Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 176e191

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Journal of English for Academic Purposes

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jeap

A corpus-based study of the expression of stance in

dissertation acknowledgements
Thomas Hon-Tung Chan
Department of English, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Room 304, Shatin, Hong Kong

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Although much previous research has examined the expression of stance in different
Received 4 September 2014 registers, it is restricted to such primary genres as published research articles, textbooks,
Received in revised form 20 September 2015 and student essays. Little is known of the ways writers express stance in an underexplored
Accepted 26 September 2015
academic genre e acknowledgements. Using a corpus-based approach, this present study
Available online xxx
builds on previous research, notably from Biber (2006), aiming to investigate to what
extent the frequencies of the range of lexico-grammatical devices used for the expression
Keywords:
of stance in acknowledgements vary across disciplines. In particular, it focuses on disci-
Stance
Corpus linguistics
plinary writing practices of the soft and hard disciplines and on stance expressions with
Acknowledgments regard to social functions and lexico-grammatical patterns. A quantitative analysis shows
English for academic purposes important distributional trends of stance expressions across disciplines, with the soft
disciplines using more stance features than the hard disciplines, and a qualitative analysis
of selected concordance lines identifies various social functions and distinctive lexico-
grammatical patterns. It is found that stance devices appear to be motivated by different
factors such as the nature of research, the imbalance of the power and position between
the writers and thanked addressees, the amount of assistance and support the writers
receive from different sources, and their strategic career choices.
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Stance is used to express the writer's or speaker's attitudes, feelings, judgements, or commitment about the propositional
content of a message (Biber & Finegan, 1989). Over the decades, the study of stance expressions has attracted considerable
scholarly attention. It has been carried out in various genre-specific texts, namely research articles (Hyland, 1996a, 1996b,
2001, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c), academic speeches (Mauranen, 2003), classroom talks (Biber, 2006), theses (Charles, 2006),
conversations of outsourced call centers (Friginal, 2009), and data description tasks (Wharton, 2012). It has also been done
from a wide range of perspectives, such as “evaluation” (Hunston, 1994; Hunston & Thompson, 2000), “intensity” (Labov,
1984), “affect” (Ochs, 1989), “evidentiality” (Chafe, 1986; Chafe & Nichols, 1986), “hedging” (Hyland, 1996a), “appraisal”
(Martin & White, 2005), and “stance” (Barton, 1993; Beach & Anson, 1992; Biber & Finegan, 1988, 1989; Precht, 2000) as well
as with different approaches, ranging from qualitative analyses of a single text to quantitative analyses of a collection of texts
in corpora (Biber, 2006).
Previous research on academic discourse has examined various ways in which writers in different disciplines expressed
stance and engagement in academic writing. For example, the use of various linguistic features (e.g. hedges and boosters) to

E-mail address: chanhontung@gmail.com.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2015.09.005
1475-1585/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 T.H.-T. Chan / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 176e191 177

express stance meanings (e.g. certainty, tentativeness, and possibility) has been widely examined in such academic texts as
textbooks, published research articles, and student essays (Hyland, 1996a, 1999, 2001, 2002a, 2002c). Abstracts of published
research articles were also examined in Hyland and Tse's (2005) study in which they analyzed the discourse functions of the
evaluative that construction. Their results indicated that this construction was used to mark the introduction of the main
argument, summarize the purposes or direction of the research, and indicate the reliability or validity of the proposition
presented. In Poudat and Loiseau's (2005) study of stance in the disciplines of linguistics and classic contemporary philos-
ophy, two specific styles of authorial presence were found, with a personal or neutral stance being common in linguistic
papers and a universalist stance in philosophical papers. It is also found that the use of hedging and attitudinal stance devices
was less common in pure mathematics articles, whereas that of shared knowledge and reader references was common in the
texts (McGrath & Kuteeva, 2012).
As can be seen from the above section, the expression of stance in academic genres such as students' and academics'
research writing has long been a major area of research in the disciplines of Applied Linguistics (AL), English for Academic
Purposes (EAP), and English for Specific Purposes (ESP). However, one genre which has been relatively neglected in the AL/
EAP/ESP literature is acknowledgements (Cheng, 2012; Hyland, 2003a, 2003b; Yang, 2012). For this reason, little is known
about how stance is expressed in this genre. In the sections that follow, I begin with a brief discussion of acknowledgements as
a scholarly genre, followed by a description of the analytical framework used for the analysis of stance in this study.

2. Acknowledgements in academic research writing

In academia, gratitude is often expressed in the form of an acknowledgement. The writing of this text involves both the
linguistic and cultural repertoires of scholars (Brodkey, 1987; Cheng, 2012). Dissertation acknowledgements e the focus of
this study e are seen as a “Cinderella” genre which is “neither strictly academic nor entirely personal” (Hyland, 2003a, p. 243).
These marginal texts are particularly important to students since they can reconcile their personal achievement with the
interpersonal debts by expressing gratitude for the intellectual, emotional, technical, and moral support, personal guidance,
and financial assistance they have received during their research studies (Cheng, 2012; Hyland, 2003a). However, dissertation
acknowledgements cannot be seen simply as an official announcement of the end of one's research journey or a listing of
individuals that one wishes to acknowledge for any kind of assistance, support, and advice offered; rather, they are “so-
phisticated and complex textual constructs which bridge the personal and the public, the social and the professional, and the
academic and the lay” (Hyland, 2003a, p. 265). In other words, dissertation acknowledgements serve various functions: to
textualize gratitude for any contributions made by those who have offered help with the successful accomplishment of one's
research (Al-Ali, 2010), to develop interpersonal relationships between acknowledgers and thanked addressees and maintain
their mutual interactions in the scholarly networks (Yang, 2012), and to display one's active membership of his/her own
academic discourse community and observance of the accepted modesty norms and gratitude (Hyland & Tse, 2004).
The role of acknowledgements is also related to the promotion of a personal identity and the management of one's re-
lationships with thanked addressees. Ben-Ari (1987) argued that the formulation of acknowledgements act as strategic career
choices in at least two ways: a) by managing the author's relationships with those involved in his/her research including
supervisors, colleagues, peers, funding bodies, and families, and b) by constructing authorial credibility. His study also found a
wide range of textual and linguistic devices used in acknowledgements. For instance, politeness forms are used to “fit with
careering and characterize relationships in ways that will not impair the future chances of acknowledger vis-a -vis
acknowledged” (Ben-Ari, 1987, p. 70), and the use of qualifications, apologies, and justifications is seen as an attempt to allude
to some problematic issues caused by the asymmetrical tensions of power and position between acknowledgers and thanked
addressees (Ben-Ari, 1987).
In addition, how acknowledgements are formulated has much to do with the disciplines and the contexts in which
acknowledgers are engaged. Giannoni (2002) indicated that the length of acknowledgements varies across disciplines with
more elaborated texts included in soft fields than in hard fields. His findings confirmed that disciplinary variations and the
objective conditions in which different academic communities operate influence the ways acknowledgements are created
and the linguistic resources are exploited. Several disciplinary differences in the patterns of acknowledgements were also
observed in Hyland's (2003a) study. For example, supervisors in hard fields often make up the largest proportion of thanks in
students' acknowledgements due to greater participation in their students' research at various stages ranging from selecting
the research topic to deciding on the methodology and from offering resources to monitoring the research progress. In soft
fields, however, these stages are flexible because soft disciplines tend to emphasize an autonomous endeavor often “con-
ducted at a distance or in a circumstance where the supervisor's assistance is restricted to bursts of involvement at the
beginning and end of the research process” (Becher, 1989; cited in Hyland, 2003a, p. 255).
Likewise Hyland (2003b) and Hyland and Tse (2004), who proposed a three-tier structure of acknowledgements con-
sisting of an obligatory thanking move (Move 1) framed by optional reflecting (Move 2) and announcing (Move 3) moves,
similarly observed that students in soft fields tend to construct more complex acknowledgements with a wider range of
generic patterns than students in hard fields. Finally, how cultural and language contexts affected the rhetorical structure and
linguistic features of acknowledgements was examined. Al-Ali (2010) identified an eight-move structure of Arabic ac-
knowledgements, with some specific socio-cultural moves such as praising and thanking Allah (God) and invoking God's
blessing upon thanked addressees, and some socio-cultural resources such as preferred address forms and social honorifics
used to describe members from different academic and social communities. It is also found that Taiwanese students in both
178 T.H.-T. Chan / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 176e191

