| dc.description.abstract | The present thesis explores the stance adverbial placement patterns of L2 learners of English from three different L1 backgrounds (i.e. Norwegian, Turkish, and Chinese), focusing on a selection of 20 stance adverbials, with the aim of finding out to what extent the three learner groups exhibit native-like behavior and to what extent we can see cross-linguistic transfer. Chapter two offers a theoretical background to the adverb class as well as stance adverbials, coupled with previous studies on stance adverbials. The corpus materials and methodology are presented in chapter three. In chapter four there are discussions of individual stance adverbials, concerning their placement patterns and grammaticality in the learner corpora. Finally, chapter five offers concluding remarks as well as further research topics. Among the three learner groups, Norwegian learners exhibit the most native-like stance adverbial placement patterns. This may not come as a surprise since Norwegian is a Germanic language, whereas Turkish and Chinese belong to different language families. The three least common positions for the stance adverbials across the learner corpora are the end medial, initial end, and end positions. This finding is also reflected in the native corpus LOCNESS. As regards cross-linguistic transfer, there is no solid evidence for the negative influences of learners’ L1s, though some occurrences of V2 transfer are detected in Norwegian learners’ L2 production. In addition, there are some occurrences of cross-linguistic transfer in connection with the stance adverbial maybe in Chinese learners’ L2 production. | eng |