Original Research

SAGE Open
January-March 2024: 1–15
Ó The Author(s) 2024
A Contrastive Study of Lexical Bundles DOI: 10.1177/21582440241239164
journals.sagepub.com/home/sgo
Expressing Gratitude in Dissertation
Acknowledgments Produced by Chinese
and American PhD Students of
Linguistics

Kai Bao1 and Meihua Liu2

Abstract
This study compared the five-word lexical bundles (LBs) expressing gratitude in acknowledgments of dissertations written by
Chinese and American PhD students of linguistics. Two corpora were built: (1) The Chinese University Dissertation
Acknowledgments Collection (CUC) which contained 700 acknowledgments with a total of 300,686 tokens, and (2) the
American University Dissertation Acknowledgments Collection (AUC) which contained 700 acknowledgments with a total
of 493,045 tokens. We then retrieved five-word LBs, of which LBs expressing gratitude in CUC and AUC were identified,
categorized, and compared with respect to frequency, forms and structures. Major findings were: (1) the Chinese students
used a substantially greater number of gratitude LBs than the American students, (2) the two groups used considerably differ-
ent gratitude LBs, and (3) the two groups mainly relied on verb phrase-based LBs to express gratitude, but the Chinese stu-
dents used a larger proportion of noun phrase- yet a smaller proportion of verb phrase-based items than the American
students, and (4) the two groups used dissimilar structures and words to construct gratitude LBs. These findings enrich our
knowledge of linguistic patterns in dissertation acknowledgments as a unique genre of academic prose, and provide corpus-
based learning materials for students tasked with properly expressing gratitude in their theses or dissertations.

Keywords
acknowledgment, dissertation, lexical bundle, gratitude, forms of LBs, structures of LBs

Introduction regardless of their structural status’’ (Biber et al., 1999,

Researchers have devoted increasing attention to formu-
laic language under various terms such as prefabricated
patterns (Hakuta, 1974), constructions (Fillmore, 1988),
and lexical bundles (LBs) (Biber et al., 1999). Despite this
inconsistency of terminologies, formulaic language was
found to constitute 58.6% and 52.3% of English spoken
and written discourse respectively (Erman & Warren,
2000), and is therefore ‘‘important building blocks of dis-
course in spoken and written registers’’ (Biber & Barbieri,
2007, p. 263). Formulaic language is particularly impor-
tant for second language (L2) learners as ‘‘it reduces the
learning burden while maximizing communicative ability’’
(Ellis, 1994, p. 86) and provides L2 learners with ready-
made sets of items (Coxhead & Byrd, 2007).
As a type of formulaic language, LBs are ‘‘recurrent
expressions, regardless of their idiomaticity, and
p. 990). Their defining features include their non-idio-
maticity, structural incompleteness, and frequency-
driven identification. LBs have been widely examined
across English for Academic Purpose (EAP) contexts,
including university teaching and textbooks (e.g., Biber
et al., 2004; Liu & Chen, 2020), research papers or
essays produced by first language (L1) and second lan-
guage (L2) English writers (e.g., Bychkovska & Lee,
2017; Chen & Baker, 2010; Pan et al., 2016) as well as
1
University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China
2
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Corresponding Author:
Meihua Liu, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Tsinghua
University, Beijing 100084, China.
Email: ellenlmh@yahoo.com

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2 SAGE Open
between different disciplines (e.g., Cortes, 2004;
Hyland, 2008a, 2008b).
Acknowledgments of dissertations make a unique
rhetorical space where PhD students express gratitude
and develop academic social identities (Hyland & Tse,
2004). The genre is much more than a catalog of idiosyn-
cratic gratitude, possessing both rhetorical sophistication
and academic preferences (Hyland, 2004).
Acknowledgments function to bridge the personal with
the social, and the academic with the lay (Hyland, 2003;
Bitzer & Leshem, 2021), revealing ‘‘the writer as someone
with a life beyond the page’’ (Hyland, 2003, p. 246) as
well as ‘‘the hidden influences behind papers’’ (Cronin,
1995, p. 305). Though significant, acknowledgments are
a neglected ‘‘Cinderella’’ genre (Hyland, 2003, p. 246)
often regarded unacademic and insignificant by applied
linguistic researchers (Hyland & Tse, 2004).
Understandably, little research has examined LBs in this
unique genre, and even fewer studies have compared LBs
in acknowledgments produced by learners of varying
backgrounds. This has caused a lack of corpus-based
teaching and learning materials on LBs of this particular
genre, and added to Chinese students’ difficulties in
properly learning and expressing gratitude to people who
have helped them finish theses or dissertations, probably
the most important writing in their lives. Coupled with
the rapidly rising number of degree theses whose
acknowledgments are often written in both Chinese and
English in China, use of LBs in acknowledgments
deserves research.
Consequently, the present corpus study sought to
compare the use of gratitude LBs in dissertation
acknowledgments produced by Chinese and American
PhD students of linguistics, hoping to shed light on the
researching and learning of this unique genre. We
focused on linguistics because it is an important major in
the discipline of foreign languages in China, with stu-
dents mostly majoring in English. PhD students of lin-
guistics are not only language researchers themselves but
also one of the most advanced English learner groups in
China, probably in America as well. They write good
English for both general and academic purposes. If dif-
ferences are found in gratitude LBs in the dissertations
written by these two groups, more difference may exist
in gratitude LBs between PhD students of other disci-
plines who are less proficient in English and their peers
who are native speakers of English or study in English-
speaking regions/countries. Hence, such a contrastive
study will help Chinese students to realize what the dif-
ferences are and know how to use gratitude LBs more
effectively in their dissertations. The results will not only
enrich the current literature but also facilitate the devel-
opment of suitable teaching materials on this under-
studied and -reported genre.
Table 1. Biber et al.’s (1999, p. 1014–1015) Structural Taxonomy.
Structure Example
Noun phrase + of a large number of
Noun phrase + other post-modifier the relationship between
fragment
Prepositional phrase + of on the basis of
Other prepositional phrase with respect to the
Be + noun/adjective phrase is due to the
Passive verb + prepositional phrase is based on the
fragment
Anticipatory it + verb/adjective phrase it should be noted
(Verb phrase) + that-clause fragment should be noted that
(Verb/adjective) + to-clause fragment to be able to
Adverbial clause fragment as can be seen in
Pronoun/noun phrase + be this is not the
Other expressions may or may not
Literature Review
Research on Lexical Bundles (LB)
Most LB research analyzes LBs in terms of form, fre-
quency, structure, and so on. The structural analysis usu-
ally uses pre-established taxonomies to first categorize
and then examine LB structures. A popular structural
taxonomy was proposed by Biber et al. (1999) for LBs in
academic discourse (Table 1), and has been widely modi-
fied and used. For instance, by grouping the structures
into categories based on noun phrase (NP), prepositional
phrase (PP), and verb phrase (VP), Chen and Baker
(2010) showed that student writers used a lower propor-
tion of NP-, PP-, but a higher proportion of VP-based
LBs than expert writers.
Most LBs research employs pre-defined structural
and functional frameworks to compare LBs across cor-
pora. Biber et al. (1999) conducted the first LB research,
discovering that LBs in spoken English discourse were
more clausal while those in written discourse were more
phrasal. LB studies then further examined items in differ-
ent registers (e.g., Biber, 2006; Biber & Barbieri, 2007;
Huang, 2018), disciplines (e.g., Cortes, 2004; Hyland,
2008b; Liu & Chen, 2020), genres (e.g., Hyland, 2008a;
Ren, 2021; Wright, 2019), and writer groups (e.g., Ädel
& Erman, 2012; Bao & Liu, 2022, 2023; Bychkovska &
Lee, 2017; Chen & Baker, 2010; Li et al., 2020; Shin,
2019), revealing LB variations in terms of frequencies,
structures, functions, etc. To date, the only LB research
on acknowledgments was conducted by Demirel and
Ahmadi (2013) who compared LBs in 270 acknowledg-
ments of research articles by Turkish, Iranian, and L1
English authors, revealing different LB frequencies and
forms, but leaving the structures unexplored. Structural
analysis is important to research on gratitude LBs in
acknowledgments, as it quantitatively measures how two
Bao and Liu 3