the English-as-a-second-language (ESL) and English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) contexts tend to be informal, personal, and
emotional with the ESL group using more first-person pronouns (e.g. I and my) in their acknowledgements than the EFL group
(Yang, 2012).
Based on all the studies mentioned above, three conclusions can be made: first, although much previous research into
stance expressions has provided detailed descriptions of various linguistic features used across different registers, they are
restricted to such primary genres as published research articles, journal abstracts, and textbooks rather than the acknowl-
edgment genre. Second, how gratitude is expressed and arranged in acknowledgements is related to various factors such as
socio-cultural values, social norms, discourse communities, relationships between acknowledgers and thanked addressees,
identity and authorial credibility construction, and strategic career choices. Third, while studies of acknowledgments have
shed light on the rhetorical structure and textualization of such texts, little is known of the ways writers express stance in
them. To my knowledge, there is no previous research done on this area of study and this present study is an attempt to fill
these gaps.
Drawing on the theoretical framework of stance from the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Biber,
Johansson, Leech, Conrad, & Finegan, 1999) and Biber (2006), this study aims to investigate to what extent the frequencies
of the range of lexico-grammatical devices used for the expression of stance in acknowledgements vary across disciplines. In
particular, it focuses on disciplinary writing practices of the soft and hard disciplines and stance expressions with regard to
social functions and lexico-grammatical patterns. The inclusion of the soft and hard disciplines in this study is due to the fact
that scholars in various disciplines perform, describe, evaluate, and value their tasks and represent their readers and
themselves in various ways (Healey, 2000; Hyland, 2011). Such disciplinary differences exist because of various epistemo-
logical characteristics and social practices in knowledge communities (North, 2005). These communities, as illustrated by
Becher (1994), can be identified at different levels, from broad disciplinary groupings to subdisciplinary specialisms, ac-
cording to the nature of disciplinary knowledge and academic cultures. Table 1 illustrates these features with regard to the
disciplinary areas considered in this study: applied social sciences (soft-applied), pure sciences (hard-pure), and technologies
(hard-applied).
The hardesoft and pure-applied classification of the disciplinary areas above can be characterized by three major di-
mensions (Biglan, 1973, pp. 201e202): for the first dimension, concerning the degree to which a paradigm exists, hard-pure
and -applied fields are paradigmatic in nature with a single paradigm shared by all members of these fields and characterized
by their consensus on content and method, whereas soft-applied fields tend to be independent and idiosyncratic without
such a shared paradigm and consensus. For the second dimension, concerning the degree of concern with application, hard-
and soft-applied fields are more concerned with application to practical problems than hard-pure fields. For the third
dimension, regarding the concern with life systems, soft-applied disciplines tend to deal with animate subjects, whereas
hard-pure and -applied ones with inanimate subjects.
With these disciplinary variations in such aspects as paradigm development, rhetorical practices and values, and research
methodologies and applications, it is believed that there are similarities and differences in the expression of stance in
dissertation acknowledgements by writers in the soft and hard disciplines.

3. An analytical framework for the study of stance

Stance can be expressed through value-laden word choice, non-linguistic, paralinguistic, and grammatical devices (Biber
et al., 1999). Grammatical devices are the most widely used linguistic resources, namely modal verbs, adverbs, and com-
plement clauses. Each of these devices consists of two components: a stance and a proposition framed by the stance:

1) I must thank my supervisor, Dr. X, for guiding me through my PhD journey.

Example (1) is made up of a stance marker “must” and a proposition ‘thank my supervisor, Dr. X, for guiding me through my
PhD journey’. The modal “must” expresses an obligatory stance of the writer with respect to the proposition.
In addition, stance can be attributed to the writer explicitly or implicitly (Biber et al., 1999). Explicit attributions of stance
appear mostly with pronouns, whereas implicit ones with inanimate referents:

Table 1
Disciplinary knowledge and culture (Becher, 1994).

Disciplinary area Nature of knowledge Nature of culture

Pure sciences (e.g. physics): “hard-pure” Cumulative; concerned with universals,
quantities, simplifications; resulting in
discovery/explanation
Technologies (e.g. engineering): Purposive; pragmatic; concerned with
“hard-applied” mastery of physical environment;
resulting in products/techniques
Applied social sciences Functional; concerned with enhancement
(e.g. social administration): of professional practice; use of case studies
“soft-applied” to a large extent; resulting in procedures
Competitive; gregarious; politically
well-organized; task-oriented
Entrepreneurial; cosmopolitan;
dominated by professional values;
role-oriented
Outward-looking uncertain in status;
dominated by intellectual fashions;
power-oriented
 T.H.-T. Chan / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 176e191 179

2) I am deeply grateful for the suggestions of Prof. X in these four years.

3) Proofreading is perhaps a tedious job for many PhD students.

The attitudinal stance in Example (2) is overtly attributed to the writer with the first person pronoun “I” and the attitudinal
adverb “deeply”, whereas the doubtful stance in Example (3) is covertly attributed to the writer with the non-human subject
“proofreading” and the probability adverb “perhaps”. Despite two different subjects being referred to, the stances of the
writers can be inferred from the stance markers used. Further, the expression of stance can be attributed to a second or third
person:

4) They kindly offer me insights that an outsider could never have.

Since structures with second-person pronouns do not necessarily reflect stance (Biber, 2006) and rarely occur in the texts
under investigation, they are excluded from this study. However, those with first-person, third-person, and genitive pronouns
and inanimate referents are included because writing an acknowledgement involves not only expressing gratitude to those
who have assisted in completing one's dissertation but also judging what has been done for him/her by the thanked ad-
dressees throughout the whole period of his/her research journey:

5) She generously told me how to pursue my dream of being an academic.

