A study on the developmental features and stance construction of shell nouns by Chinese EFL learners

Dados Bibliográficos

ID21458468
AutoresYinxia Wei (0009-0006-5394-4728, Ocean University of China), Xiaorui Liang (0009-0007-1076-6279, Ocean University of China), Yingying Liu (0000-0002-0080-9753, Ocean University of China)
Ano2025
Data de publicação2025-06-02
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAustralian Review of Applied Linguistics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0155-0640 • E-ISSN: 1833-7139
EditoraJohn Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1075/aral.24080.wei
OpenAlexW4410948683
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas40

The unique semantic characteristics of shell nouns (SNs) endow them with a rich interpersonal function in academic discourse. However, little attention has been paid to the developing features of SNs and their lexico-grammatical patterns in Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. This study bridges these gaps by tracking the progression of 15 English postgraduate students in terms of their use of SNs in academic writing across three stages. Key findings reveal: (1) objective SNs remained the prevailing choice, but significant longitudinal increase was only observed in the use of ‘meta-text’ SNs; (2) stance expressions involved fewer object nouns, which highlighted the interactive and evaluative feature of academic papers; (3) the use of anaphoric shell-noun patterns increased, reflecting an emphasized author-centric stance formation; (4) learners had a preference for the use of objective premodifiers, revealing a divergent trend from SNs. Moreover, the study exposed features in learners’ stance construction, characterized by simplicity in use, limited interactivity, and imbalance in development

Linguistics · Mathematics education · Noun · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning · Philosophy · Psychology · Second Language Acquisition and Learning