Table 2. Hyland and Tse’s (2004) Patterns Expressing Gratitude.

Form Example Proportion (%)

Nominalization my sincere thanks to.; the author’s gratitude goes to. 33.6
Peformative verb I think.; the author appreciates. 33.2
Adjective I am grateful to.; the author is thankful for 15.4
Passive Y is thanks for; appreciation is given to. 11.0
Bare mention I cannot go without mentioning.; X has been helpful in. 6.8

writer groups use different LBs to fulfill the same func-
tion of expressing gratitude. Yet little research, to the
best of our knowledge, has examined LBs in acknowl-
edgments of dissertations, let alone their structural dif-
ferences in Chinese and American students’ discourses.
Research on Acknowledgement
Previous research primarily carried out genre analyses to
uncover the generic structures and linguistic patterns in
acknowledgments. Hyland (2003, 2004) proposed a three-
move model (Reflecting, Thanking, and Announcing
move) by analyzing acknowledgments by PhD and MA
students from six disciplines at universities in Hong
Kong, with whom Hyland and Tse (2004) further identi-
fied the linguistic patterns in Thanking move (Table 2),
the only obligatory move in the model. The patterns fell
into five categories that have different forms of words
expressing gratitude, of which nominalization (33.6%)
has the most gratitude expressions, followed by performa-
tive verb (33.2%), adjective (15.4%), passive (11.0%) and
bare mention (6.8%) respectively. The two models have
been employed to study rhetorical structures and linguis-
tic patterns in acknowledgments written by students with
varying native languages such as Chinese (e.g., Cheng &
Kuo, 2011; Yang, 2012; Zhao & Jiang, 2010), Muslim
(e.g., M. Ahmad et al., 2018; Al-Ali, 2010; Khatib et al.,
2016; Lasaky, 2011; Zare-ee & Hejazi, 2019), Vietnamese
(e.g., Nguyen, 2017), Malaysian (R. Ahmad et al., 2023),
Nigerian graduate students (Adekannbi, 2023), and so on.
As found in these studies, Muslim students specifically
use the Thanking Allah step (Al-Ali, 2010; Lasaky,
2011), Praising God and His Prophet step (Estaji &
Nosrati, 2018) or thanking-God move (Zare-ee &
Hejazi, 2019), where religious supports are acknowl-
edged, and rely on patterns with performative verbs (Al-
Ali, 2010). Similarly, Nigerian (Adekannbi, 2023) and
Malaysian graduate students both tend to begin their
acknowledgments with thanking God (R. Ahmad et al.,
2023). Chinese students from Taiwan specifically use the
Making a Confession step where apologies for the sacri-
fice by their families in support of the authors’ projects
are made (Yang, 2012), and use more overt thanking
words (e.g., gratitude, thanks) (Cheng & Kuo, 2011).
Students from Mainland China frequently use modifiers
(e.g., sincere and heartfelt) in patterns with nominaliza-
tion, and rely on patterns with bare mention to express
gratitude (Zhao & Jiang, 2010).
The models have also been used in comparative stud-
ies on acknowledgments across disciplines (Afful, 2016;
Alemi & Rezanejad, 2016; Estaji & Nosrati, 2018), L1
and L2 English students’ discourses (e.g., M. Ahmad
et al., 2018; Hosseinpur et al., 2020), and female and male
students’ texts (Tang, 2021). For example, Afful (2016)
found that Ghanaian students in the discipline of English
used more hybridized forms (e.g., I say a big ‘‘meda hom
ase’’; meda hom ase means I thank you all in Ghanaian),
which were rarely used by those in Entomology and Wild
Life. M. Ahmad et al. (2018) revealed that Spanish writ-
ers used more expressions with debt than English writers.
Tang (2021) found that female and male students tended
to use varying lexical items to encode the thanking
expressions, thanking modifiers and gratitude themes in
their M.A. thesis acknowledgments.
On the whole, these studies demonstrate different
rhetorical structures and linguistic patterns of acknowl-
edgments in different social-cultural settings. The exist-
ing literature has mainly relied on linguistic forms to
determine differences of language patterns, leaving their
frequency and structure under-researched. Moreover,
previous research has rarely compared acknowledgments
produced by Chinese and American PhD students, and
the investigation of their LBs, if not none, is even fewer.
Applying widely used LB methods and models to
research acknowledgments enables us to systematically
present the similarities and differences in Chinese and
American PhD students’ gratitude expressions from mul-
tiple perspectives, including LB frequency, forms and
structures, thus contributing to the literature on both LB
and acknowledgment studies while informing relevant
pedagogical practices. Consequently, our research aimed
to compare the LBs used by Chinese and American PhD
students to express gratitude in their dissertation
acknowledgments. Our research question was:
What are the similarities and differences of the LBs
used by Chinese and American PhD students of linguis-
tics to express gratitude in their dissertation acknowledg-
ments, in terms of LB frequency, form, and structure?
4 SAGE Open
Table 3. Description of the Corpora.
Number of acknowledgments 700
Range of issue year 2000–2022
Discipline Foreign linguistics and applied linguistics; linguistics
section of English languages and literatures
Mean length 429.55
SD of length 186.62
Total token 300,686
Research Design
Corpora
As shown in Table 3, we collected 700 acknowledgments
of dissertations completed by Chinese PhD students of
linguistics between 2000 and 2022 from Chinese universi-
ties, via China National Knowledge Infrastructure, the
National Library of China, and university libraries. The
timeframe covered a substantial proportion of the genre
given that many of the PhD programs in China were
founded around 2000. As a result, the Chinese University
Dissertation Acknowledgements Collection (CUC) was
established, which had 300,686 tokens and a mean length
of 429.55 (SD = 186.62) words.
To parallel with CUC, 700 dissertation acknowledg-
ments completed by PhD students of linguistics from
American universities in the same timeframe were gath-
ered via ProQuest, Ohio Library and Information
Network, and university libraries. Like CUC, these data-
bases categorized articles in terms of disciplines or
departments. We accessed the interface displaying items
in linguistics, viewed or downloaded the dissertations,
and extracted their acknowledgments. Potential L2
English speakers were not excluded as this study was
based on the dichotomy of Chinese/American universi-
ties instead of L2/L1. Moreover, the databases did not
specify authors’ heritage so it was virtually impossible to
accurately determine their L1s. The American University
Dissertation Acknowledgments Collection (AUC) was
built with 493,045 tokens and a mean length of 704.35
(SD = 437.70) words.
Data Analysis Framework
Identifying LBs. The study used WordSmith Tools 8.0
(Scott, 2020) to retrieve LBs based on a cut-off point of
25 occurrences per million words (pmw) in at least 1.0%