6) My worry that I could not finish the thesis was eased under his careful guidance.

In example (5), “generously” indicates the attitudinal stance of the writer in the proposition that assesses the willingness of
his supervisor to help him achieve academic success from the third person “She”. In example (6), the attitudinal stance is
attributed to the writer with the noun accompanied by a possessive pronoun “My worry” controlling the complement that-
clause.
While this study focuses on both explicit and implicit attributions of stance, it is restricted to the analysis of the following
stance devices, namely i) modals, ii) adverbs, and iii) complement clauses, by using the framework from Biber (2006), as
shown in Table 2.

4. Methodology

The present study is based on a corpus of acknowledgements collected from 256 PhD dissertations written by Hong Kong
Chinese students at three Hong Kong universities. The corpus contains a total of 77, 180 words, with an average length of 301
words. Using Becher's (1994) hardesoft/pure-applied classification of disciplinary areas, a total of six academic subjects were
selected as the focus for this study, with three soft-applied disciplines: Applied Linguistics (AL), Business Studies (BS), and
Public Administration (PA), one hard-pure discipline: Biology (BIO), and two hard-applied disciplines Computer Science (CS)
and Electronic Engineering (EE). The inclusion of these disciplines aims to signify a broad cross-section of academic practice,
although each discipline has its own characteristics in terms of knowledge structures: Applied Linguistics, Business Studies,
and Public Administration are in soft applied knowledge fields concerned with the enhancement of professional practice and
the use of case studies and intended for yields on procedures, and Computer Science and Electronic Engineering are in hard
applied knowledge fields concerned with pragmatic applications and the mastery of the physical environment and geared to
techniques and products (Becher, 1994). Biology is in hard pure knowledge fields being concerned with simplifications and
quantities and aiming to yield discoveries (Becher, 1994). In the following sections, the terms “soft” and “hard” are used to
represent the broad disciplinary groupings due to the profound and extensive differences based on the hardesoft dimensions
(Braxton & Hargens, 1996). As Hyland (2004) pointed out, the hardesoft distinction, though not being clear cut, can be seen as
“a useful way of examining general similarities and differences between fields” (p. 93), and also has been used in previous
studies (Hyland, 2003a; Hyland & Tse, 2004, 2009). The composition of the corpus used for this study is shown in Table 3.
It is worth noting that cultural values can restrict people’ behavior and interaction (Samovar & Porter, 1994). In particular,
the act of thanking can take on culture-specific forms and has culture-specific functions. In this study of stance in dissertation
acknowledgements, how the thanking patterns were constructed and used by Hong Kong Chinese students in the texts clearly
reflects the cultural specificity of this genre. Put it simply, whether gratitude is expressed appropriately and satisfactorily in
acknowledgements depends upon the socio-cultural context in which writers are situated. As the texts under analysis were
written by Hong Kong Chinese students, their cultural values and the socio-cultural context were woven into the propositions
presented in the texts. These socio-cultural factors may impact on how stance is expressed in acknowledgements. For this
reason, the findings of this study are only applicable to Hong Kong Chinese students.
The AntConc software was used to analyze the data. The corpus was tagged using the Constituent-Likelihood Automatic
Word-Tagging System (CLAWS5), with approximately 96e97% accuracy. A separate search on each grammatical device was
done and each concordance line was checked manually to eliminate any lexemes that did not express stance, as in:

7) I thank May Chan for her critical comments for the later drafts of this thesis.
8) Firstly/Secondly/Thirdly, I would like to thank Professor X.
180 T.H.-T. Chan / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 176e191

Table 2
Lexico-grammatical devices used for the study of stance (Biber, 2006).

For any ambiguous stance, the complete context of the proposition was examined to identify who the stance was
attributed to. Owing to the varying length of the texts collected, the raw scores were normalized to a relative frequency per
1000 words to account for the differences in overall word count, with the normalized frequencies being rounded up to two
decimal places. Significant differences in the data were also examined by log likelihood (LL) statistics mediated by a web-
based LL calculator (http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/llwizard.html) with the critical value being set at 3.84 or more (95th percen-
tile; 5% level; p < 0.05). This value shows that the probability of the findings of this study occurring by chance is less than 5%.

5. The expression of stance in dissertation acknowledgements

Table 4 shows the overall distribution of all stance devices used across the six disciplines in terms of the frequency per
1000 words. As can be seen, Public Administration employed the most stance devices (13.49), followed by Electronic
 T.H.-T. Chan / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 176e191 181

Table 3
Composition of the corpus for the study.

Text Words Average

1 e Soft disciplines
Applied linguistics 30 12,750 425
Business studies 50 12,846 256.9
Public administration 32 12,799 399.9

Total (1) 112 38,395 342.8

2 e Hard disciplines
Biology 39 12,852 329.5
Computer science 52 12,948 249
Electronic engineering 53 12,985 245

Total (2) 144 38,791 269.3

Totals (1 þ 2) 256 77,180 301.4

Engineering (13.12), Business Studies (12.89), Computer Science (12.61), Applied Linguistics (11.61), and Biology (11.11). Since
the results for the six subjects are quite similar, they are grouped into two major disciplines, soft and hard, to show the
similarities and differences in stance expressions between these two disciplinary groupings together with the normalized
frequencies and LL values.

5.1. Modals

Table 5 illustrates the distribution of modal verb classes. LL values show statistical significance for the use of ability/
permission/possibility and prediction/volition modals (LL ¼ 5.99; LL ¼ 18.94) except for necessity/obligation modals
(LL ¼ 1.34). Overall, modals are much more common in the hard disciplines than the soft disciplines (14.87 vs. 13). There is a
high frequency of the use of prediction/volition modals in the soft and hard disciplines (8.20 vs. 11.29), with the latter using
them 21% more often than the former (438 vs. 315). However, modals expressing ability/permission/possibility and necessity/
obligation are used more often in the soft disciplines than the hard disciplines (2.79 vs. 1.93; 2.01 vs. 1.65).
Table 6 shows the frequencies of modals used across the soft and hard disciplines. LL values show no statistical significance
for the use of eight modals (could, will, must, may, need, might, have to, and shall) except for the modals ‘would’, “can”, and
‘should’ (LL ¼ 18.47; LL ¼ 4.59; LL ¼ 21.57). The modal “would” is the most frequently used modal in the soft and hard dis-
ciplines (7.32 vs. 10.21), with the latter using it 20% more often than the former (396 vs. 281). The modals “can” and “should”
are used more often in the soft disciplines than the hard disciplines (1.33 vs. 0.82; 0.99 vs. 0.21) with none of the modals
“going to”, “ought to”, “got to”, and “had better” being found.

