Hang Su

• PhD
• Professor at Sichuan International Studies University

This study explores the possibility and the feasibility of developing a set of local grammars to account adequately for speech acts, exemplifying the exploration with a local grammar of request. It mainly aims to further speech act studies and to ultimately contribute to the on-going development of corpus pragmatics. Using a corpus compiled of tran...

This paper investigates the association between language patterns and attitudinal meanings, focusing specifically on adjective complementation patterns and types of attitudes as proposed in the Appraisal framework (Martin & White 2005). The investigation shows that the tripartite division of Attitude into Affect, Judgement and Appreciation can be s...

This article takes as its starting point the analysis of adjective complementation patterns and sets this in the context of other studies of phraseology, especially Construction Grammar. The article proposes that a large number of meaning–pattern combinations can be identified as constructions. This endeavour assists and is assisted by the derivati...

This paper extends the concept of local grammar to speech act studies, focusing specifically on apologising in English. It aims primarily to demonstrate the usefulness of a local grammar approach to account for speech acts and ultimately to contribute to the on-going development of corpus pragmatics. Apology expressions in a corpus of scripted TV c...

This paper explores the applications of pattern grammar and local grammar in English language teaching, focusing specifically on the design of teaching materials. It shows that grammar patterns can be systematically analyzed from a local grammar perspective, and further argues that the practice of local grammar analyses helps to raise language lear...

In this study, we investigate the underexplored rhetorical practice of authors adopting English as a lingua franca (ELF) in academic writing, focusing on their use of exemplification. By giving examples for illustration or clarification, the act of exemplifying is central to the clarity and persuasiveness of research writing. We examined it through...

This study explores the applicability of local grammar in critical discourse analysis, which is demonstrated by an investigation into the discursive representation of climate change. Using UN climate change news as the data, the study shows that climate change was typically construed as ‘Problem’, ‘Cause’, ‘Definiendum’ and ‘Effect’, and a close ex...

This study explores the possibility of integrating pattern grammar and local grammar into construction grammar research and the value of such research for EAP writing pedagogy. Using data taken from a corpus compiled from Linguistics research articles, our study shows that local grammar analyses of grammar patterns help to identify ‘pattern-meaning...

Certain forms of linguistic annotation, like part of speech and semantic tagging, can be automated with high accuracy. However, manual annotation is still necessary for complex pragmatic and discursive features that lack a direct mapping to lexical forms. This manual process is time-consuming and error-prone, limiting the scalability of function-to...

This study explores the viability of applying the local grammar approach to speech act studies beyond English by developing a local grammar of apology in Italian. Drawing on data taken from the spoken Italian corpus of KIPTO, we identified nine functional terms that are commonly associated with the semantics of apologies in Italian. We subsequently...

This study belongs to a larger project which aims to systematically explore advanced Chinese EFL learners’ developmental pattern of communicative competence in academic context, with the current investigation zooming in on their performance of exemplification in academic writing. It draws on insights from local grammar research, as local grammars h...

The volume under review examines the teaching and learning of second language (L2) pragmatics by analyzing the role of the two protagonists, i.e., teachers and learners, in the development of L2 pragmatic competence, and employs different pedagogical approaches to L2 pragmatics teaching and learning. The aim of the book is to provide detailed infor...

This study proposes a local grammar approach to intercultural speech act studies, which is demonstrated by an investigation into apologies in Hong Kong, Singaporean, Indian, and British Englishes. Drawing on data taken from the respective components of the International Corpus of English, the investigation revealed a mixed picture of the ways in wh...

Adopting a local grammar approach, the present study investigated Chinese EFL learners' use of the discourse act of definition in academic writing. A corpus of MA theses by Chinese EFL learners and a corpus of published research articles by expert writers in the field of Applied Linguistics were compiled for the current investigation. Instances of...

This study develops a local grammar of exemplification in Chinese and also briefly discusses local grammar analyses of apologies in five selected languages, aiming to explore the feasibility of employing the local grammar approach to account for speech acts in various languages. Using data taken from DiSCUSS, a balanced and representative corpus of...

Certain forms of linguistic annotation, like part of speech and semantic tagging, can be automated with high accuracy. However, manual annotation is still necessary for complex pragmatic and discursive features that lack a direct mapping to lexical forms. This manual process is time-consuming and error-prone, limiting the scalability of function-to...

This study explores the relationship between pragmatic performance of discourse acts and second language (L2) English writing proficiency. To this end, the study focuses on one specific discourse act, i.e., exemplification, and adopts a local grammar approach to investigate the performance of exemplification in three corpora of academic writing by...