of the sample texts. We focused on five-word LBs
because many of the linguistics patterns identified by
Hyland and Tse (2004) and other researchers are five-
word sequences (e.g., the author is thankful for).
The determination of a cut-off point is ‘‘somewhat
arbitrary’’ (Ädel & Erman, 2012, p. 82; Biber, 2006, p.
CUC AUC
700
2000–2022
Linguistics
704.35
437.70
493,045
134; Biber et al., 2004, p. 376; Hyland, 2008b, p. 8), dri-
ven by the need for a manageable analysis (Liu & Chen,
2020; Oakey, 2020). The present study adopted a rela-
tively low frequency cut-off in order to retrieve more gra-
titude LBs. The study adopted a 1.0% dispersion cut-off
entailing seven texts in each corpus considered high
enough to screen off idiosyncratic LBs used by only one
or two writers.
LBs expressing gratitude were then identified follow-
ing the patterns proposed by Hyland and Tse (2004) as
presented by Table 3. Specifically, a gratitude LB was
identified if it contained a word expressing gratitude
(e.g., thank, grateful, gratitude). Given that the expres-
sions with bare mention show gratitude implicitly, we
follow the previous study to identify those indicating
individuals’ support and contribution (e.g., with the
help of).
Categorizing and Analyzing LBs. We then categorized
LBs based on the forms of gratitude words recognized
by Hyland and Tse’s (2004) taxonomy that identified five
patterns expressing gratitude (Table 2). To express my
gratitude, for example, falls into the category of nomina-
lization. To reduce frequency inflation, we narrowed gra-
titude LBs with bare mention into those including or
next to titles, names of people, or personal pronouns
(e.g., possible without the help of). We also categorized
gratitude LBs with regard to structures using Biber
et al.’s (1999) taxonomy for academic discourse (Table
1). On its basis, we added noun phrase + verb/adjective
phrase (e.g., my special thanks go to) and verb phrase +
pronoun/noun phrase + (post-modifier fragment) (e.g.,
express my sincere gratitude to) to account for LBs failed
to fall neatly into the original taxonomy. We also fol-
lowed Chen and Baker (2010) to group the structures
into NP-, PP-, and VP-based categories to present major
structural patterns. Unlike functional categorization, the
form and structure categorization did not involve subjec-
tive judgments. We therefore did not conduct the cate-
gorization independently and calculate the inter-coder
agreement. Instead, the first author of this article cate-
gorized the LBs first, with the results then checked and
Bao and Liu
Table 4. Number of LBs and Gratitude LBs.
CUC
LB type frequency 861
LB token frequency 15,559
Gratitude LB type frequency 379
Gratitude LB token frequency 7,495
Gratitude LB type not shared in CUC and AUC 302
*Denotes p\.0001.
confirmed by the second author to avoid errors. After
the categorization, we compared the frequency, form,
and structure of gratitude LBs, first in CUC and AUC
to yield overall differences, and then in each of the five
categories to yield specific differences.
Results
Overall Frequency, Form, and Structure of Gratitude
LBs
We retrieved 861 and 256 five-word LBs, from which
379 and 140 gratitude LBs were identified in CUC and
AUC respectively (Table 4) (full list of gratitude LBs
provided in the Supplemental Material). The 861 LBs
had 15,559 tokens in CUC, and the 256 LBs had 7,705
tokens in AUC, revealing that the Chinese students pro-
duced a significantly greater number of five-word LBs
than the American students (LL = 7996.54, p \ .0001;
Log Ratio = 1.73). The 379 gratitude LBs had 7,495
tokens in CUC, and the 140 gratitude LBs had 4,281
tokens in AUC, suggesting that the Chinese students
used a significantly greater number of gratitude LBs than
the American students (LL = 3190.63, p \ .0001; Log
Ratio = 1.52). The Log Ratio of 1.73 indicated that the
LBs were around 3.46 times more frequent in CUC than
in AUC, and the Log Ratio of 1.52 indicated that the
gratitude LBs were around 3.04 times more frequent in
CUC than in AUC.
We found that 77 gratitude LBs were frequently used
by both student groups. The results suggested that 79.7%
of the gratitude LBs in CUC were not frequent in AUC
and 45.0% of the items in AUC were not frequent in
CUC. Because our research focused only on the gratitude
LBs identified from the items beyond the pre-defined cut-
off point (25 occurrences in at least 1.0% of the texts),
the different forms of gratitude LBs did not necessarily
mean that the items retrieved from one corpus (e.g.,
CUC) did not occur at all in the other corpus (e.g.,
AUC) but mean that the items were not frequent enough
to reach the cut-off point in the latter.
Structurally, Figure 1 shows that the Chinese students
used a greater proportion of NP-based gratitude LBs
5
AUC Log-likelihood Log ratio
256 — —
7,705 7,996.54* 1.73
140 — —
4,281 3,190.63* 1.52
63 — —
than the American students. The three NP-based struc-
tures, noun + of, noun phrase + other post-modifier
fragment, and noun phrase + verb/adjective phrase,
accounted for 1.9%, 11.3%, and 15.3% of the CUC
items, but accounted for 1.4%, 5.7%, and 4.3% of the
AUC items respectively. The two groups used a similar
proportion of LBs within the prepositional phrase + of
structure, a PP-based structure that accounted for only
0.8% in CUC and 0.7% in AUC. The American students
produced a considerably larger proportion of VP-based
gratitude LBs. The most noticeable difference was identi-
fied within the (verb/adjective) + to-clause fragment
structure that made up 35.7% of the items in AUC but
only 19.3% of those in CUC. The difference within be
+ noun/adjective phrase was also substantial, of which
the LBs made up 32.9% of the items in AUC yet only
21.9% of those in CUC. The Chinese students, however,
produced a larger proportion of gratitude LBs within
passive verb + prepositional phrase fragment (4.2% vs.
1.4%) as well as verb phrase + pronoun/noun phrase +
(post-modifier fragment) (25.3% vs. 17.9%). These
results reveal that the Chinese students used a higher
proportion of NP-, a similar but very small proportion
of PP-, but a lower proportion of VP-based gratitude
LBs than their American counterparts.
Gratitude LBs with Different Forms of Gratitude Words
Table 5 reveals that the Chinese students used substan-
tially more LBs in all the five categories, with the highest
LL value identified from the items with nominalization,
and the lowest from those with performative verbs. In
light of this marked and broad contrast, proportional
analysis instead of frequency analysis was conducted to
illustrate the two groups’ different use of gratitude LBs.
The results are reported in Table 5.
Gratitude LBs with Nominalization. As shown in Table 5,
there were 179 gratitude LBs with nominalization that
accounted for 47.2% of the LBs in CUC and 24 that
accounted for 17.1% of those in AUC. Nineteen LBs
were identified in both corpora, accounting for 10.6% of
the CUC and 79.2% of the AUC items. Consequently,
6 SAGE Open