5.2. Adverbs

As shown in Table 7, stance adverbs are used more often in the soft disciplines than the hard disciplines (10.86 vs. 8.82)
with statistical significance regarding the use of adverbs expressing attitudes and likelihood (LL ¼ 10.88; LL ¼ 7.44). These two
adverb types are used more often in the soft disciplines than the hard disciplines (3.96 vs. 2.60; 0.23 vs. 0.03). Certainty and
style adverbs are statistically insignificant with low LL values of 1.43 and 0.20 although they are used more frequently in the
soft disciplines than the hard disciplines (0.91 vs. 0.67; 5.76 vs. 5.52).
Table 8 shows the frequencies of stance adverbs used in both disciplines. Of the 23 stance adverbs, only 7 are statistically
significant with high LL values (especially, LL ¼ 13.87; in particular, LL ¼ 11.75; generously, LL ¼ 4.05; certainly, LL ¼ 7.44;
perhaps, LL ¼ 5.59; smoothly, LL ¼ 15.14; respectively, LL ¼ 16.51). Except for the style adverb “especially” with a high frequency
in the corpus where it is used 11% more often in the hard disciplines than the soft disciplines (74 vs. 35), other adverbs (in
particular, generously, certainly, and perhaps) are used more often in the soft disciplines than the hard disciplines. In addition,
some adverbs are unique to one discipline, not the other: the possibility adverb “perhaps” is found in the soft disciplines, and
likewise the attitudinal and style adverbs “smoothly” and “respectively” in the hard disciplines.

5.3. Complement constructions

Table 9 shows that five out of six stance complement constructions are more common in the soft disciplines than the hard
disciplines (14.14 vs. 13.15) with only the stance adjective þ to-clause being statistically significant (LL ¼ 8.24) and used more
commonly in the soft disciplines than the hard disciplines (1.67 vs. 0.93). The stance verb þ that- and to-clauses, stance
adjective þ that-clause, and stance noun þ that- and to-clauses are statistically insignificant with low LL values of 2.93, 0.06,
2.72, 0.86, and 1.84 respectively although they are commonly found in both disciplines.
As for the frequencies of each class of stance complement constructions, shown in Tables 10e12, the use of such features
are distinct in both disciplines. Table 10 shows that verbs of attitudes, effort, and communication in to-clauses and verbs of
182 T.H.-T. Chan / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 176e191

Table 4
Overall distribution of stance devices across the soft and hard disciplines.

Category Soft disciplines Hard disciplines

Frequency per 1000 (Raw frequency) Frequency per 1000 (Raw frequency)

AL BS PA BIO CS EE
Modals
Ability/permission/possibility 0.78 (30) 0.86 (33) 1.15 (44) 0.57 (22) 0.77 (30) 0.59 (23)
Necessity/obligation 0.49 (19) 0.78 (30) 0.73 (28) 0.52 (20) 0.46 (18) 0.67 (26)
Prediction/volition 2.47 (95) 3.15 (121) 2.58 (99) 3.17 (123) 3.92 (152) 4.20 (163)

Total A 3.75 (144) 4.79 (184) 4.45 (171) 4.25 (165) 5.15 (200) 5.47 (212)
Adverbs
Epistemic: certainty 0.10 (4) 0.34 (13) 0.47 (18) 0.23 (9) 0.31 (12) 0.13 (5)
Epistemic: likelihood 0.05 (2) e 0.18 (7) 0.03 (1) e e
Attitude 1.25 (48) 1.33 (51) 1.38 (53) 1.01 (39) 0.72 (28) 0.88 (34)
Style of Speaking 1.98 (76) 1.82 (70) 1.95 (75) 1.78 (69) 1.83 (71) 1.91 (74)

Total B 3.39 (130) 3.49 (134) 3.98 (153) 3.04 (118) 2.86 (111) 2.91 (113)
Complement clauses
Stance verb þ that-clause
Certainty 0.05 (2) 0.05 (2) 0.16 (6) e 0.05 (2) e
Likelihood 0.03 (1) e e 0.05 (2) 0.03 (1) 0.05 (2)
Attitudinal e 0.05 (2) 0.03 (1) e 0.03 (1) e
Communication 0.05 (2) 0.03 (1) 0.05 (2) e 0.03 (1) 0.03 (1)

Total C 0.13 (5) 0.13 (5) 0.23 (9) 0.05 (2) 0.13 (5) 0.08 (3)
Stance verb þ to-clause
Probability 0.03 (1) e e e e e
Mental e 0.05 (2) 0.03 (1) e 0.03 (1) e
Attitudinal 2.24 (86) 2.01 (77) 2.11 (81) 2.66 (103) 3.07 (119) 2.99 (116)
Effort 0.78 (30) 0.94 (36) 1.20 (46) 0.26 (10) 0.36 (14) 0.44 (17)
Communication 0.21 (8) 0.18 (7) 0.31 (12) 0.03 (1) 0.05 (2) 0.03 (1)

Total D 3.26 (125) 3.18 (122) 3.65 (140) 2.94 (114) 3.51 (136) 3.45 (134)
Stance adjective þ that-clause
Certainty 0.03 (1) e e e 0.03 (1) e
Likelihood e e e 0.03 (1) e e
Attitudinal 0.03 (1) 0.10 (4) 0.03 (1) 0.05 (2) e e
Evaluation e e 0.08 (3) e e e

Total E 0.05 (2) 0.10 (4) 0.10 (4) 0.08 (3) 0.03 (1) e
Stance adjective þ to-clause
Certainty e e e e e e
Likelihood 0.05 (2) 0.05 (2) e e 0.05 (2) e
Attitudinal 0.10 (4) 0.16 (6) 0.05 (2) 0.13 (5) 0.10 (4) 0.18 (7)
Evaluation 0.21 (8) 0.16 (6) 0.29 (11) 0.08 (3) 0.10 (4) 0.08 (3)
Ability or willingness 0.18 (7) 0.13 (5) 0.21 (8) e 0.08 (3) 0.10 (4)
Ease or difficulty 0.03 (1) 0.05 (2) e e e 0.03 (1)

Total F 0.57 (22) 0.55 (21) 0.55 (21) 0.21 (8) 0.34 (13) 0.39 (15)
Stance noun þ that-clause
Certainty 0.03 (1) 0.05 (2) e e 0.05 (2) e
Likelihood e e e e 0.03 (1) e
Attitudinal e 0.05 (2) 0.03 (1) e e 0.03 (1)
Communication e e 0.03 (1) e e e

Total G 0.03 (1) 0.10 (4) 0.05 (2) e 0.08 (3) 0.03 (1)
Stance noun þ to-clause
Certainty 0.05 (2) 0.10 (4) e e e 0.05 (2)
Likelihood 0.21 (8) 0.26 (10) 0.21 (8) 0.39 (15) 0.44 (17) 0.64 (25)
Attitudinal 0.16 (6) 0.13 (5) 0.18 (7) 0.13 (5) 0.08 (3) 0.05 (2)
Communication 0.03 (1) 0.05 (2) 0.08 (3) 0.03 (1) e 0.05 (2)

Total H 0.44 (17) 0.55 (21) 0.47 (18) 0.54 (21) 0.52 (20) 0.80 (31)

Totals (AeH) 11.61 (446) 12.89 (495) 13.49 (518) 11.11 (431) 12.61 (489) 13.12 (509)
 T.H.-T. Chan / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 176e191 183

Table 5
Overall distribution of modal verb classes across disciplines.

