4.3 Distribution of Multi-word Hedges across Three Corpora
4.3.1 Top 25 Multi-word Hedges across Three Corpora
Table 4.6 presents top 25 multi-word hedges across three corpora. The multi-word hedges are ranked in terms of frequency. Mostly, the hedging constructions employed in the three groups are in the clauses headed by abstract entity, anticipatory it clauses, or human subject clauses. With abstract entity clauses, three groups consistently employ verbs suggest, show, indicate as in the results suggest that, the studies show that, the results indicate that. This structure is mostly used to report findings or results. However, some slight differences are shown in the use of other clauses. Anticipatory it-clauses controlled by verbs indicate difference among L2, native, and journal groups. It is (was) found was more frequently used to suggest results in L2 corpus than in native and journal corpus. L2 writers tend to use constructions such as it is (strongly) suggested that and it is hoped that to express their suggestions or expectations before or after the study. In comparison, native and journal writers do not seem to frequently use it is (strongly) suggested that to express
Type L2 Native Journal
Adjectives 43 (6.22) 134 (16.41) 118 (14.11)
Nouns 0 19 (2.33) 8 (0.96)
Total 43 6.22 153 17.39 126 14.82
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one’s suggestions. It is hoped that was also found absent from the top 25 list in native and journal groups. Rather, it seems that they would use active constructions, for example, (the studies, the results) suggested that, X (2001) suggested that, X (1988) found that to convey tentativeness. X (2001) suggested that ranks 7th in native corpus and 13th in journal corpus. The multi-word hedge X (2001) found that ranks 11th in L2 corpus, whereas this same construction ranks first and third in native and journal corpus, respectively. Another area that is worth noting is the use of multi-word hedge it is (should) (be) noted that. The use of this hedge is absent from the L2 corpus, but it is a mutual hedge in native and journal corpus. Last, one more difference is the sensory verbs seem and appear. For L2 writers, it seems that is the only multi-word hedge that appears on the list. In addition to it seems that, native and journal writers also use it appears that which ranks 18th and 9th in native and journal corpus, respectively.
The results also suggest that L2 writers do not use as many adjective controlled clauses as native and journal writers do since adjective controlled clauses were absent from the list in L2 corpus. On the other hand, native and journal groups use more of the hedges controlled by adjectives as shown in underlined (e.g. it is possible that, it is clear that, it is evident that, it is likely (not unlikely) that).
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Table 4.6 Top 25 Multi-word Hedges across Three Corpora
No. L2
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59 4.3.2 Anticipatory it Clauses
Figure 4.1 Frequency of Structural Patterns in Anticipatory It-Clauses
Based on the data, anticipatory it-clauses are divided into five sub-patterns: it + (modal) (be) verb, it + be + adjective, it + noun. From the figure above, it is evident that L2 writers differ from native writers in some aspects. The predominant structural pattern for the L2 group is it + (modal)+(be) + verb (e.g. it is (was) concluded that) and the least frequent pattern is it + noun. Native and journal writers, on the other hand, are slightly the opposite. They showed higher frequency in the two aspects, nouns and adjectives.
4.3.2.1 It + (modal) + (be) + verb
Epistemic lexical verbs constitute the greatest number in anticipatory it clauses in the three groups. The verbs can be presented in either passive or active forms.
Based on the data from the corpora, passive forms occur more frequently in anticipatory-it clause than in any other clause type. The results are not surprising since passive forms are a typical linguistic feature in academic writing, which has been acknowledged by many studies (Salager-Meyer, 1994; Hyland, 1998; Varttala, 2001;
Vold, 2006; Hewings & Hewings, 2002). Despite the consistencies, there are still some slight variations in the three corpora. Table 4.7 below summarizes the ranking of some frequent verbs along with the corresponding verb types, raw frequency, and
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Comparing the total frequency of three verb types in the three corpora, L2 writers are found to be the highest which is 53.45 per hundred thousand words, followed by native and journal groups. From the total number of frequency, it is evident that both native and journal writers are roughly equal. As for the overall distribution of each verb type in anticipatory it-clauses, non-factive reporting verbs appear to be the most popular. In L2 corpus, non-factive reporting verbs accounted for more than half of the total occurrences at the frequency of 32.43 which occupies approximately 60% (32.43 / 53.45) of the three categories. Similar results are also apparent in native corpus. Native writers have the frequency of 13.73 in this category which is around 50% (13.73 / 25.74) of the three categories. Nevertheless, journal writers do not show as much contrast among the three categories as L2 and native writers. This finding might be due to the fact that the length of journal articles is shorter than the articles found in native and journal corpora.
Evidently seen from the findings, it could be concluded that non-factive reporting verbs are used more frequently by three groups of writers, which is consistently the same across three corpora.
