A Comparative Study On Thematic Structure And Thematic Progression Patterns Of English Abstracts In Doctoral Dissertations Written By Chinese And Native English Writers

Abstract plays an indispensable role in academic papers. By reviewing the abstract, thereaders can draw a preliminary conclusion about the value of the paper. The present thesisintends to conduct a comparative study on thematic structure and thematic progressionpatterns in English abstracts of doctoral dissertations written by Chinese writers and nativeEnglish writers. It tries to explore the similarity as well as differences of thematic structureand thematic progression patterns of English abstracts in doctoral dissertations written byChinese writers and native English writers. More importantly, it attempts to analyze thefactors causing the similarity and difference.Totally120English abstracts whose clauses ranging from15-35of doctoral dissertationsin the fields of engineering and linguistics were selected and30for each corpus. There weretotally4corpora and30English abstracts for each: abstracts written by Chinese writersmajoring in engineering; abstracts written by Chinese writers majoring in linguistics; abstractswritten by native English writers majoring in engineering; abstracts written by native Englishwriters majoring in linguistics. The60abstracts written by native English writers are selectedfrom PQDD (ProQuest Digital Dissertations). The60abstracts written by Chinese writers arechosen from Doctoral Dissertation Database in China. As for the thematic structure, themetype and markedness were explored. All the themes were classified into simple themes andmultiple themes on the basis of Halliday’s (2000) classification in theme types. In the multiplethemes, textual themes and interpersonal themes were specially identified and counted.Markedness of themes in the4corpora were measured and analyzed. As for thematicprogression patterns, Huang Guowen’s (黄国文,1988) proposal were adopted, whichcategorizes these patterns into six, namely the Parallel progression, the Continuousprogression, the Concentrated progression, the Alternative progression, the Coordinateprogression, and the Derived progression.It was found that in the four corpora, simple themes were preferred to multiple themesand unmarked themes were preferred to marked themes. Besides, parallel, continuous andconcentrated progression patterns were three most frequently used TP patterns. So there wereno significant differences in the adoption of theme type and in the overall tendency of TPpatterns used in these English abstracts. In the field of engineering, there were more markedthemes in the English abstracts written by Chinese writers than in those by English writers. Inboth fields of engineering and linguistics, there were more continuous progression patterns inthe English abstracts written by English writers than in those by Chinese writers. And thereare more concentrated progression patterns in the English abstracts written by Chinese writers than in those by English writers. In the field of engineering, there are more alternativeprogression patterns in the English abstracts written by Chinese writers than in those byEnglish writers.It is recommended that simple and unmarked themes should be the first choice in thewriting of English abstracts. However, textual themes are necessary to function as thecohesive ties in text organization. It is also suggested that great attention should be paid to thechoice of TP patterns. Though it is not necessarily true that one TP pattern was superior toanother one, there are some different effects using different TP patterns. Sometimes, theinappropriate choice of TP patterns might arouse readers’ confusion or even fail to motivatereaders to finish reading the abstracts. Therefore, in order to make themselves easilyunderstood by readers, especially English readers, writers had better refer to English way ofthinking and try to choose the proper themes and thematic progression patterns to createabstracts with unity and coherence.