Category Soft disciplines Hard disciplines LL

F.P.W.a R.F.b %c F.P.W.a R.F.b %c

Ability/permission/possibility 2.79 107 21.44 1.93 75 13.00 5.99
Necessity/obligation 2.01 77 15.43 1.65 64 11.09 1.34
Prediction/volition 8.20 315 63.13 11.29 438 75.91 18.94

Total: 13.00 499 14.87 577

a
Frequency per 1000 words.
b
Raw frequency.
c
% of the overall modal verb classes.

Table 6
Frequencies of modals across disciplines.

Modal Soft disciplines Hard disciplines LL

F.P.W.a R.F.b %c F.P.W.a R.F.b %c

Would 7.32 281 56.31 10.21 396 68.63 18.47
Can 1.33 51 10.22 0.82 32 5.55 4.59
Could 1.15 44 8.82 0.95 37 6.41 0.68
Will 0.83 32 6.41 1.08 42 7.28 1.25
Should 0.99 38 7.62 0.21 8 1.39 21.57
Must 0.70 27 5.41 1.11 43 7.45 3.53
May 0.21 8 1.60 0.08 3 0.52 2.41
Need 0.21 8 1.60 0.13 5 0.87 0.73
Might 0.10 4 0.80 0.08 3 0.52 0.15
Have to 0.10 4 0.80 0.21 8 1.37 1.32
Shall 0.05 2 0.40 e 0 e 2.79
a
Frequency per 1000 words.
b
Raw frequency.
c
% of the overall modal verb types.

Table 7
Overall distribution of stance adverb classes across disciplines.

Category Soft disciplines Hard disciplines LL

F.P.W.a R.F.b %c F.P.W.a R.F.b %c

Epistemic: certainty 0.91 35 8.39 0.67 26 7.60 1.43
Epistemic: likelihood 0.23 9 2.16 0.03 1 0.29 7.44
Attitude 3.96 152 36.45 2.60 101 29.53 10.88
Style of speaking 5.76 221 53.00 5.52 214 62.57 0.20

Total: 10.86 417 8.82 342

a
Frequency per 1000 words.
b
Raw frequency.
c
% of the overall stance adverb classes.

certainty in that-clauses are statistically significant with high LL values of 14.30, 34.98, 19.37, and 5.90 respectively. While
verbs of attitudes occur more often in to-clauses in the hard disciplines than the soft disciplines (8.71 vs. 6.35), verbs of
certainty, effort, and communication are used more frequently in that- and to-clauses in the soft disciplines than the hard
disciplines. Verbs of likelihood, attitudes, and communication styles in that-clauses and verbs of probability and mental state
in to-clauses are statistically insignificant with both low LL values and frequencies.
With regard to the stance adjective þ that- and to-clauses (see Table 11), there is statistical significance for the use of stance
adjectives of evaluation in that- and to-clauses (LL ¼ 4.19; LL ¼ 6.80) and stance adjectives of ability or willingness in to-
clauses (LL ¼ 6.66), both of which are more common in the soft disciplines than the hard disciplines. Further, there are very
low frequencies of the use of adjectives of certainty, likelihood, attitudes, and ease or difficulty in that- and to-clauses with
very low LL values, indicating no statistical significance for such devices used in both disciplines.
Concerning the stance noun þ that- and to-clauses (see Table 12), LL values show no statistical significance for the use of
stance nouns expressing certainty, attitudes, and communication in both that- and to-clauses except for those expressing
likelihood in to-clauses with a high LL value of 11.55 and a higher frequency in the hard disciplines than the soft disciplines
(1.47 vs. 0.68).
184 T.H.-T. Chan / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 176e191

Table 8
Frequencies of stance adverbs across disciplines.

Adverb Soft disciplines Hard disciplines LL

F.P.W.a R.F.b %c F.P.W.a R.F.b %c

Especially 0.91 35 8.39 1.91 74 21.64 13.87
Only 0.86 33 7.91 1.01 39 11.40 0.44
Deeply 0.63 24 5.76 0.70 27 7.89 0.15
In particular 0.63 24 5.76 0.15 6 1.75 11.75
Greatly 0.55 21 5.04 0.44 17 4.97 0.46
Particularly 0.49 19 4.56 0.28 11 3.22 2.24
Kindly 0.42 16 3.84 0.18 7 2.05 3.71
Truly 0.31 12 2.88 0.18 7 2.05 1.38
Importantly 0.31 12 2.88 0.34 13 3.80 0.03
Really 0.26 10 2.40 0.44 17 4.97 1.76
Generously 0.26 10 2.40 0.08 3 0.88 4.05
Extremely 0.26 10 2.40 0.10 4 1.17 2.72
Certainly 0.23 9 2.16 0.03 1 0.29 7.44
Patiently 0.21 8 1.92 0.13 5 1.46 0.73
Sincerely 0.18 7 1.68 0.39 15 4.39 2.90
Successfully 0.16 6 1.44 0.10 4 1.17 0.42
Definitely 0.13 5 1.20 0.13 5 1.46 0.00
Continually 0.13 5 1.20 0.03 1 0.29 2.95
Perhaps 0.10 4 0.96 e 0 e 5.59
Carefully 0.10 4 0.96 0.03 1 0.29 1.96
Smoothly e 0 e 0.28 11 3.22 15.14
Respectively e 0 e 0.31 12 3.51 16.51
Probably 0.05 2 0.48 0.03 1 0.29 0.35
a
Frequency per 1000 words.
b
Raw frequency.
c
% of the overall stance adverb classes.

6. Discussion

This section now provides an in-depth analysis of the major findings presented above with regard to social functions and
lexico-grammatical patterns. For privacy reasons, the names of those being acknowledged and the names of the universities
in the texts are replaced by “X” and “Y” respectively.

6.1. Modals

“Would” is usually used with the first person pronoun “I” and inanimate subjects “my thanks” and “the thesis/study” in the
soft and hard disciplines. Structures with the first person pronouns tend to occur with performative verbs (e.g. thank and
express) and an expressive force which shows both politeness and indirectness:
I would like to express my gratitude to the following people: X and X. (PA)
I would thank my parents, wife and son for their support. (BS)
However, structures with the inanimate subjects, usually accompanied by a prepositional phrase “without …” positioned
either at the beginning or end of the clause, indicate a probability in the form of the passive and negative concord (Huddleston
& Pullum, 2005), as in:
Without their love, support and encouragement, the thesis would not have been completed. (EE)
“Could” and “might” also have the same structure and function as “would”, as in:
Without X, this thesis might not have been completed. (CS)
Although the common use of the first person pronouns found in this study is in contrast to Giannoni's (2002) study that
showed the avoidance of using such pronouns in acknowledgements, the choice of authorial subjects made here by the
writers can virtually reveal their personal engagement in the texts. The use of animate subjects allows writers to show a
commitment to the gratitude expressed and establish a writerereader relationship and their honesty for attributing thanks to
various thanked addressees (Hyland & Tse, 2004), and thereby creating a personal and sincere tone, and yet, the use of
inanimate subjects allows writers to remove themselves from the act of thanking and express gratitude to an impersonal
agent, and thus creating a formal tone with reduced accountability and responsibility for “any imposition on the addressee or
potential face violation” (Hyland & Tse, 2004, p. 273).
While gratitude is often expressed in either personal or impersonal mood in acknowledgements, the illocutionary forces of
the propositions about the gratitude expressed tend to be intentionally diminished by the writers. One possible explanation
 T.H.-T. Chan / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 176e191 185

Table 9
Overall distribution of stance complement constructions.