Figure 1. Structural distribution of gratitude LBs in CUC and AUC. (A and B) show the distribution of items in CUC and AUC,
respectively.

Table 5. Number of Gratitude LBs with Different Forms of Gratitude Words.

CUC AUC
Gratitude LB with different forms
of gratitude words Type (%) Token Type (%) Token Shared type (%a)(%b) LL by token

Gratitude LB with nominalization 179 (47.2%) 3,852 24 (17.1%) 443 19 (10.6%) (79.2%) 5,048.65**
Gratitude LB with performative verb 66 (17.4%) 1,560 61 (43.6%) 2,377 31(47.0%) (50.8%) 5.04*
Gratitude LB with adjective 74 (19.5%) 1,319 37 (26.4%) 1,047 21 (28.4%) (56.8%) 309.06**
Gratitude LB with passive 13 (3.4%) 147 2 (1.4%) 41 2 (15.4%) (100.0%) 127.22**
Gratitude LB with bare mention 47 (12.4%) 617 16 (11.4%) 373 4 (8.5%) (25.0%) 241.35**
Total 379 (100.0%) 7,495 140 (100.0%) 4,281 77 (20.3%a) (55.0%2) 3,190.63**

Note. In the column of shared items, %a and %b denote their proportions in the CUC and AUC items presented in the row, respectively. *Denotes p\.05;
**denotes p\.0001.

