A Contrastive Study On Generic Structures Between English And Chinese Research Article Introductions In Applied Linguistics

This contrastive genre analysis examines the discourse structures of research article (RA) introductions written by native writers of Chinese and native writers of English, with the aim of showing the similarities and especially the differences that the generic structures of a same purpose-oriented genre reveal in western and Chinese cultures. A corpus of 40 RA introductions in Applied Linguistics (20 in English and 20 in Chinese) has been examined.An approach based on genre study (Hasan, 1989; Swales, 1990; Bhatia, 1993) is used to explore the communicative purposes and structure level of the text. Using a synthesis of three authoritative models of genre analysis, namely, Bhatia's move model, Swales' Create-a-Research-Space model and Hasan's generic structure potential notion, we have analyzed the move structure and come up with the generic structure potential (GSP) of RA introductions in English and Chinese respectively. This analysis reveals that: 1) Much difference exists in obligatory and optional moves between English and Chinese RA introductions. English RA introductions have four obligatory moves, Move one—introducing the topic, Move two—reviewing previous research, Move three—preparing for the present research and Move four—announcing the present research and two optional moves, Move five—announcing the principle findings or prediction results and Move six—paper organization while Chinese RA introductions have two obligatory moves, Move two—reviewing previous research and Move four—announcing the present research and two optional moves, Move one—introducing the topic and Move three—preparing for the present research. 2) Although the move structures of RA introductions in both groups do not always follow a linear path, English writers are more likely to use move cycles. 3) Althoughboth groups have reviewing previous research as their obligatory move, they...