Category Soft disciplines Hard disciplines LL

F.P.W.a R.F.b %c F.P.W.a R.F.b %c

Stance verb þ that-clause 0.49 19 3.50 0.26 10 1.96 2.93
Stance verb þ to-clause 10.08 387 71.27 9.90 384 75.29 0.06
Stance adjective þ that-clause 0.26 10 1.84 0.10 4 0.78 2.72
Stance adjective þ to-clause 1.67 64 11.79 0.93 36 7.06 8.24
Stance noun þ that-clause 0.18 7 1.29 0.10 4 0.78 0.86
Stance noun þ to-clause 1.46 56 10.31 1.86 72 14.12 1.84

Total: 14.14 543 13.15 510

a
Frequency per 1000 words.
b
Raw frequency.
c
% of the overall stance complement constructions.

Table 10
Frequencies of stance verb þ that- and to-clause constructions.

Class Soft disciplines Hard disciplines LL

F.P.W.a R.F.b %c F.P.W.a R.F.b %c

That-clauses
Epistemic: certainty 0.26 10 52.63 0.05 2 20.00 5.90
Epistemic: likelihood 0.03 1 5.26 0.13 5 50.00 2.87
Attitudinal 0.08 3 15.79 0.03 1 10.00 1.07
Communication 0.13 5 26.32 0.05 2 20.00 1.36

Total: 0.49 19 0.26 10

To-clauses
Probability 0.03 1 0.26 e 0 e 1.40
Mental 0.08 3 0.78 0.03 1 0.03 1.07
Attitudinal 6.35 244 63.05 8.71 338 8.79 14.30
Effort 2.92 112 28.94 1.06 41 1.07 34.98
Communication 0.70 27 6.98 0.10 4 0.10 19.37

Total: 10.08 387 9.90 384

a
Frequency per 1000 words.
b
Raw frequency.
c
% of the overall stance verb þ that- and to-clauses.

Table 11
Frequencies of stance adjective þ that- and to-clause constructions.

Class Soft disciplines Hard disciplines LL

F.P.W.a R.F.b %c F.P.W.a R.F.b %c

That-clauses
Epistemic: certainty 0.03 1 10 0.03 1 25 0.00
Epistemic: likelihood e 0 e 0.03 1 25 1.38
Attitudinal 0.16 6 60 0.05 2 50 2.13
Evaluation 0.08 3 30 e 0 e 4.19

Total: 0.26 10 0.10 4

To-clauses
Epistemic: certainty e 0 e e 0 e 0.00
Epistemic: likelihood 0.10 4 6.25 0.05 2 5.56 0.70
Attitudinal 0.31 12 18.75 0.41 16 44.44 0.53
Evaluation 0.65 25 39.06 0.26 10 27.78 6.80
Ability or willingness 0.52 20 31.25 0.18 7 19.44 6.66
Ease or difficulty 0.08 3 4.69 0.03 1 2.78 1.07

Total: 1.67 64 0.93 36

a
Frequency per 1000 words.
b
Raw frequency.
c
% of the overall stance adjective þ that- and to-clauses.
186 T.H.-T. Chan / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 176e191

Table 12
Frequencies of stance noun þ that- and to-clause constructions.

Class Soft disciplines Hard disciplines LL

F.P.W.a R.F.b %c F.P.W.a R.F.b %c

That-clauses
Epistemic: certainty 0.08 3 42.86 0.05 2 50.00 0.21
Epistemic: likelihood e 0 e 0.03 1 25.00 1.38
Attitudinal 0.08 3 42.86 0.03 1 25.00 1.07
Communication 0.03 1 14.29 e 0 e 1.40

Total: 0.18 7 0.10 4

To-clauses
Epistemic: certainty 0.16 6 10.71 0.05 2 2.78 2.13
Epistemic: likelihood 0.68 26 46.43 1.47 57 79.17 11.55
Attitudinal 0.47 18 32.14 0.26 10 13.89 2.40
Communication 0.16 6 10.71 0.08 3 4.17 1.05

Total: 1.46 56 1.86 72

a
Frequency per 1000 words.
b
Raw frequency.
c
% of the overall stance noun þ that- and to-clauses.

for this phenomenon is the imbalance of the authority and status between the writers and thanked addressees and the
writers' desires to repay any interpersonal debt to their thanked addressees (Hyland & Tse, 2004). As Brown and Levinson
(1987) pointed out, the overt expression of gratitude may probably pose a threat to the addressee's face. For this reason,
the writers tend to express hedged gratitude by foregrounding their intentions, which is achieved by adding an animate or
inanimate subject and a modal before the main verb at the beginning of the proposition:
I would like to thank X for giving me the confirmation that I could work on such a topic (AL).
“Will” is usually used to show future positive effects and benefits the writers will obtain from the thanked addressees who
have helped and influenced them, as in:
Dr. X's respectable traits of generosity, decency and integrity have been and will continue to be of immense influence to
me. (BIO)
Also, it is used as a “memorial” act to indicate what (usually the character traits of the thanked addressees) or who the
writers will not forget, as in:
I will remember his patience in helping me as a struggling graduate student. (BS)
I will not forget X and X, my classmates in my undergraduate studies. (CS)
“Can” and “may” are used to express probability and ability meanings:
I learned from him that the same problem can be viewed from different perspectives. (CS)
He is tolerant of differing views and cultures and I can always see in him warmth, respect and trust. (PA)
However, modals with permission meanings are found only in the soft disciplines:
Although I cannot mention their real names here to protect their anonymity, I hope this thesis can report their
experience and views. (AL)
The permission modal used here has to do with the research methodological focus of the writer's dissertation. Research in
soft fields usually involves analyses of ethnographic data focusing on questionnaires and interviews with participants,
whereas studies in hard fields tend to focus on lab-based research tasks that require little access to subjects. As a result, the
use of permission modals is unique to the soft rather than hard disciplines.
“Must” and “should” are used to express personal obligations. These forms, often collocating with performative verbs (e.g.
thank and go), are reserved for those with varying degrees of involvement in students' research, and expressed through
extensive use of name-dropping (e.g. Dr. X and Professor X). For those offering direct guidance and intellectual support, a
strong sense of personal obligation is usually expressed by the modal “must”:
I must thank my supervisor, Professor X for his guidance over the years. (AL)
However, a weaker sense of the modal “should” tends to describe those (usually friends and family) offering mental, moral,
and spiritual support and general advice:
Thanks should also go to X [the author's friend] for pointing out to me the need to pursue further studies while I was
working as a demonstrator at Y. (AL)
 T.H.-T. Chan / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 176e191 187