89.4% of the gratitude LBs frequent in CUC and 20.8%
of those in AUC were not frequent in the other corpus.
These findings show that most gratitude LBs with nomi-
nalization commonly used by the American students
were also commonly used by their Chinese counterparts,
but not vice versa.
Figure 2A reveals that the CUC items fell into six,
while the AUC items fell into five structural categories,
of which five were shared and the noun + of structure
was specific to CUC. Distributionally, the Chinese stu-
dents used a greater proportion of NP-based gratitude
LBs. As shown in Table 6, within the NP-based
category, the Chinese students used three items falling
into the noun + of structure (e.g., a special word of
thanks) that made up 1.7% of all CUC gratitude LBs,
but the American students did not use any items of this
structure.
Figure 2A shows that the Chinese and American stu-
dents used 24.0% and 29.2% of the LBs within the noun
phrase + other post-modifier fragment structure, respec-
tively. Table 6 shows that the Chinese students used
more LB types with thanks (e.g., my heartfelt thanks to
my), and the American students used more LB types with
thank you (e.g., thank you to my family). The Chinese
Bao and Liu
Figure 2. Structural distribution of gratitude LBs with different forms of gratitude words. (A–E) display the structural distribution of
gratitude LBs with nominalization, performative verb, adjective, passive, and bare mention, respectively; the inner circle represents CUC,
and the outer circle represents AUC.
students also used more LB types with gratitude (e.g., my
deep gratitude to my), adding more forms of adjectives
including deep, deepest, sincere, heartfelt, and special, but
the American students only used deepest. The Chinese
and American students used 24.0% and 29.2% of the
LBs within the noun phrase + verb/adjective phrase
structure, respectively. Table 6 shows that the Chinese
students used more gratitude LBs and a greater variety
of modifiers within the structure. They also specifically
used should (e.g., special thanks should go to) as well as
appreciation (e.g., my appreciation also goes to) rarely
found in AUC.
Figure 2A reveals that the Chinese and American stu-
dents used 41.9% and 45.8% of the LBs as VP-based
items respectively. The Chinese students used 15.1% of
the LBs within the (verb/adjective) + to-clause frag-
ment structure, in contrast with 20.8% by the American
students. Table 6 shows that the Chinese students
7
specifically used thanks and thank you (e.g., want to
express my thanks), while the American students used
gratitude (e.g., to express my gratitude to) and apprecia-
tion (e.g., like to express my appreciation). In addition to
the wider variety of adjectives, the Chinese students used
more types of verbs including express, give, and extend,
but the American students only used express. The
Chinese and American students used 23.5% and 16.7%
of the LBs within the verb phrase + pronoun/noun
phrase + (post-modifier fragment) structure respec-
tively, where the Chinese students specifically used appre-
ciation (e.g., to extend my appreciation to) and thank you
(e.g., say thank you to my) and used more types of adjec-
tives and verbs than the American students. The Chinese
students used 3.4% of the LBs within the be + noun/
adjective phrase structure, in contrast with 8.3% by the
American students. While the American students only
used thanks (e.g., thanks are also due to), the Chinese
8 SAGE Open

Table 6. Gratitude LBs with Nominalization.

Structure Keyword CUC AUC

Noun phrase + of Thanks A special word of thanks N/A

Noun phrase + other
post-modifier fragment
Noun phrase + verb/
adjective phrase
(Verb/adjective) + to-
clause fragment
Be + noun/adjective
phrase
Verb phrase + pronoun/
noun phrase + (post-
modifier fragment)
Gratitude A special debt of gratitude, a great debt of gratitude N/A
Thanks My heartfelt thanks to my, my special thanks to professor, my N/A
deepest thanks to my, my sincere thanks to all
Gratitude My deep gratitude to my, my deepest gratitude to my, my My deepest gratitude to
sincere gratitude to my, my heartfelt gratitude to my, special my, a debt of gratitude
debt of gratitude to to
Thank you N/A Thank you to my family,
thank you to my friends
Thanks My special thanks go to, heartfelt thanks go to my, my hearty A special thanks goes to,
thanks go to, sincere thanks go to my, special thanks should special thanks go to my,
go to, many thanks also go to my thanks also go to
Gratitude My deepest gratitude goes to, my sincere gratitude also goes, My deepest gratitude
my heartfelt gratitude goes to, my special gratitude goes to, goes to
my sincere gratitude goes to
Appreciation My appreciation also goes to N/A
Thanks To express my sincere thanks, to give my special thanks, to N/A
express my heartfelt thanks, to extend my heartfelt thanks,
like to give my thanks, to extend my special thanks, to
extend my sincere thanks
Gratitude To express my deep gratitude, to express my deepest To express my gratitude
gratitude, to express my greatest gratitude, to extend my to, to express my
sincere gratitude, to extend my heartfelt gratitude, to deepest gratitude, to
extend my deepest gratitude express my sincere
gratitude
Appreciation Like to express my appreciation, express my sincere Like to express my
appreciation to appreciation
Thank you Like to say thank you N/A
Thanks Thanks are also due to, special thanks are due to Thanks are also due to,
special thanks are due
to
Gratitude Gratitude is also due to N/A
Thanks Express my sincere thanks to, express my special thanks to, Express my deepest
express my heartfelt thanks to, extend my heartfelt thanks gratitude to, express my
to, extend my special thanks to, extend my sincere thanks gratitude to my, express
to, give my special thanks to, I owe many thanks to my sincere gratitude to
Gratitude Express my sincere gratitude to, express my heartfelt Owe a debt of gratitude
gratitude to, express my special gratitude to, express my
deep gratitude to, express my deepest gratitude to, extend
my sincere gratitude to, extend my heartfelt gratitude to,
extend my deepest gratitude to, I owe my deepest gratitude,
owe my sincere gratitude to
Appreciation To express my sincere appreciation, to extend my N/A
appreciation to
Thank you Say thank you to my N/A

Note. For conciseness, only a part of the LBs were presented.

students also used gratitude (e.g., gratitude is also due to)
in the structure.
Gratitude LBs with Performative Verb. As shown in Table 5,
there were 66 (17.4%) and 61 (43.6%) gratitude LBs with
performative verbs in CUC and AUC. The Chinese stu-
dents thus used a much smaller proportion of gratitude
LBs with performative verbs than the American stu-
dents. A total of 31 gratitude LBs were shared, making
up 47.0% of the gratitude LBs in CUC and 50.8% of
those in AUC. About half of the gratitude LBs with
performative verbs in CUC or AUC were not frequent
in the other corpus (Table 7).
Figure 2B shows that the LBs in both corpora fell into
two VP-based structures. The Chinese students used
69.7% and 30.3% of the LBs within the (verb/adjective)
+ to-clause fragment and verb phrase + pronoun/noun
phrase + (post-modifier fragment) structure
Bao and Liu 9

Table 7. Gratitude LBs with Performative Verb.

Structure Keyword CUC AUC

(Verb/adjective) + to-clause
fragment
Verb phrase + pronoun/noun
phrase + (post-modifier
fragment)
Thank I would like to thank, I want to
thank my, I wish to thank my,
take this opportunity to thank
Acknowledge I would like to acknowledge
Dedicate I would like to dedicate
Thank thank my family for their, thank
my parents for their, I thank
him for his, thank all the
people who
Dedicate I dedicate this dissertation to
Owe I owe a debt of, I owe a special
debt, I owe a great debt, I owe
a great deal, I owe a lot to
I would like to thank, would especially like to
thank, I want to thank my, I especially want
to thank, I wish to thank my, have many
people to thank
I would like to acknowledge
N/A
thank my family and friends, thank my family
for their, thank you for all the, I thank her
for her, I thank them for their, I thank him
for his, thank the members of my, thank the
other members of, thank my other
committee members, thank you so much
for
I dedicate this dissertation to
I owe a debt of, I owe a great deal

Note. For conciseness, only a part of the LBs were presented.

