Understanding Chinese MA Students’ Interpersonal Stance of Anticipatory “It” Patterns: Using Corpus Results to Guide Questionnaire and Discourse-Based Interview

Anticipatory “it” pattern, which encodes interpersonal stance, plays a crucial role in academic writing. While previous studies have been explored the overuse and the underuse of this pattern among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners and published writers, there has been limited exploration...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jing Chen, Yi Jiang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publishing 2025-01-01
Series:SAGE Open
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440251313953
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1832586552427937792
author Jing Chen
Yi Jiang
author_facet Jing Chen
Yi Jiang
author_sort Jing Chen
collection DOAJ
description Anticipatory “it” pattern, which encodes interpersonal stance, plays a crucial role in academic writing. While previous studies have been explored the overuse and the underuse of this pattern among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners and published writers, there has been limited exploration of how EFL learners use the anticipatory “it” pattern to express interpersonal stance in their academic writing. This study examines the relationship between Chinese MA students’ perceptions of interpersonal stance and their use of anticipatory “it” patterns in academic writing. Utilizing a self-compiled corpus of Chinese MA theses corpus, supplemented by a questionnaire and discourse-based interviews, this research aims to identify factors influencing students’ motivations to employ this pattern. Applying Hewings and Hewings’ functional typology of interpersonal functions of the “it” clause, the results reveal varying correlations across four categories of interpersonal functions in Chinese MA theses. These findings offer valuable insights into the nuanced relationship between students’ perceptions of interpersonal stance and their use of anticipatory “it” pattern, with implications for teaching and learning academic English writing.
format Article
id doaj-art-0ee6eca7ee2d4a19b1a7d5125fdb1868
institution Kabale University
issn 2158-2440
language English
publishDate 2025-01-01
publisher SAGE Publishing
record_format Article
series SAGE Open
spelling doaj-art-0ee6eca7ee2d4a19b1a7d5125fdb18682025-01-25T07:04:21ZengSAGE PublishingSAGE Open2158-24402025-01-011510.1177/21582440251313953Understanding Chinese MA Students’ Interpersonal Stance of Anticipatory “It” Patterns: Using Corpus Results to Guide Questionnaire and Discourse-Based InterviewJing Chen0Yi Jiang1Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, ChinaXian Lin Primary School, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, ChinaAnticipatory “it” pattern, which encodes interpersonal stance, plays a crucial role in academic writing. While previous studies have been explored the overuse and the underuse of this pattern among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners and published writers, there has been limited exploration of how EFL learners use the anticipatory “it” pattern to express interpersonal stance in their academic writing. This study examines the relationship between Chinese MA students’ perceptions of interpersonal stance and their use of anticipatory “it” patterns in academic writing. Utilizing a self-compiled corpus of Chinese MA theses corpus, supplemented by a questionnaire and discourse-based interviews, this research aims to identify factors influencing students’ motivations to employ this pattern. Applying Hewings and Hewings’ functional typology of interpersonal functions of the “it” clause, the results reveal varying correlations across four categories of interpersonal functions in Chinese MA theses. These findings offer valuable insights into the nuanced relationship between students’ perceptions of interpersonal stance and their use of anticipatory “it” pattern, with implications for teaching and learning academic English writing.https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440251313953
spellingShingle Jing Chen
Yi Jiang
Understanding Chinese MA Students’ Interpersonal Stance of Anticipatory “It” Patterns: Using Corpus Results to Guide Questionnaire and Discourse-Based Interview
SAGE Open
title Understanding Chinese MA Students’ Interpersonal Stance of Anticipatory “It” Patterns: Using Corpus Results to Guide Questionnaire and Discourse-Based Interview
title_full Understanding Chinese MA Students’ Interpersonal Stance of Anticipatory “It” Patterns: Using Corpus Results to Guide Questionnaire and Discourse-Based Interview
title_fullStr Understanding Chinese MA Students’ Interpersonal Stance of Anticipatory “It” Patterns: Using Corpus Results to Guide Questionnaire and Discourse-Based Interview
title_full_unstemmed Understanding Chinese MA Students’ Interpersonal Stance of Anticipatory “It” Patterns: Using Corpus Results to Guide Questionnaire and Discourse-Based Interview
title_short Understanding Chinese MA Students’ Interpersonal Stance of Anticipatory “It” Patterns: Using Corpus Results to Guide Questionnaire and Discourse-Based Interview
title_sort understanding chinese ma students interpersonal stance of anticipatory it patterns using corpus results to guide questionnaire and discourse based interview
url https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440251313953
work_keys_str_mv AT jingchen understandingchinesemastudentsinterpersonalstanceofanticipatoryitpatternsusingcorpusresultstoguidequestionnaireanddiscoursebasedinterview
AT yijiang understandingchinesemastudentsinterpersonalstanceofanticipatoryitpatternsusingcorpusresultstoguidequestionnaireanddiscoursebasedinterview