Local grammars have been shown to be useful for accounting for discourse acts (e.g., exemplification, evaluation) in academic writing. Focusing on the specific discourse act of defining, this study develops a local grammar of definition in Linguistics research articles and further discusses its implications and applications for EAP writing research...

This study adopts a local grammar approach to investigate exemplification in Chinese English-major MA student writers' and expert writers' academic writing. Using corpora compiled of Chinese English-major MA students' degree dissertations and expert writers’ published research articles in the field of Applied Linguistics as the data, the investigat...

Carmen Pérez-Llantada’s recent book Research Genres across Languages (RGaL hereafter) is a timely and important addition to the burgeoning field of genre analysis in the academic and research settings. Drawing on an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design with rich corpus and survey data, RGaL first offers an updated overview of the genre evolu...

This study presents a corpus-based sociopragmatic investigation into apology responses (ARs) and gender differences in ARs in spoken British English. Using data taken from the recently released Spoken BNC2014, the investigation leads to an adjusted taxonomy of ARs which comprises five categories and several sub-categories. The investigation shows t...

The book under review explores the interface between researching and teaching second language (L2) speech acts in the Chinese context by examining how Chinese English learners produce L2 speech acts. The targeted readership includes researchers and classroom teachers who are interested in interlanguage pragmatics research, especially those who are...

This paper presents a local grammar based diachronic investigation of apology in spoken British English, aiming to offer an alternative approach for diachronic speech act analysis and to further explore what the changing patterns of apology would suggest about the social-cultural changes happened and/or happening in the British society. The paper s...

This paper proposes a local grammar approach to investigating diachronically discourse acts in academic texts, aiming to offer an additional method for diachronic studies of academic discourse. Local grammars capture the patternings of the realizations of discourse acts at both the lexicogrammatical and discourse-semantic levels; as such they offer...

Local grammars have been reported to have the potential to facilitate English language teaching. This study explores this potential by applying local grammars into the teaching of discourse acts that are frequently performed in academic writing. For demonstration, the study focuses on the teaching of one particular discourse act, i.e., exemplificat...

This study presents a methodological synergy of corpus, functional, and cultural approaches to critical discourse studies, which is demonstrated with a case study of the discursive representation of Chinese Dream. The particular functional concept drawn on is that of transitivity in Systemic Functional Linguistics. Using the functionality of Word S...

This paper proposes a method designed to facilitate diachronic speech act analysis. The proposed method draws on the corpus linguistic concept of local grammar, an approach which seeks to account for, not the whole of a language, but one meaning or function only. Local grammar descriptions capture both formal and semantic regularities of speech act...

Local grammar is an approach to linguistic analysis and explanation which seeks to account for one function or discourse act only. This study employs the local grammar approach to explore discourse acts that are frequently performed in academic writing and further discusses the pedagogical implications and applications of local grammars in EAP teac...

Previous research on the grammar of English has led to the development of a number of useful reference books (e.g. Quirk et al., 1985; Biber et al., 1999; Huddleston & Pullum, 2002; Berry, 2012), which have substantially contributed to the teaching and learning of English language in EFL contexts. However, I found that from an (advanced) EFL learne...

This paper explores the association between recurrent phraseological patterns and disciplinary cultures from the perspective of semantic sequence. Based on Becher and his colleagues’ taxonomy of academic territory, the study selected Linguistics, Management, Physics and Computer Science to represent soft pure, soft applied, hard pure and hard appli...

This study takes a lexical-grammatical approach to exploring the evaluation of human behaviour and/or character. It uses adjective complementation patterns as the starting point to examine the lexical-grammatical resources at risk in the appraisal system of JUDGEMENT, aiming to explore the extent to which we can arrive at the same categorization of...

This paper presents a local grammar of thanking in English, aiming to further demonstrate the feasibility of using a local grammar approach to account for speech acts and also to contribute to the on-going development of corpus pragmatics. The corpus used for the study is compiled of those texts categorised as ‘Spoken—conversation’ in the British N...

This study, drawing on insights from the Appraisal framework, the parameter-based approach to evaluation and corpus linguistics, investigates the evaluative language used in customer review texts. The primary goal of this investigation is to develop a framework of evaluation that can be used to account adequately for evaluative expressions in custo...

This thesis, drawing on insights from Appraisal Theory, Pattern Grammar and Corpus Linguistics, explores the association between grammar patterns and attitudinal meanings. Particular attention is paid to adjective complementation patterns and Judgement, i.e. the ethical evaluation of human behaviour and character. Using a corpus compiled of biograp...