Table 8. Gratitude LBs with Adjective.

Structure Keyword CUC AUC

Be + noun/adjective Grateful I am very grateful to, I am most grateful to, I am
phrase deeply grateful to, I am extremely grateful to, I
am equally grateful to, I am particularly grateful
to, I am grateful for the, I am very grateful for
Indebted I am greatly indebted to, I am also indebted to, I
am deeply indebted to, I am forever indebted
to, I am much indebted to, I am most indebted
to, I am particularly indebted to
Thankful I am also thankful to, I am particularly thankful to
Obliged I am much obliged to
I am very grateful to, I am especially grateful
to, I am deeply grateful to, I am particularly
grateful to, I am extremely grateful to, I will
always be grateful, I am so grateful for, I am
very grateful for, I am especially grateful for,
I am extremely grateful for
I am indebted to my, I am indebted to the, I
am especially indebted to, I am greatly
indebted to, I am deeply indebted to
I am thankful to my, I am especially thankful
to, I am very thankful to, I am so thankful
for
N/A

Note. For conciseness, only a part of the LBs were presented.

respectively, in contrast with 73.8% and 26.2% by the
American students. In the former structure, both groups
used thank (e.g., I would like to thank) and acknowledge
(e.g., I would like to acknowledge), but the Chinese stu-
dents specifically used dedicate (e.g., I would like to dedi-
cate). In the latter structure, both groups used thank
(e.g., thank my family for their) and dedicate (e.g., I dedi-
cate this dissertation to).
Gratitude LBs with Adjective. Table 5 shows that the gra-
titude LBs with adjectives accounted for 19.5% and
26.4% of all gratitude LBs in CUC and AUC
respectively. Twenty-one items were shared, accounting
for 28.4% and 56.8% of the gratitude LBs with adjectives
in CUC and AUC respectively. Figure 2C reveals that the
LBs with adjectives in both corpora fell into the be +
noun/adjective phrase structure. Table 8 shows that both
groups used grateful (e.g., I am very grateful to), indebted
(e.g., I am also indebted to), and thankful (e.g., I am also
thankful to), but the Chinese students specifically used
obliged as in I am much obliged to. Both groups used very
(e.g., I am very grateful to), deeply, particularly, extremely,
and also as the adverb, but the Chinese students specifi-
cally used most, equally, much, and forever (e.g., I am
10
Table 9. Gratitude LBs with Passive Verb.
Structure Keyword
Passive verb + prepositional Extended Thanks are also extended to, my thanks are also extended, thanks
phrase fragment should be extended to, special thanks should be extended
Given Thanks are also given to, thanks should be given to, thanks should
also be given
Dedicated Dedicated to all the people
Note. For conciseness, only a part of the LBs were presented.
forever indebted to) and the American students specifically
used so and always (e.g., I will always be grateful).
Gratitude LBs with Passive. As shown in Table 5, there
were 13 (3.4%) gratitude LBs with passive in CUC, and
two (1.4%) in AUC. The gratitude LBs appeared to be
the smallest category. Figure 2D reveals that the LBs in
both corpora fell into the passive verb + prepositional
phrase fragment structure. Table 9 shows that both
Chinese and American students used dedicated (e.g., this
dissertation is dedicated to) as the passive verb in the
structure, but the Chinese students also specifically used
extended (e.g., thanks are also extended to) and given
(e.g., thanks should be given to) with thanks as the subject.
Gratitude LBs with Bare Mention. Table 5 shows that
there were 47 (12.4%) and 16 (11.4%) gratitude LBs
with bare mention in CUC and AUC respectively, and
four were shared that made up 8.5% and 25.0% of grati-
tude LBs in the two corpora respectively. These results
suggest that the Chinese students used a greater number,
proportion, and substantially different forms of gratitude
LBs with bare mention than the American students did.
Figure 2E shows that the CUC and AUC items fell
into five structures, of which four were shared. The
Chinese and American students used 8.5% and 12.5% of
the LBs within the noun + of structure respectively.
Table 10 shows that both groups used the help and sup-
port (e.g., the help and support of), but the Chinese stu-
dents specifically used support, help, and completion, and
the American students specifically used the love and sup-
port as the noun phrase of the noun + of structure. The
prepositional phrase + of structure accounted for 6.4%
and 6.3% of the gratitude LBs with bare mention in
CUC and AUC respectively. The Chinese students spe-
cifically used help (e.g., possible without the help of) in
this structure.
The verb phrase + pronoun/noun phrase + (post-
modifier fragment) structure accounted for 72.3% but
only 31.3% of the gratitude LBs with bare mention in
CUC and AUC respectively. Table 10 shows that both
groups used from (e.g., benefited a great deal from) and
SAGE Open
CUC AUC
N/A
N/A
This dissertation
is dedicated to
empty subjects (e.g., SUBJECT helped me a lot in). The
Chinese students specifically used people (e.g., people
have helped me during) and who (e.g., who helped me a
lot), while the American students specifically used with-
out (e.g., not have done this without). The be + noun/
adjective phrase structure accounted for only 6.4% of the
LB items in CUC but 43.8% of those in AUC. Table 10
shows that both groups used without (e.g., not have been
possible without), while the American students specifically
used empty subjects (e.g., SUBJECT has been a constant
source). The passive verb + prepositional phrase frag-
ment was specifically used by the Chinese students and
accounted for 6.4% of the CUC items, including the pas-
sive verbs completed (e.g., not have been completed with-
out) and accomplished (e.g., not have been accomplished
without). Within the verb phrase + pronoun/noun phrase
+ (post-modifier fragment) structure, the Chinese stu-
dents specifically used LBs with people and who, and
many more LB types with empty subjects than their
American counterparts who only used SUBJECT made
it possible for me.
Discussion
The present study revealed 379 types and 7,495 tokens of
gratitude LBs in CUC, but only 140 types and 4,281
tokens of gratitude LBs in AUC. This finding indicates a
substantially greater number of gratitude LBs used by
the Chinese students, consistent with previous studies
reporting considerably more LBs used by L2 than L1
English writers in dissertations and theses (Hyland,
2008a), thesis abstracts (Lyu & Gee, 2020), essays (Wei
& Lei, 2011), and acknowledgments of research articles
(Demirel & Ahmadi, 2013). L2 English writers’ substan-
tially more frequent use of LBs was argued to indicate
their heavier reliance on prefabricated sequences due to
their relatively lower English proficiency (Hyland, 2008a;
Paquot & Granger, 2012).
Table 11 shows that CUC and AUC used a nearly
opposite distribution of LBs with nominalization (47.2%
vs. 17.1%) and performative verb (17.4% vs. 43.6%).
But their sum was both about 60.0%, consistent with the
Bao and Liu 11

