Article published in:
International Journal of Learner Corpus Research
Vol. 5:1 (2019) ► pp. 33–62

Extraposition in learner and expert writing

Exploring (in)formality and the impact of register

| Université catholique de Louvain | Uppsala University
| University of Gävle
Subject extraposition (e.g. it is important to remember) is generally considered to be a formal construction that learners, whose writing is often said to be overly informal, have been found to struggle with. This study investigates to what extent register and text type can be used to explore learners’ reportedly “informal” use of this construction. Learner writing is compared to expert writing from several different registers and to native-speaker student writing. The results show that there are important differences across both registers and text types. Furthermore, while the learners’ use is most like that of the experts’ academic writing, certain similarities to the non-academic registers were also noted. The results additionally suggest that earlier claims about the informal status of learner writing seem mainly to have been influenced by the text types included in the corpora previously investigated.
Keywords: extraposition, register, learner writing, expert writing, informality
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous research on extraposition
  • 3.Material and method
    • 3.1Corpora used in the study
    • 3.2Method
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1A comparison across registers
      • 4.1.1An overview
      • 4.1.2A more detailed analysis of the adjective-verb pairings
    • 4.2A comparison across text types
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 13 March 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijlcr.17014.lar
References
Ädel, A.
(2006) Metadiscourse in L1 and L2 English. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2008) Involvement features in writing: Do time and interaction trump register awareness? In G. Gilquin, S. Papp & M. B. Díez-Bedmar (Eds.), Linking up contrastive and learner corpus research (pp. 35–53). Amsterdam: Rodopi. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2014) Selecting quantitative data for qualitative analysis: A case study connecting a lexicogrammatical pattern to rhetorical moves. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 161, 68–80. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Altenberg, B., & Tapper, M.
(1998) The use of adverbial connectors in advanced Swedish learners’ written English. In S. Granger (Ed.), Learner English on computer (pp. 80–93). London: Longman.Google Scholar
Baayen, H.
(2008) Analyzing linguistic data: A practical introduction to statistics using R. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E.
(1999) Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
BNC-15
. Subset of the British National Corpus (BNC) sampled by Henrik Kaatari at Uppsala University in 2012.Google Scholar
Burnard, L.
(2007) Reference guide for the British National Corpus (XML Edition). Available at: http://​www​.natcorp​.ox​.ac​.uk​/docs​/URG/ (accessed June 2017).
Callies, M.
(2009) Information highlighting in advanced learner English. The syntax-pragmatics interface in second language acquisition. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
(2013) Agentivity as a determinant of lexico-grammatical variation in L2 academic writing. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 18(3), 357–390. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Chafe, W.
(1986) Evidentiality in English conversation and academic writing. In W. Chafe & J. Nichols (Eds.), Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology (pp. 261–272). Norwood: Ablex.Google Scholar
Davies, M.
(2008) The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA): 520 Million Words 1990-present Available online at http://​corpus​.byu​.edu​/coca/ (accessed June 2017).
Evert, S.
(2006) How random is a corpus? The library metaphor. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 54(2), 177–190. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Glynn, D.
(2014) Correspondence analysis: An exploratory technique for identifying usage patterns. In D. Glynn & J. A. Robinson (Eds.), Corpus methods in cognitive semantics: Quantitative studies in polysemy and synonymy (pp. 443–485). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Granger, S., Dagneaux, E., Meunier, F., & Paquot, M.
(2009) International Corpus of Learner English. Version 2. Handbook + CD-ROM. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses universitaires de Louvain.Google Scholar
Granger, S., & Petch-Tyson, S.
(1996) Connector usage in the English essay writing of native and non-native EFL speakers of English. World Englishes: Journal of English as an International and Intranational Language, 15(1), 17–27. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gries, S. Th.
(2007) Coll.analysis 3.2a. A Program for R for Windows 2.x.Google Scholar
Groom, N.
(2005) Pattern and meaning across genres and disciplines: An exploratory study. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 4(3), 257–277. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hasselgren, A.
(1994) Lexical teddy bears and advanced learners: A study into the ways Norwegian students cope with English vocabulary. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 4(2), 237–260. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hasselgård, H.
(2009) Thematic choice and expressions of stance in English argumentative texts by Norwegian learners. In K. Aijmer (Ed.), Corpora and Language Teaching (pp. 121–139). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Herriman, J., & Boström Aronsson, M.
(2009) Themes in Swedish advanced learners’ writing in English. In K. Aijmer (Ed.), Corpora and Language Teaching (pp. 101–120). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hewings, M., & Hewings, A.