Table 4.7 Frequency of Verbs in Anticipatory it-Clauses
L2 Native Journal
Cognitive RF NF Cognitive RF NF Cognitive RF NF
hope 41 4.98 assume 13 1.59 assume 13 1.55
infer 18 2.19 hypothesize 14 1.72 predict 8 0.96
believe 16 1.94 expect 9 1.10 expect 7 0.84
assume 16 2.19 infer 7 0.86 hypothesize 7 0.84
expect 15 1.82 believe 6 0.74 believe 5 0.60
imply 7 0.85 imply 3 0.37 hope 5 0.60
speculate 4 0.49 hope 2 0.25 imply 3 0.36
infer 1 0.12
Subtotal 117 14.46 Subtotal 54 6.63 Subtotal 49 5.87
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As can be seen from Table 4.7, the verbs are categorized into three major types:
cognitive (related to one’s mental processes, beliefs, speculations, expectations), sensory (refer to one’s feelings, opinions), and non-factive reporting verbs (refer to the report of research findings). Nevertheless, variations are shown in some of the verb usage. The present study points out some of the syntactic constructions along with example sentences that appear to have noticeable differences.
Sensory RF NF Sensory RF NF Sensory RF NF
seem 43 5.22 seem 25 3.06 seem 32 3.82
appear 11 1.34 appear 19 2.32 appear 31 3.71
Subtotal 54 6.56 Subtotal 44 5.38 Subtotal 63 7.53 Non-factive RF NF Non-factive RF NF Non-factive RF NF
suggest 78 9.47 note 39 4.78 note 42 5.02
found 66 8.02 conclude 20 2.45 found 29 3.46
show 31 3.77 found 16 1.96 suggest 10 1.20
conclude 21 2.55 recommend 13 1.59 show 8 0.96
note 13 1.58 suggest 11 1.35 demonstrate 5 0.60
observe 9 1.09 indicate 5 0.61 conclude 5 0.60
indicate 9 1.09 propose 3 0.37 state 5 0.60
recommend 9 1.09 claim 2 0.25 claim 4 0.48
claim 7 0.85 reveal 2 0.25 indicate 3 0.36
state 5 0.61 demonstrate 1 0.12 propose 3 0.36
report 5 0.61 observe 2 0.24
reveal 5 0.61 recommend 1 0.12
See 5 0.61 reveal 1 0.12
Say 3 0.36
demonstrate 1 0.12
Subtotal 267 32.43 Subtotal 112 13.73 Subtotal 118 13.24 Total 438 53.45 Total 210 25.74 Total 230 26.64
62 a. Cognitive Verbs
In cognitive category, one of the interesting differences is hope. In L2 corpus, the verb hope has the highest frequency with 4.98 per hundred thousand words which occupies around 30% of the entire cognitive category. That is to say, L2 writers tend to heavily rely on this verb. The verb hope is used to express some of the possible benefits or contributions of a research study would bring to language teaching and learning. For example, in examples (i) (iii) authors have expressed their expectations by stating that it is hoped that this study will provide…it is hoped that this study will shed light on…In comparison with native and journal corpus, the tendency of expressing one’s own expectations in the pattern it is / was hoped that is relatively low in the other two corpora. Both native writers and journal experts exhibited quite low frequency with only around 0.25 for natives and 0.6 per hundred thousand words for journal writers. The infrequent use of this verb might be attributable to the fact that it is a “private verb”. According to Biber et al. (1988:105, cited in Granger &
Paquot, 2009), “private verbs” (love, want, hope, feel) are associated with one’s own feelings, emotions, and attitudes, and this verb type seldom appears in written academic texts.
(i) It is also hoped that this study will provide teachers with an effective e-learning and e-testing instruction instrument to carry out their teaching and evaluation. (NKNU 03) – L2 corpus
(ii) By improving and upgrading the quality of team-teaching, it is hoped that the results of the study can help EFL learners to learn how to incorporate appropriate narrative structure and evaluative devices to produce an engaging and coherent narrative. (NKUST 03) – L2 corpus
(iii) There have been scare studies discussing Taiwanese students' English learning characteristics and their language learner autonomy. It is hoped that this study will shed light on language learner autonomy itself and its relationship with
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Taiwan students' English learning characteristics. (NCUE 03) – L2 corpus
(iv) There have not been many studies to have implemented a Direct Instruction writing program; therefore, it was hoped that this study would add to the existing literature base. (Ohio State 39) – Native corpus
(v) It was hoped that by using multimedia program with its guided tasks might have contributed to the development of learners’…(ESP 62) – Journal corpus
b. Sensory Verbs
As pointed out earlier, sensory verbs are the smallest proportion of the entire corpora, which is consistently true in the three corpora. The two main verbs which fall under this category are seem and appear. They are widely acknowledged as the typical markers of tentativeness in academic writing. This finding is also evident in a number of studies (e.g. Varttala, 1999 ; Hewings & Hewings, 2002) in which they found that these two are typical hedging strategies in academic writing. The present study found that seem and appear are either used to report the observed findings in their own present study or provide their own interpretation to the existing literature so as to attenuate the force of evaluation and to reflect tentativeness and uncertainty in researchers’ interpretation.
