Towards a longitudinal study of Metadiscourse in EFL Academic Writing: Focus on Italian learners’ use of it-extraposition

The article explores the use of it-extraposition constructions in the Italian component of the LONGDALE project, and specifically in a sub-corpus made up of reports and argumentative essays written by Italian undergraduate university students in the second and third year respectively. The results show that the use of it-extraposition increases over the two years, and that the extraposed embedded clauses (e.g. for/to clauses) and the adjectives and past participles employed in them are more varied in the third year. Furthermore, the data seems to suggest that the mistakes made by the learners are mainly due to the unsuccessful combination of it-extraposition with other features of academic English (e.g. the passive voice, post-modification of noun phrases). The analysis of the rhetorical aims of the constructions reveals that the learners use them mainly to emphasise their claims, yet in the third year they also perform other functions through them.