Cover not available
Part of
Corpus Interrogation and Grammatical Patterns
Edited by Kristin Davidse, Caroline Gentens, Lobke Ghesquière and Lieven Vandelanotte
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 63] 2014
► pp. 295–319

It-clefts in English L1 and L2 academic writing

The case of Norwegian learners

ORCID logo | University of Oslo
This paper examines it-clefts in five corpora representing Norwegian learners of English, novice L1 writers of English and specialist L1 academic writing. The comparison also concerns general argumentative writing vs. discipline-specific writing. The frequency of it-clefts varies across the corpora. The learners underuse clefts, but the results of the register comparison are inconclusive. The types of clefted constituent and the choice of subordinator in the cleft clause vary more in L1 than in L2 writing. There are also differences as to the syntactic environments of clefts and their discourse functions. For example, the learners overuse clefts in interrogatives in argumentative writing. In discipline-specific writing, the learners underuse clefts in that-clauses, particularly with the function of reporting previous research.
Published online: 14 November 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.63.20has
References
Baker, M.
1992 In other word: A coursebook on translation. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biber, D. & Conrad, S.
2009 Register, Genre, and Style. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S. & Finegan, E.
1999 Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Boström Aronsson, M.
2005 Themes in Swedish Advanced Learners’ Written English. PhD thesis, Göteborg University.Google Scholar
Callies, M.
2009 Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English. The Syntax–pragmatics Interface in Second Language Acquisition [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 186]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chocholousova, B.
2008  There and it in a cross-linguistic perspective. MA thesis, University of Oslo.Google Scholar
Collins, P.C.
1991 Cleft and Pseudo-cleft Constructions in English. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Delin, J. & Oberlander, J.
1995 Syntactic constraints on discourse structure: the case of it-clefts. Linguistics 33: 465–500. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ebeling, S.O. & Heuboeck, A.
2007 Encoding document information in a corpus of student writing: the British Academic Written English corpus. Corpora 2: 241–256. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gilquin, G. & Paquot, M.
2008 Too chatty: Learner academic writing and register variation. English Text Construction 1: 41–61. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, A.E.
2006 Constructions at Work. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Granger, S., Dagneaux, E., Meunier, F. & Paquot, M.
(eds) 2009 International Corpus of Learner English, Version 2. Louvain-la-Neuve: UCL Presses Universitaires de Louvain.Google Scholar
Gundel, J.K.
2002 Information structure and the use of cleft sentences in English and Norwegian. In Information Structure in Cross-Linguistic Perspective, H. Hasselgård, S. Johansson, B. Behrens & C. Fabricius-Hansen (eds), 113–128. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Halliday, M.A.K.
1985 “Context of situation”, “Functions of language”, “Register variation”. In Language, Context and Text: Aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective, M.A.K. Halliday & R. Hasan, 3–43, Geelong: Deakin University.Google Scholar
2004 An Introduction to Functional Grammar, 3rd edn, revised by Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Hasselgård, H.
2004 Adverbials in it-cleft constructions. In Advances in Corpus Linguistics, K. Aijmer & B. Altenberg (eds), 195–211. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
2009 Thematic choice and expressions of stance in English argumentative texts by Norwegian learners. In Corpora and Language Teaching [Studies in Corpus Linguistics 34], K. Aijmer (ed.), 121–139. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hedberg, N.
2000 The referential status of clefts. Language 76: 891–920. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hoffmann, S. & Evert, S.
2006 BNCweb (CQP edition) - The marriage of two corpus tools. In Corpus Technology and Language Pedagogy? New Resources, New Tools, New Methods, S. Braun, K. Kohn & J. Mukherjee (eds), 177–195, 295–326. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Johansson, M.
1996 Fronting in English and Swedish: A text-based contrastive analysis. In Synchronic Corpus Linguistics. Papers from the sixteenth international conference on English language research on computerized corpora (ICAME 16), C.A. Percy, C.F. Meyer & I. Lancashire (eds), 29–40. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
2001 Clefts in contrast: A contrastive study of it clefts and wh clefts in English and Swedish texts and translations. Linguistics 39: 547–582.Google Scholar
2002 Clefts in English and Swedish. A Contrastive Study of IT-clefts and WH-clefts in Original Texts and Translations. PhD thesis, Lund University.Google Scholar
Lambrecht, K.
2001 A framework for the analysis of cleft constructions. Linguistics 39: 463–516. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mojžíšová, K.
2009 Cleft sentences in English and Norwegian. MA thesis, Charles University, Prague.Google Scholar
Nelson, G.
1997 Cleft constructions in spoken and written English. Journal of English Linguistics 25: 340–348. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nesi, H. & Gardner, S.
2012 Genres across the Disciplines. Student Writing in Higher Education. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Paquot, M., Hasselgård, H. & Ebeling, S.O.
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 Twenty Years of Learner Corpus Research: Looking back, Moving ahead. “Corpora and Language in Use”, S. Granger, G. Gilquin & F. Meunier (eds), 377–387. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses Universitaires de Louvain.Google Scholar
Prince, E.F.
1978 A comparison of wh-clefts and it-clefts in discourse. Language 54: 883–906. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1981 Toward a taxonomy of given–new information. In Radical Pragmatics, P. Cole (ed.), 223–255. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
1992 The ZPG letter: Subjects, definiteness, and information-status. In Discourse Description: Diverse Linguistic Analyses of a Fund-Raising Text [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 16], W.C. Mann & S. Thompson (eds), 295–326. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. & Svartvik, J.
1985 A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Rørvik, S.
2012 Thematic progression in learner language. In English Corpus Linguistics: Looking back, Moving forward. Papers from the 30th International Conference on English Language Research on Computerized Corpora (ICAME 30), S. Hoffmann, P. Rayson & G. Leech (eds), 165–177. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Scott, M.
2001 Comparing corpora and identifying key words, collcations, and frequency distributions through the WordSmith Tools suite of computer programs. In Small Corpus Studies and ELT. Theory and Practice [Studies in Corpus Linguistics 5], M. Ghadessy, A. Henry & R.L. Roseberry (eds), 47–67. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Corral Esteban, Avelino
2022. Chapter 3. An account of the use of fronting and clefting in Cornish English. In English Historical Linguistics [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 359], ► pp. 36 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 november 2023. 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.