A Contrastive Analysis Of Generic Structures And The Correlation Of Introductions And Conclusions Between English And Chinese Research Articles

In the past two decades, the concept of genre has been the focus of studies in various disciplines, especially in the field of applied linguistics. It has been a popular framework for analyzing the form and function of non-literary discourse such as the research article (RA). However, the recent researches about the genre analysis of the RA mainly concentrate on a single section study like introduction, method, abstract and so on and lack the study of the relations between different sections of RA. Based on previous studies, this paper aims to compare and contrast the generic structure and communicative purposes of journal article introductions and conclusions in both English and Chinese within the field of linguistics.In order to have a clear-cut generic organization of both introductions and conclusions, the present work adopts Swales'CARS (Create A Research Space) model and Yang & Allison's Move-Step model which is based on the former one. After the analytical approach to ten English research article introduction (ERAI) and conclusion (ERAC) sections and ten Chinese research article introduction (CRAI) and conclusion (CRAC) sections selected randomly from foreign and domestic key journals in the field of linguistics, this paper identifies communicative purposes of RAI and RAC respectively, and explores similarities and differences of the generic structure of introduction and conclusion sections in both English research article and Chinese research article. Based on the exploration, the relationships between introduction and conclusion of RA are investigated, aiming at finding out different points on such relation between ERA and CRA, digging out social and cultural factors behind such differences.Results show that (1) ERAI takes on more diversified forms than CRAI, especially in Move 2 ("Establishing a niche"). English RA writer uses indicating a gap, question-raising and continuing a tradition to establish a niche, while Chinese RA writer uses indicating a gap for most of the time. (2) English RA writers are more often adopting Move 2 ("Evaluating the study") than their Chinese counterparts in Conclusion section. In Move 3 ("Deductions from the research"), ERAC texts deploy Step 1 ("Recommending further research") and Step 2 ("Drawing pedagogical implication") in equal frequency to offer further research suggestion and illustrate practical function, yet Chinese RAC texts focus more on drawing pedagogical implication. (3) RAI and RAC are closely related (correlated) in terms of genre structure and communicative purposes but vary in degree across two languages. The relation appears to be closer in ERA than it does in CRA, especially in (re)establishing a niche (Move 2). English RA writers, who would prefer to point out limitations of present study and display the necessity for further study in conclusion section so as to correlate to the indication of research gap between previous study and the present one in introduction section, tend to be more objective than their Chinese counterparts.The study, based on the comprehensive contrastive analysis, gives better understanding of the relation between RAI and RAC, and provides some constructive suggestions for EAP teaching, more importantly, for Chinese RA writers (both expert and student writers) to improve their writing skills. It also helps raise awareness of Chinese scholars'senses of national identity and active participation in the academic dialogues on the international platform.