Anticipatory ʹʹitʹʹ lexical bundles: A comparative study of student and published writing in applied linguistics

The study of those linguistic devices variously referred to as ʹstance expressionsʹ or ʹmetadiscourse elementsʹ is one of the best means by which the relationship between the writer, the reader, and propositional meaning could be examined. This paper is investigating a particular structural group of lexical bundles as a metadiscourse element, those bundles starting with anticipatory it followed by is (as a main copula verb), a predicative adjective and finally ending with infinitival to or conjunctive that (e.g. it is important to, it is possible that). The use of this bundle is compared in three corpora of research articles, doctoral dissertations, and master theses, all in the discipline of applied linguistics with an aim to first explore possible generic variations and second to address possible differences andor similarities between published and students writing. Using Hewings and Hewingsʹs functional typology of interpersonal roles of it clauses (2002), this group of bundles is shown to have three functions of hedging, marking attitude, and stressing emphasis. The major difference is found to be between studentsʹ genres and research articles with the former using fewer bundles than the latter. The differences are accounted for by referring to generic expectations, and studentsʹ growing disciplinary identity. There are also some implications for academic writing.