Table 10. Gratitude LBs with Bare Mention.

Structure Keyword CUC AUC

Noun phrase + of Of And support of many people, the help and support of, the The love and support of,
help of many people, completion of this dissertation the help and support of
without
Prepositional phrase + of Of Possible without the help of, without the support of my Possible without the
support of
Be + noun/adjective phrase Without Not have been possible without, would have been Not have been possible
impossible without without, would have
been possible without,
would have been
impossible without
Empty N/A Has been a constant
subject source, has been a
source of, been a great
source of
Passive verb + prepositional Without Not have been completed without, not have been N/A
phrase fragment accomplished without, never have been completed
without,
Verb phrase + pronoun/noun Without N/A Not have done this
phrase + (post-modifier without, have done this
fragment) without you
From Have benefited a lot from, benefited a great deal from, I Learned a great deal
have benefited enormously from, have learned a lot from from, have learned so
much from
People People have helped me during, people who have offered N/A
me, the people who have helped
Who Who have assisted me in, who have provided me with, N/A
who have helped me in, who helped me a lot, who led
me into the
Empty Helped me a lot in, helped me in one way, helped me in Made it possible for me
subject various ways, have helped me a lot, have helped me in
one, provided me with the opportunity, have contributed
greatly to the, contributed a lot to the, offered me a lot
of, walked me through all the, led me into the field, made
it possible for me

Note. For conciseness, only a part of the LBs were presented.

