A Corpus-Based Comparative Study Of Chinese And English Abstracts Of Academic Papers

We recognized the theme and rheme progression of academic papers using natural languages processing method in artificial intelligence. We also picked discourse pattern up with the help of text classification algorithm. It meant that we analyzed the discourse pattern and information structure of the abstracts of some academic papers automatically. From the aspect of discourse we observed and studied the corpus which is made of Chinese and English abstracts from some academic papers. We summarized the characteristics of discourse patterns of the abstracts after research. We also analysed the reasons which caused the differences between information structures. It sets an example for the research of comparative discourse analysis, and that also enriches its contents. The research on languages is not for languages but for their application. Our research can help us understand the differences of writers’ magic and culture in various societies. It also helps us improve our academic writings.Chapter1 is the introduction, describing the research background, contents, analyzing methods and the significance assisted by basic part of theories which are concerning discourse structure and text classification methods of Chinese information processing.Chapter 2 is the literature review of the current study on abstracts of Chinese English academic papers as well as discourse patterns (both static and dynamic) at home and aboard.Chapter 3 focuses on the research design, involving in the introduction of corpus data, corpus collection and corpus pretreatment in addition to the discussion of the theme -rheme structure of abstracts in Chinese and English academic papers as well as the artificial coding system, stressing the core algorithm of automatic recognition of theme rheme progression and text classification in discourse mode.Chapter 4 studies the mode of theme-rheme structure and the progression of abstracts in Chinese and English research articles based on related definitions and discourse form methods, devoting to the discussion of language forms and characteristics of theme-theme structures of abstracts in Chinese and English academic papers.Chapter 5 focuses on static textual patterns of abstracts in Chinese and English academic papers, analyzing general characteristics of textual patterns of abstracts in Chinese and English academic papers so that provide language characteristic data to further comparative analysis.Chapter 6 is the comparative analysis of abstracts in Chinese and English academic papers, applying statistics method -Chi-squared test into data analysis of theme-rheme progression and proportion of discourse patterns of abstracts in Chinese and English academic papers, which demonstrates significant differences in thematic progression patterns but the difference in text mode is not obvious.Chapter 7 studies the fundamental causes of static and dynamic structural differences mainly from the aspects of language features, context and Chinese and western thinking and cultural differences.Chapter 8 is the conclusion including the contribution, significance and innovation as well as the limitation of the whole research.