Page 204 - English - Teaching Academic Esl Writing

190 CHAPTER 8
couraged in L2 academic writing. Both of these types of mental/emotive are highlighted in this chapter.
The most common mental verbs found in academic text are actually fewer than 10 (listed here in declining order of frequency; Biber et al., 1999):
see consider think determine read find know assume mean
A majority of mental verbs found in published academic text largely de- note cognition, although this class also includes highly emotive verbs such as bear, enjoy, face, hate, and want.These verbs do not refer to physicalactions of any kind and involve "thinking" or, in rare cases, receiving information (e.g., observe, read, recognize).
In addition to the most frequent verbs noted earlier, other mental verbs found substantially less often in large English-language corpora include other verbs that refer to mental/cognitive processes (Leech et al., 2001).
accept confirm appreciate decide assess determine
estimate note solve examine notice study identify observe suspect
calculate choose compare conclude
discover distinguish doubt establish
intend interpret
judge learn
prefer prove realize recognize
Mental verbs refer to "private" intellectual states and acts; for this reason, their uses in academic prose mark the text as somewhat subjective (Quirk et al., 1985). Indeed mental verbs are far more prevalent in conversational and informal discourse and fiction than academic text. Such verbs as at- tempt, plan, try,and want refer to the future time and are often employed in tentative or personal constructions with an element of uncertainty (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002; Quirk et al., 1985).
In formal papers, NNS students employ substantially more emotive and tentative verbs than do NSs because L2 writers rely on hesitation to avoid projecting an overly confident stance in propositions and claims (Johnson, 1989b), as is considered to be desirable and appropriate in many non-Anglo-American discourse traditions. For example, / will try to
graduate in spring sounds more tenuous than I will graduate in spring. An- other reason that NNS writers employ mental and tentative verbs signifi- cantly more frequently is that many learners are exposed to a great deal more informal conversational discourse than formal written prose (Hinkel, 2002a).
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