| The past years have witnessed the great interest in genre analysis of academic writ-ings, but previous studies have concentrated on genre study of various parts of academicpapers, for instance, that of the Abstract, Introduction or Discussion. While genre analysisof MA or PhD thesis, especially that of the interactions between Introduction and Conclu-sion of dissertation has been rare, the study of which, could reveal the characteristics ofthe interactions and the way of how they are achieved, thereby providing valuable sugges-tions for PhD dissertation writing.By adopting a corpus-based comparative analysis, the data for present study consistsof both Introductions and Conclusions of20applied linguistics-oriented PhD dissertations,10from CNKI PhD database and10from ProQuest PhD database. All the dissertationswere written in English, and they are respectively classified into CEL corpus and ENScorpus. With reference to both Swales and Bunton’s genre analyses, the genre structure ofIntroduction and Conclusion in each corpus was firstly established. And they are generallysimilar except for the preference of some specific steps. Following the established movemodels, the interactive moves between Introduction and Conclusion occurring in eachcorpus were then calculated and the result showed that17samples contain apparent inter-active moves, and the most typical and stable interactive moves is the research questionsstep in Introduction and the research findings/results step in Conclusion.A detailed comparative analysis of transitivity system, hedges and tense in achievingthose interactions between Introductions and Conclusions was followed and the resultsindicated that:Regarding the transitivity system, the material process, which is followed by the rela-tional process, is the most frequent process occurring in both research questions step andresearch findings/results step in both corpora, and the left four processes take few percen-tages in the interactive moves in both corpora. The main difference of the two corpora liesin the different occurrences of both material and relational processes in the research find- ings/results step, for the percentage of material process in this step is higher in CEL corpusthan in ENS corpus, whereas that of the relational process is lower in CEL corpus than inENS corpus. The employment of both material and relational processes in the researchfindings/results step in both corpora contributes to making the interactions to be more ob-jective, authentic and reasonable.On hedges, generally speaking, a variety of hedges are more common and diverse inboth research questions step and research findings/results step in ENS corpus than inCEL corpus. The extensive employment of various hedges in the research findings/resultsstep could contribute to making the interactions more precise, objective, scientific andvalid.Regarding the tense distribution, the results suggested that the simple present tensepredominates in both research questions step and research findings/results step in the twocorpora. Moreover, in the step of research findings/results, the tense shift both on sentencelevel and discourse level happened in both corpora. But it is more common in ENS corpusthan in CEL corpus. In general, the utilization of tense shift both on sentence level anddiscourse level in the research findings/results step could interpersonally contribute tobetter achieving the interactions by making the answers or responses to the research ques-tions well-found, scientific and valid.The present study is significant both theoretically and practically. Theoreticallyspeaking, it enlarges and enriches genre analysis theory and functional linguistics to theinteractions between Introductions and Conclusions of PhD dissertations; practicallyspeaking, the current study provides some practical suggestions for Chinese Englishlearners in their PhD dissertations writing, especially the writing of Introduction and Con-clusion. |
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