A Genre Analysis Of Thesis Abstracts Written By Chinese Postgraduates Majoring In English

The communicative purpose of the abstract as a written genre is to generalize or summarize the content of the whole research article. By introducing the main content of the research, the abstract serves as a time-saving device communicating the author's latest research findings to the academic circle. Writing an abstract is not an easy task for non-native speakers, and it is true with Chinese graduates. However, the available literature shows that few studies have been conducted to investigate the macro-structure and the linguistic features of the thesis abstracts written by Chinese postgraduates.In view of the importance of abstracts in thesis reading and publishing and the lack of research in this field, the present study aims at exploring the generic features of English abstracts written by Chinese postgraduates majoring in English. Fifty thesis abstracts are randomly chosen from China Doctor/Master Dissertations Full-text Database (CDMD). Swales' Move-Step model (1990) is used to examine the macro-structure of the thesis abstracts. As to the micro perspective, certain linguistic features, including the use of tenses, voices and first person pronouns are investigated.The findings show that, while the generic structure of the thesis abstracts are, by and large, in consistence with the IMRD model, but significant differences are also detected. The micro study of specific linguistic features of thesis abstracts suggests that under the influence of communicative purposes and strategies the simple present is the most frequently used tense, followed by the present perfect tense and the simple past tense. As to the use of voice, the active voice exceeds passive voice in all rhetorical moves of the abstracts. Meanwhile, the frequency of first person pronouns is very low due to the emphasis of objectiveness of the theses.It is hoped that the current research findings can provide pedagogical implications for the teaching of thesis abstracts writing at postgraduate level, helping Chinese postgraduates gain a better understanding in this particular academic genre and consequently produce more effective English thesis abstracts.