results regarding Chinese PhD students in Hong Kong,
Taiwan, and U.S., reported by Hyland and Tse (2004)
and Yang (2012). The students in Hong Kong, however,
used similar proportions of expressions with nominaliza-
tion (33.6%) and performative verb (33.2%). They also
used a substantially higher proportion of expressions
with passive, compared with the other five groups pre-
sented. This difference might be due to the status of
English as a second and official language in Hong Kong
but a foreign language in Mainland and Taiwan China.
With reference to Yang’s (2012) results, Taiwanese stu-
dents’ gratitude expressions are more similar to those in
AUC when the students studied in American universities
but more similar to those in CUC when they studies in
Taiwanese universities. The results of our studies, how-
ever, contradict Zhao and Jiang’s (2010) research which
showed that Chinese PhD and MA students of linguistics
used 44.4% of the expressions with bare mention, in con-
trast to 12.4% in CUC and 11.4% in AUC, 6.8% for
students in Hong Kong, and 10.8% and 14.4% for
Taiwanese students in Taiwan China and U.S. respec-
tively. The differences can relate to the limited samples
of only 20 acknowledgements examined by Zhao and
Jiang (2010) who might reveal idiosyncratic gratitude
patterns. We found that 79.7% of the gratitude LBs in
CUC were not frequent in AUC, and 45.0% of the items
in AUC were not frequent in CUC. Further investiga-
tions of LBs with different gratitude words showed
greater variations of forms in LBs with bare mention
and adjective, suggesting that the Chinese and American
students used substantially different forms of gratitude
LBs, and that the degree of variation differed with
regard to different categories.
The varying distributions and different LB types sug-
gest that writers in different countries and even in differ-
ent areas from one country tend to rely on varying
expressions to show gratitude in their dissertation
acknowledgments. The proportional contrast between
12
Table 11. Distribution of Linguistic Patterns Expressing Gratitude across Different Corpora.
Patterns CUC AUC
Nominalization 47.2% 17.1%
Performative verb 17.4% 43.6%
Adjective 19.5% 26.4%
Passive 3.4% 1.4%
Bare mention 12.4% 11.4%
Note.Hyland and Tse’s (2004) study was on PhD and MA students at universities in Hong Kong, China; Zhao and Jiang’s (2010) study was on PhD and MA
students in Mainland China; Yang’s (2012) study was on Taiwanese PhD students at universities in Taiwan China and U.S.
PhD students from Mainland and Taiwan China was
even greater than that between the Chinese and
American students investigated by the present study.
This indicates that the use of gratitude expressions can
be very writer group-specific, driven by a complex of
educational, linguistic, institutional and socio-cultural
factors. All these findings confirm the pedagogical values
of gratitude LBs and raise a new question for EAP
instructors to address: Which group’s or groups’ grati-
tude expressions should be paid more attention to in the
teaching of this special EAP genre?
The structural analysis revealed that the VP-based
items accounted for 70.7% and 87.9% of the gratitude
LBs in CUC and AUC respectively, inconsistent with
previous studies indicating that LBs in academic prose
are more phrasal than clausal (Biber et al., 1999, 2011,
2013; Pan et al., 2016). The inconsistency indicates that
acknowledgments are a unique and untypical academic
genre and that both the groups relied on VP-based grati-
tude LBs. We identified a greater proportion of NP- yet
a smaller proportion of VP-based gratitude LBs in CUC
than in AUC, in contrast with previous studies reporting
a smaller proportion of NP- yet a greater proportion of
VP-based LBs used by L2 than by L1 English writers in
dissertation abstracts (Lu & Deng, 2019), research arti-
cles (Pan et al., 2016), and essays (Bychkovska & Lee,
2017; Chen & Baker, 2010). The frequent use of phrasal
LBs was considered an indicator of advanced English
language proficiency in academic prose (Biber et al.,
2016; Pan et al., 2016) that requires careful information
integration realized primarily via nominal and preposi-
tional phrases (Pan et al., 2016). Our inconsistency shows
a highly advanced English proficiency of the Chinese
PhD students in our study who majored in English. Our
results also indicate that gratitude LBs in dissertation
acknowledgments are much more clausal than phrasal
which resembles the characteristics of spoken discourse
with reference to Biber et al. (1999) results. The different
structural distributions confirm the genre-specificity of
dissertation acknowledgments as a special EAP genre,
SAGE Open
Yang (2012)
Hyland and Tse (2004) Zhao and Jiang (2010) Taiwan U.S.
33.6% 12.7% 19.0% 14.2%
33.2% 26.3% 47.4% 51.6%
15.4% 15.1% 20.0% 17.6%
11.0% 2.5% 2.5% 1.9%
6.8% 44.4% 10.8% 14.4%
highlight the necessity to develop genre-specific and
corpus-based learning materials, and confirm the peda-
gogical values of gratitude LBs.
The examination of the structures of gratitude LBs
with different forms revealed dissimilar structures as well
as accompanying words used by the Chinese and
American students. For example, the Chinese students
used a wider variety of modifiers (e.g., deep, deepest, sin-
cere, heartfelt, and special) than the American students
(e.g., deepest) in the noun phrase + other post-modifier
fragment structure (e.g., my deep gratitude to my).
Similar findings were also reported in Zhao and Jiang
(2010) and Yang (2012). The heavy use indicates the
influence of Chinese language argued by Wang (1951) to
be paratactic, that is, semantics-based, in nature.
Despite these differences, we found no evidence show-
ing grammatical incorrectness or pragmatic inappropri-
ateness of LBs used by the Chinese PhD students who
were advanced English learners and familiar with EAP
genres as PhD candidates in the discipline of foreign lan-
guages. CUC LBs can be used as teaching and learning
materials particularly for students in Chinese universities
who have lower English language proficiency or are
novice writers in EAP. Compared with their American
counterparts, the Chinese PhD students’ LBs are larger
in number, fall into similar structures (though with dif-
ferent frequencies in each structure), and tend to have a
wider variety of constituents in the same structures.
Those features add to the accessibility of teachable LBs
in their texts with considerably more items extracted
from the same size of discourses, but also distinguish
them from the American students. Although this study
did not exclude potential L2 English speakers from
AUC, it was safe to assume that AUC had a much larger
share of L1 English speakers than CUC. However, the
necessity and value of nativelikeness, in EAP genres and
acknowledgments in particular, remain a debatable issue
and can be driven by learners’ specific and individual
needs. For those who are studying in America or prefer
nativelikeness, AUC LBs can be of greater value. For
Bao and Liu
researchers interested in the socio-cultural, linguistic and
institutional factors behind the differences, the results
can serve as their starting points of analysis. Our study
remains largely descriptive with its main purpose being
to find differences and similarities in gratitude LBs
between CUC and AUC and provide LB-based learning
materials on dissertation acknowledgments as an under-
studied and under-reported genre.
Conclusion and Implications
This corpus study compared gratitude LBs in dissertation
acknowledgments written by Chinese and American PhD
students of linguistics in terms of LB frequency, form,
and structure. The major findings were: (1) the Chinese
students used a substantially greater number of gratitude
LBs than the American students; (2) the Chinese and
American students used substantially different forms of
gratitude LBs; and (3) the two groups mainly used VP-
based LBs to express gratitude, but the Chinese students
used a greater proportion of NP-yet a smaller proportion
of VP-based gratitude LBs, and (4) the two groups used
dissimilar structures and accompanying words in grati-
tude LBs. Clearly, the Chinese and American PhD stu-
dents used substantially different frequencies, forms, and
structures of LBs to express gratitude in their dissertation
acknowledgments.
These findings show that gratitude LBs are core lexi-
con in dissertation acknowledgments as a unique genre
of academic prose. They also confirm the need for using
corpus linguistics to investigate core formulaic sequences
in dissertation acknowledgments. The bigger number of
gratitude LBs used by the Chinese than American stu-
dents indicated the former’s smaller lexical repertoire.
However, despite the varying forms and structures, the
two groups both produced grammatically correct and
pragmatically appropriate LBs that could be directly
used as teaching and learning materials, confirming their
identity as advanced English learners. It would be
enough for a Chinese university student to adopt items
from CUC, but they could also use more items from
AUC to enhance nativelikeness. Moreover, Chinese and
American universities may have dissimilar perceptions of
common gratitude expressions, as indicated by the sub-
stantially different forms and patterns of gratitude LBs
across the two corpora in this study. It therefore might
be significant for instructors and students to be aware of
the differences, so that they can teach and write accord-
ingly to more effectively express gratitude to those who
have helped them accomplish what could be the most
important writing in their lives. The present study is one
of the few that examine and compare gratitude LBs in
dissertation acknowledgments produced by Chinese and
American PhD students of linguistics, thus contributing
13
to the current literature on LBs. Yet, it has certain lim-
itations. The biggest limitation is that it was descriptive
in nature and did not discuss the socio-cultural as well as
institutional factors underlying the Chinese and
American students’ different use of gratitude LBs, which
could be the focus of future studies. In addition, the
present research only investigated dissertation acknowl-
edgments produced by Chinese and American PhD stu-
dents of linguistics. A study of gratitude LBs in other
disciplines and cultural contexts will enable us to have a
deeper understanding of the issue. Future research may
also adopt interviews, questionnaires and experiments to
illustrate what gratitude LB forms and patterns are
favored by or better appeal to Chinese and American
writers/readers respectively, or how we are evaluating
the use of LBs or other formulaic language types in this
unique EAP genre. The findings can serve to frame a
benchmark standard and guide our pedagogical practices
in EAP classrooms in both countries and other places of
the world.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iD
Kai Bao https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1207-9337
Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
Data Availability Statement
Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were
generated or analyzed during the current study.
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