<discussion<conclusion.And epistemic stance markers in methodology sections are fewer than those in results sections and discussion sections(p<0.05).Moreover,epistemic stance markers present following patterns across sections in NESEJAC:methodology<introduction<results<conclusion<discussion.And epistemic stance markers in methodology sections are fewer than those in discussion sections(p<0.05).(2)Attitudinal stance markers show such patterns across sections in CSEJAC: methodology<introduction<discussion<conclusion<results.Moreover,attitudinal stance markers present following patterns across sections in NESEJAC: methodology<introduction<conclusion<discussion<results.(3)Self-mentions demonstrate such patterns across sections in CSEJAC: introduction=discussion<results<conclusion<methodology.Besides,self-mentions present following distribution patterns across sections in NESEJAC: introduction<results<discussion<methodology<conclusion.Besides,there is no significant difference in the distribution of attitudinal stance markers and self-mentions across sections in either of the two corpora.The value of the study on stance markers and the writing of English academic papers lies in two aspects.On the one hand,the study of stance markers in English journal articles,to a certain extent,has enriched the literature on stance markers research.On the other hand,the results of this paper have some inspiration for the teaching and learning of English academic writing.Firstly,teachers should encourage students to use stance markers in writing English academic papers.Secondly,Chinese English learners should distinguish and study the use of stance markers in different sections in English journal articles.In results sections,epistemic stance markers(including boosters and hedges)and emotional stance markers can be used sparingly;in discussion sections,more epistemic stance markers and attitudinal stance markers can be employed,especially hedges and evaluative stance markers;fewer epistemic stance markers and attitudinal stance markers can be used in conclusion sections;more self-mentions can be used in conclusion sections. |
