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Part of
Intercultural Perspectives on Research Writing
Edited by Pilar Mur-Dueñas and Jolanta Šinkūnienė
[AILA Applied Linguistics Series 18] 2018
► pp. 277–297

Chapter 13
Exploring ELF manuscripts

An analysis of the anticipatory it pattern with an interpersonal function

| Universidad de Zaragoza
A great deal of academic knowledge is produced in English by and for peers from different linguacultural backgrounds. It is the aim of this paper to study written scholarly English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) communication, focusing specifically on a lexico-grammatical structure, the anticipatory it pattern, fulfilling an interpersonal (attitudinal and epistemic) function. Its use in the Sci-ELF corpus (University of Helsinki, Finland), will be compared to its use in a corpus of ENL RAs of the SERAC (Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain). The analysis focuses on its overall frequency of use, and that of its subpatterns, the functions (attitudinal, hedging, boosting), and the lexical choices made. The analysis will contribute to a much needed description of written academic ELF discourse.
Keywords: English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), academic written discourse, scholarly communication, research article writing, intercultural rhetoric, interpersonality, anticipatory it pattern, attitudinal evaluation, epistemic evaluation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The anticipatory it pattern in academic writing
  • 3.Corpus and methods
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Overall results
    • 4.2Anticipatory it pattern as an attitudinal marker
    • 4.3Anticipatory it pattern as a hedge
    • 4.4Anticipatory it pattern as a booster
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 December 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aals.18.13mur
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