(i) It seems that NESTs and NNESTs teach differently, which is why many schools want to recruit NESTs for their students. (NTUST 04) – L2 corpus
(ii) It seems that Taiwanese students are used to adapting themselves to different learning contexts such as tests, assignments, in-class English learning activities.
(NCUE 03) – L2 corpus
(iii) In consideration for the affective benefit of extensive reading, it seems that the only member of the intended treatment group to have expressed a very favorable of extensive reading was a Taiwanese female. As for Saudi Arabian male 2… (Toledo 42) – Native corpus
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(iv) …students were very engaged in the reading rehearsing of this text. It seems that students were unable to identify and articulate the use of high-interest, appropriately-leveled books as motivational to their reading in the classroom…(BGSU 05) – Native corpus
(v) From student evaluation it seemed that the virtual department did offer them the communication and working opportunities they needed. (CALL 21) – Journal corpus
(vi) Lyster (2007,p.151), who advocate practice that is “inherently repetitive and psychologically authentic.” It seems that, in order for writing tasks to be truly authentic, students would need to focus on the accurate production… (TESOL 46) – Journal corpus
In addition, the present finding also indicates L2 writers seldom use it would seem / appear that. On the other hand, native and journal writers would use this construction to attenuate the force of a proposition either in literature or results section. It could be either used in evaluation to previous researchers’ belief or to one’s own research findings. In native corpus, this string of hedges occurs 12 times in 7 texts which is around 14% (7/51) for the dispersion rate. In journal corpus, it appears 8 times in 7 texts. The dispersion rate is about 6.4%. Although the frequency is not too high, the data could still show some tendency of native writers.
(i) Hughes argue that… It would seem that the best language placement tests are those created in-house, with a specific population in mind. (Youngstown 50)–Native corpus
(ii) Whether or not the AR [Accelerated Reader] accomplishes each of these goals is much of debate. For example, it would appear that the goals of Accelerated Reader do not cover the social aspects…(BGSU 15) –Native corpus
(iii) In politics, although much less frequent overall, almost equal numbers of SHOW and ARGUE verbs occur…Thus it would seem that the extensive use of a hidden averral with a SHOW verb is particularly characteristic of writing in materials.
65 –Journal corpus (AL 08)
(iv) The study focused on all four skills. Therefore, it would appear that Base strategies are context specific. (FLA 89) –Journal corpus
c. Non-Factive Reporting Verbs
Non-factive reporting verbs refer to verbs which are used to report writers’
research findings from previous studies (Varttala, 2001). Many verbs were found to be mutually shared across three groups, but there are differences in terms of frequency.
L2 writers tend to have used certain verbs more frequently than others.
In L2 corpus, the top three markers are suggest, found, and show. Taking these three verbs to compare with the ones in native and journal corpus, it was found that L2 writers have a much higher frequency in these verbs. The three verbs account for around 60%, which is over half of the entire verb category. That is to say, L2 writers seem to heavily rely on these verbs more than other verbs. In native corpus, only suggest and found were in anticipatory it clauses. These two verbs only make up around 25% of the verb category. In other words, native writers do not seem to have used as many of these verbs as L2 writers do. In journal corpus, similar results were also obtained. The verbs suggest, found, and show were found to occupy around 40%, which is 20% less than L2 writers. That is to say, journal writers were found to use less of these verbs when compared to the data in L2 corpus.
Below are some of the examples extracted from the corpora. These examples are used in reporting results, conclusions, or suggestions. As in example (i), it was an example of an author trying to give a suggestion with the form of it is suggested that.
(i) As in the sample size of this study, it is suggested that more participants are considered in future studies so that the research findings may be applied more widely.
(NTUE 02) – L2 corpus
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(ii) To investigate whether the distribution of textual relations performed by conjunctive adverbials is under the influence of genre, a two-way ANOVA is calculated, and it is found that genre has no role in impacting the distribution of textual relations performed by conjunctive adverbials and… (Cheng Kung 03) – L2 corpus
(iii) When the data were examined for instances of these strategies it was found that the learners requested assistance. (CALL 17) – Journal corpus
In addition to frequency differences in the verbs show, suggest, found, one of the verbs that also shows difference is the verb note. Interestingly, the verb is the most frequently used verb accounting for around 30% in both native and journal corpus.