The expressions of both strong and weak senses of personal obligations in acknowledgements are perhaps due to the
amount of guidance and support the writers received from the thanked addressees. Since dissertation writing is a collabo-
rative literacy practice, its success rests upon how much different mentors engage in students' research. Relatively speaking,
academics (mostly supervisors) play a more important role in postgraduate research studies than other mentors like parents
and friends. Although there is a different degree of academics' involvement in soft and hard disciplines (Hyland, 2003a),
students still place greater primacy of importance on academics than other mentors because they often provide students with
the most intellectual support such as supervising and commenting on their doctoral work, providing appropriate resources,
and facilitating timely completion of their research and dissertation writing.
More importantly, the use of the two forms can categorically act as strategic career choices and the creation of a personal
identity. As Ben-Ari (1987) argued, acknowledgment writing can be seen as a tactical plan concerning the continuity of one's
membership of his/her own professional community. Since PhD students are often expecting an academic career upon
graduation, expressing thanks to academics in acknowledgements can actively involve both acknowledgers and acknowl-
edged in a mechanism of mutual indebtedness (Hyland, 2003b) in which students can impose a “contractual” obligation on
the acknowledged. As a result, the strong sense of the modal “must” is used to express not only gratitude and appreciation for
supervisors' and other academics' continued involvement and guidance in one's research but also his/her eager anticipation
of a future scholarly career. For the weaker sense of the modal “should”, the acknowledgment of other mentors who provide
other kinds of support like encouragement, sympathy, patience, friendship, love, and care can be explained by students'
craving for the injection of the personal into the public sphere of the academy, for the mentors are considered to be the critical
factors influencing the successful completion of their research (Hyland, 2003a).

6.2. Adverbs

In the soft disciplines, likelihood adverbs are used with likelihood modals and the copula “be” at a point where the writers
tend to judge themselves and those being thanked and describe limitations:
A PhD is an arduous enterprise which a woman (i.e. the author) can perhaps never achieve without support from her
family. (PA)
Dr. X is perhaps the best supervisor a PhD student like me can ask for. (AL)
My intellectual debts are many and could not possibly be covered in the amount of space available here. (AL)
The first two examples above can be marked as “uncertain but likely to some degree” (Biber, 2006, p. 106) and the last one
as the writer's limitation. The use of such forms can be accounted for by the writers' intentions to protect themselves as the
author of the text. As Hyland (1998) pointed out, hedges show “a lack of complete commitment to the truth value of an
accompanying proposition and a desire not to express the commitment categorically” (p. 1). When making judgments, the
writers tend to hedge their propositions in order to “minimize the risk of criticism against the authorial persona” (Adams &
Quintana-Toledo, 2013, p. 18). In the hard disciplines, only one instance of likelihood stance adverb is used to indicate a
limitation:
This has probably led to many arguments or combative comments on my part. (BIO)
While there is only one instance of “certainly” used in the hard disciplines to indicate the truth of the proposition, it is
commonly used in the soft disciplines to emphasize one's personal responsibility with a first or third person pronoun, as in:
Looking back, I am very grateful for all I have received through these years. It has certainly shaped my personality and
led me where I am now. (CS)
I certainly need to thank my main supervisor Professor X. (PA)
“Really” usually modifies verbs, adjectives, and nominal phrases in the soft and hard disciplines, as in:
I really thank my proofreader, X, who did a brilliant copyediting on my thesis. (PA)
I was really inspired by working with him. (CS)
It is really a wonderful experience for me to go through these several years with them. (EE)
The functions of the epistemic adverbs used in the examples above are in line with Biber's (2006) claim that these adverb
types are used to express “factual information” (p. 106) and “high personal involvement and personal attitudes” (p. 106).
The high frequency of attitudinal adverbs used in the soft discipline supports the finding of Hyland and Tse's (2004) study
which showed a relatively high frequency of the use of qualifiers in soft sciences to “intensify the extent of the writer's
gratitude” (p. 267). The functions of attitudinal adverbs are similar in the soft and hard disciplines. “Sincerely” tends to express
personal feelings with a strong collocational relation to performative verbs and noun phrases, whereas “truly” and “deeply”,
also used to express personal feelings, strongly collocate with performative and attitudinal verbs as well as evaluative ad-
jectives, as in:
I sincerely appreciate every research training and learning opportunity in his group. (BIO)
188 T.H.-T. Chan / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 176e191

I truly treasure my four opportunities to participate in international conferences. (BIO)

I am deeply indebted to my devoted wife Candy Cheng and my parents for their endless love, patience and under-
standing. (CS)
“Kindly” and “generously”, usually accompanied by verbs, are used to “testify the subjective, interpersonal relevance of the
assistance received” (Hyland & Tse, 2004, p. 267e268):
They kindly offer me insights and documents that an outsider could never acquire. (AL)
I owe a debt of gratitude to X and X, who generously shared their experience and views with me. (BS)
However, “smoothly”, being used to evaluate the research work of the writer, is unique to the hard disciplines:
Their constant understanding and genuine support make my research work smoothly. (EE)
One possible reason for the use of this adverb in the hard disciplines is that researchers in hard sciences fields are required
to deal with a great deal of experimental and Mathematical data which involve thorough and rigorous analyses and that are
relatively dependent on expert and technical support from various people like lab technicians and engineers. For this reason,
the assistance offered is particularly important to them because it can maximize the success in completing their research.
For style adverbs, “especially” is used with proper nouns that are usually positioned at the end of the clause, whereas
“particularly” and “in particular” tend to occur at the start of the clause. All these adverbs are used to strengthen the force of
gratitude to those being acknowledged, as in:
I would like to thank all members of the laboratory for a professional working environment, especially my seniors, X, X
and X. (BIO)
I would particularly like to thank Dr. X who shared with me the references on citation. (AL)
In particular, I thank Professor X for accommodating me in their Department during fieldwork. (PA)
Interestingly, the use of “respectively” is common in the hard disciplines (especially Biology and Electronic Engineering),
whereas there is no instance of such adverb used in the soft disciplines. It indicates the importance of the assistance (usually
funding and specific material) offered for the writers:
Furthermore, the author would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Hong Kong Government and Mr. X in
the form of the Universities and Polytechnics Grant Committee Strategic Research Grant and private research donation
fund respectively. (EE)
Since students in hard sciences usually have more access to scholarships and funding than their counterparts in soft
sciences, they may feel more obliged to detail and emphasize the sponsorships and scholarships they received in order to
mark themselves as “an individual whose academic talents have been recognized and who may therefore be a deserving
candidate for further honors” (Hyland, 2003a, p. 259).
“Only” is observed to have a strong association with a correlative conjunction pattern that consists of two grammatical
elements, “not” and “but also”. It collocates with performative verbs and noun phrases to give prominence to the assistance
offered and the attributes of those who offered assistance to the writers:
He is not only a brilliant and enthusiastic scholar, but also one of the rare forward-looking and inspirational mentors.
(PA)
They not only gave me valuable advice on my research, but also endured and corrected mistakes that I made. (CS)

