What is it about?
The ability to successfully position oneself in relation to one’s claims through the use of stance markers is of central importance for academic writers. This study, which uses data from one expert corpus (LOCRA) and three learner corpora (ALEC, VESPA and BATMAT), investigates the use of morphologically related stance markers that occur in different syntactic constructions (such as possibly, the possibility of and it is possible that). In doing so, it examines to what extent lexis, level of expertise in academic writing and L1 transfer influence the distribution of the different realizations of stance under investigation.
Why is it important?
The study identifies problem areas for learner writers with different L1s, thus providing useful tools for the teaching of stance marking to learners of English. For example, when wishing to express the semantics of INTEREST, the learners tended not to use the adverb form 'interestingly', which is what the published writers used most frequently, but rather choose the more familiar construction 'it is interesting to/that'; an increased awareness of semantically similar alternatives would be beneficial for learners, as it would lead to a more varied use of stance markers.