(2002) ‘It is interesting to note that…’: A comparative study of anticipatory it in student and published writing. English for Specific Purposes, 21(4), 367–383. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hoey, M.
(2005) Lexical Priming: A New Theory of Words and Language. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kaatari, H.
(2016) Variation across two dimensions: Testing the Complexity Principle and the Uniform Information Density principle on adjectival data. English Language and Linguistics, 20(3), 533–558. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2017) Adjectives complemented by that- and to-clauses: Exploring semantico-syntactic relationships and genre variation. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.Google Scholar
Kaltenböck, G.
(2005)  It-extraposition in English: A functional view. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 10(2), 119–159. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kassambara, A., & Mundt, F.
(2017) factoextra: Extract and visualize the results of multivariate data analyses. R package version 1.0.4. Available at: https://​CRAN​.R​-project​.org​/package​=factoextra (accessed June 2017).
Larsson, T.
(2014) Introducing the Advanced Learner English Corpus (ALEC): A new learner corpus. Poster presented at VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 20 January, 2014.
(2016a) The introductory it pattern: Variability explored in learner and expert writing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 221, 64–79. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2016b) The introductory it pattern in academic writing by non-native-speakers students, native-speaker students and published writers: A corpus-based study. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.Google Scholar
(2017)  The importance of, it is important that or importantly? The use of morphologically related stance markers in learner and expert writing. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 22(1), 57–85. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2018) Is there a correlation between form and function? A syntactic and functional investigation of the introductory it pattern in student writing. ICAME journal, 42(1), 13–40. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Forthcoming). A syntactic analysis of the introductory it pattern in non-native-speaker and native-speaker student writing. In M. Mahlberg & V. Wiegand Eds. Corpus Linguistics, Context and Culture Berlin De Gruyter Mouton Crossref
Lê, S., Josse, J., & Husson, F.
(2008) FactoMineR: An R package for multivariate analysis. Journal of Statistical Software, 25(1), 1–18. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lee, D.
(2001) Genres, registers, text-types, domains, and styles: Clarifying the concepts and navigating a path through the BNC jungle. Language Learning and Technology, 5(3), 37–72.Google Scholar
Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS)
Corpus compiled at the Centre for English Corpus Linguistics at Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium.
Paquot, M., Hasselgård, H., & Oksefjell Ebeling, S.
(2013) Writer/reader visibility in learner writing across genres: A comparison of the French and Norwegian components of the ICLE and VESPA learner corpora. In S. Granger, G. Gilquin & F. Meunier (Eds.), Twenty Years of Learner Corpus Research: Looking Back, Moving Ahead (pp. 277–288). [Corpora and language in use – Proceedings 1]. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses universitaires de Louvain.Google Scholar
Petch-Tyson, S.
(1998) Writer/reader visibility in EFL written discourse. In S. Granger (Ed.), Learner English on computer (pp. 107–118). London: Longman.Google Scholar
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartvik, J.
(1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
R Core Team
(2017) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. Available at: https://​www​.R​-project​.org/ (accessed April 2017).
Ramhöj, R.
(2016) On clausal subjects and extraposition in the history of English. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.Google Scholar
Römer, U.
(2009) The inseparability of lexis and grammar: Corpus linguistic perspectives. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 7(1), 140–162. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Smith, E. L.
(1986) Achieving impact through the interpersonal component. In B. Couture (Ed.), Functional Approaches to Writing (pp. 108–119). London: Frances Pinter.Google Scholar
Stefanowitsch, A., & Gries, S. Th.
(2005) Co-varying collexemes. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 1(1), 1–43. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Tapper, M.
(2005) Connectives in advanced Swedish EFL learners’ written English – preliminary results. Working Papers in English Linguistics, 51, 116–144.Google Scholar
Zhang, G.
(2015)  It is suggested that or it is better to? Forms and meanings of subject it-extraposition in academic and popular writing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 201, 1–13. CrossrefGoogle Scholar

Full-text

Extraposition in learner and expert writing
Cited by

Cited by 4 other publications

Granger, Sylviane & Tove Larsson
2021. Is core vocabulary a friend or foe of academic writing? Single-word vs multi-word uses of thing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 52 ► pp. 100999 ff. Crossref logo
Larsson, Tove
2019. Grammatical stance marking across registers. Register Studies 1:2 ► pp. 243 ff. Crossref logo
Larsson, Tove & Henrik Kaatari
2020. Syntactic complexity across registers: Investigating (in)formality in second-language writing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 45 ► pp. 100850 ff. Crossref logo
Schwarz, Sarah & Erik Smitterberg
2020.  In Voices Past and Present - Studies of Involved, Speech-related and Spoken Texts [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 97], ► pp. 284 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 april 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.