The low frequent use of note in the L2 group might suggest that L2 writers are still not familiar enough with the use of the verb.
(i) Williams and Burden’s ( 1999 ) study showed that attributions for success were internal among Year 6 and Year 7 learners in the U.K. ... it is noted that some children from Year 6 and 7 started to sense the importance of task difficulty and perceptions of ability also emerge more clearly in Year 9 and 10. (NKUST 04) –L2 corpus
(ii) In the literature review, it was noted that teachers themselves wondered if recent college graduates had more exposure than they had. (Miami 29) –Native corpus
(iii) Figure 3 and 4… it is noted that both Luisa and Marianna reported interacting in Portuguese or fluent native speakers of the language more hours per day…(FLA 97) –Journal corpus
In addition, it is worthy to note other differences. From the three corpora, L2 writers tend to collocate see along with anticipatory it subject, but both native writers and journal experts rarely use observe and see in anticipatory it clauses. Rather, they are inclined to use human subjects ahead of the verbs. The examples below can help
67 clarify the point.
(i) In Table 4.2 it can be seen that the fit measures met the standards. (NCUE 04) –L2 corpus
(ii) As shown in Table 4, it can be seen that more than two-thirds of the students with different disadvantaged backgrounds reported… (NCUE 01) –L2 corpus
(iii) …we can see that Fred clearly responded to his three students, but it is interesting to note in Table 3 that… (Dayton 22) –Native corpus
(iv) Figure 2.3 shows a…we can see that the mean shadowed production for each vowel was…(Ohio State 41) –Native corpus
(v) When we examine what properties of input have actually been investigated with respect to perceptual salience, we see that they involve phenomena that are possibly many processing steps removed from the signal. (IRALT 76) –Journal corpus
(vi) Given what took place during their task interaction and the sequence of talk which starts the excerpt, we see that Chi and the teacher became engaged in a course of action that Inez did not participate. (IRALT 71) –Journal corpus
From the examples given above, it is noted that L2 writers use the fixed pattern it can be seen that to report the results of their own study, whereas native writers and journal writers prefer the use of clauses which begin with the use of pronoun we such as we can see that…or we see that, which serves as an indication of personal commitment to the proposition. More discussion on the first-person pronouns will be discussed in later sections of this chapter.
4.3.2.2 It + noun + that
The present findings suggest that the frequencies for this syntactic construction are not as contrastive as expected. Although native writers come first, the frequency is
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still only 1.82 per hundred thousand words. The obtained frequency is not as high as expected. More investigation into the use of syntactic pattern might be necessary.
However, interestingly, the present study identified a possible syntactic construction it could be the case which are used to express expectations or possibilities. Examples are shown as follows.
(i) It was my hope that working with avid readers meant that there would be a greater chance of reading engagement, therefore, providing me with more data to analyze. (Ohio State 40) –Native corpus
(ii) It may also be the case that females report more internal states more often…while males are more likely to report negative emotions exclusively. (Miami 30) –Native corpus
(iii) Finally, it is a possibility that students in the Family English class were apt to provide the researcher with data they thought the researcher wanted to see. This may be because students from other countries may have cultural reluctance… (BGSU 19) –Native corpus
Table 4.8 Frequency of Nouns across in Anticipatory it-Clauses
Native RF NF Journal RF NF
hope 8 0.98 case 6 0.72
case 5 0.61 belief 1 0.12
belief 2 0.25 hope 1 0.12
conclusion 2 0.25
suspicion 1 0.12
indication 1 0.12
Total 19 2.33 Total 8 0.96
Note: RF=Raw Frequency NF=Normalized Frequency per 100,000 words Below are some of the sentences extracted from the native corpus.
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(i) It was my hope that working with avid readers meant that there would be a greater chance of reading engagement, therefore, providing me with more data to analyze. (Ohio State 40) –Native corpus
(ii) It may also be the case that females report more internal states more often…while males are more likely to report negative emotions exclusively. (Miami 30) –Native corpus
(iii) Finally, it is a possibility that students in the Family English class were apt to provide the researcher with data they thought the researcher wanted to see. This may be because students from other countries may have cultural reluctance… (BGSU 19) –Native corpus
4.3.2.3 It + adjective + that / It + adjective + to + infinitive + that
Comparing the total number of use across three groups, generally speaking, L2 writers appear to use less number of adjectives to present their claims with only 4.98 per hundred thousand words. On the contrary, both native and journal writers would employ greater number of hedges with 16.41 per hundred thousand words for natives
Comparing the total number of use across three groups, generally speaking, L2 writers appear to use less number of adjectives to present their claims with only 4.98 per hundred thousand words. On the contrary, both native and journal writers would employ greater number of hedges with 16.41 per hundred thousand words for natives