It was found that…: Introductory it patterns by native and non-native authors

Abstract

Introductory it pattern, as in it was found that, is of significance in academic writing but the use of introductory it might be challenging especially for native- and non-native students and non-native academic writers. However, few studies have been conducted to compare the use of introductory it pattern by native and non-native scholars. This study investigates the frequencies, variability and functions of the introductory it patterns in the research articles of native and non-native academic professionals. The study uses data from the MCRA-L1 and MCRA-L2 corpora of MCRA (Multilingual Corpus of Research Articles) corpus. The size of each corpus was one million words. In order to extract introductory it patterns, four-word lexical bundles were searched for through WordSmith Tools with a cut-off point of 5 times per million words for 4-, 5- and 6-word bundles. The results revealed that there were 38 different introductory it patterns in the MCRA-L1 and 66 in the MCRA-L2, and the frequency and percentages showed the tendency of the Turkish authors to overuse the introductory it-structures in their research articles.