6.3. Complement constructions

6.3.1. Stance verb þ that-clauses

Verbs of certainty (e.g. realize and know) are used as the writers' reflections on their research work:
I know it is such a tedious and boring job. (CS)
For verbs of attitude, only one stance verb “hope” is used in the soft and hard disciplines to express wishes or expectations.
What is striking is that two distinct expectations are expressed by the writers. In the hard disciplines, “hope” is used to describe
what they will be, whereas in the soft disciplines, it tends to describe what their research can contribute in the future:
His success has set me a good example and I hope that I will be as successful as him in future. (EE)
I hope that the dissertation can report their stories and make them better understand the outside world. (AL)
The examples above are consistent with the argument that the hard disciplines concern recognition for one's future career
prospects, whereas the soft disciplines value practical contributions research can make to one's development (Becher, 1989;
Braxton, 1995; Hyland, 2011; Smart & Ethington, 1995; Squires, 2005):
 T.H.-T. Chan / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 176e191 189

6.3.2. Stance verb þ to-clauses

Most verbs controlling to-clauses are those of desire (e.g. want, wish, like) and effort (e.g. help, motivate, encourage). Verbs
of desire, often used in the hard disciplines, expresses personal desires:
I want to send my sincere gratitude and great thankfulness to my family. (BIO)
This finding confirms Hyland and Tse's (2004) study that “using performatives for the expression of gratitude is partic-
ularly marked in the science and engineering texts” (p. 266).
Verbs of effort, often accompanied by the first-person object pronoun “me”, tend to describe explicitly what the thanked
addressees did to the benefits of the writers' research. This finding is in contrast with Biber's (2006) claim that “verbs of effort
are commonly used in written course management texts as directives to instruct the listeners/readers to do the actions
desirable to the speakers/writers” (p. 109):
He helped me to revise my papers and illustrated to me the way to make papers clearer. (CS)
The use of such forms can serve as concrete evidence of what different mentors have done for the writers. As mentioned
earlier, the successful completion of one's research rests upon the continued involvement of various mentors and therefore
these forms are strategically employed by the writers in recognition of not only their own academic talents but also the major
contributions made by their mentors and the influential roles they have played in the successful accomplishment of their
doctoral work.

6.3.3. Stance adjective þ that-clauses

This construction is usually used with attitudinal adjectives (e.g. sorry, happy, grateful) to identify the writers' feelings
about the ups and downs they experienced during their research studies:
I am sorry that I let you [parents] worry sometimes. (BIO)

6.3.4. Stance adjective þ to-clauses

To-clauses tend to occur with evaluation, ability, and attitudinal adjectives (e.g. willing, ready, nice, able, lucky, privileged)
accompanied by an intensifier “very” or “so”. These clauses are used with first or third person pronouns to demonstrate the
writers' ability to complete their thesis and the willingness of their mentors to offer help, and to express their emotions about
what they had:
Ms. X is so nice to edit my English in a short time. (PA)
I was able to complete my dissertation under his guidance. (AL)
e X. (EE)
I am so lucky to meet my soul mate and fiance

6.3.5. Stance noun þ to- and that-clauses

While that-clauses are seldom controlled by nouns in this study, to-clauses are often used with likelihood nouns (e.g.
chance and opportunity) to identify what the writers are intent on:
He gave me the chance to work in X as a research assistant. (EE)
Nouns expressing attitudes are also common in to-clauses. These nouns (usually attributed to extraposed to-clauses) tend
to express the writers' feelings about what they obtained:
It has been an honor to be one of his doctoral students. (BS)

7. Conclusion

This study reports on the major findings of a corpus-based study of stance expressions in dissertation acknowledgements
across disciplines by investigating a comprehensive set of lexico-grammatical devices. In general, a number of conclusions can
be made: first, LL values show statistical significance regarding five types of stance expressions (ability/permission/possibility
and prediction/volition modals, likelihood and attitudinal adverbs, and stance adjective þ to-clause construction). Second,
adverbs and complement constructions are common in the soft disciplines, and modals are common in the hard disciplines.
Third, stance markers expressing prediction/volition, obligation, and attitudes are prevalent in both disciplines. Fourth, to-
clause constructions outnumber that-clause constructions in both disciplines, with most of them being controlled by verbs of
attitude, effort, likelihood, ability, and evaluation.
This study has also identified various stance devices that serve many different social functions such as expressing personal
feelings about one's research experiences, judgments about the contributions made by different thanked addressees, con-
cerns about one's future career development and applications of his/her research, etc. The use of such devices is largely
motivated by a wide range of factors: the use of the permission modal “can” is due to the methodological focus of research;
the use of the prediction/volition modals to express hedged gratitude for thanked addressees' contributions stems from the
190 T.H.-T. Chan / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 20 (2015) 176e191

imbalance of the power and position between acknowledgers and ackowledged and acknowledgers' avoidance of imposing
debts upon their ackowledgees; the use of both strong and weak senses of obligation modals is related to the amount of
assistance and support one receives from different mentors and his/her strategic career choices, to name a few.
The strong preference for attitudinal and likelihood stance markers in dissertation acknowledgements can be explained by
the nature of this interpersonal genre. Unlike academic genres such as published research articles, the acknowledgement
genre does not necessarily allow writers for the construction of knowledge and facts with a high degree of certainty. Rather,
the style of discourse in this genre is to reveal information on writers' personal feelings about their research experiences and
evaluations of their research studies and relationships with different people with varying degrees of involvement in their
research through expressing thanks that will not threaten the face of these people. This could explain the high frequency of
attitudinal and likelihood stance markers found in this study.
The findings presented here show not only the importance of analyses of the grammatical marking of stance but also the
value of incorporating corpus tools in analyses of stance marking. Through a corpus-based comparative analysis, specific
social functions and patterns of stance devices can be easily revealed. As mentioned earlier, cultural values can limit how
people behave and interact, and the act of thanking can take on culture-specific forms with culture-specific functions. In other
words, the values attributed to the relationships between acknowledgers and thanked addressees and the degrees of
acceptability of expressing gratitude in dissertation acknowledgements can vary across cultural contexts. In this study, the
cultural specificity of this genre is clearly reflected in the ways in which Hong Kong Chinese students expressed gratitude in
their acknowledgements since their cultural values and the socio-cultural context were embedded in the texts. These factors
may have an influence on the expression of stance in acknowledgements. As a result, the findings of this study are confined to
Hong Kong Chinese students only and not necessarily applicable to students from other cultural backgrounds. In order to find
global generalizations pertaining to stance use in the acknowledgement genre, cross-cultural studies of acknowledgments
written by students in other cultural contexts could be undertaken. Also, this study excludes other word choices such as
evaluative lexis. Such choices are significant indicators of the writer's stance because they contain different connotations of
positive or negative evaluations. Future research could be done on this area in order to understand better how stance is
expressed in acknowledgements.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Carmen Lee, for her valuable advice on how to revise this paper. I would also
like to thank the Editor (Paul Thompson) and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier
versions of the paper and Mandy Pui for proofreading the paper.

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Thomas Chan is currently an MPhil student at the Department of English, Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests are genre analysis, ac-
ademic writing, English for academic purposes, and corpus linguistics.