A Contrastive Study On Genre Of Chinese And English Self-Made Prefaces In Linguistic Monographs

The terminology “genre” is originally applied in literature. It is the definition of “genre”and “genre analysis” given by John Swales in 1981 that makes genre enter the field of linguistics. Swales considers genre as a class of communicative events. As an independent genre, preface has specific generic structure and linguistic features. Based on Swales’ move-step theory and Bhatia’s move-strategy theory, this thesis tends to carry on a contrastive study on Chinese and English self-made prefaces in linguistic monographs from generic structure and linguistic features respectively.This study makes a contrastive analysis to Chinese and English self-made prefaces with qualitative and quantitative analysis methods. The objects of the study are forty self-made prefaces. In the forty prefaces, twenty Chinese ones and twenty English ones are included.Through the analysis of forty self-made prefaces, the author of this study summarizes that generic structure of self-made prefaces in linguistic monographs consists of seven moves,Move 1 Stating the field, Move 2 General information of the book, Move 3 Book description,Move 4 Usage of the book, Move5 Acknowledgement, Move 6 Self-abasement and Move 7Signature. Each move contains many steps. The distribution and use of move in self-made prefaces are different in Chinese and English. In Chinese prefaces, Move 1 Stating the field,Move 2 General information of the book, Move 6 Self-abasement and Move 7 Signature are obligatory moves. In English prefaces, the obligatory moves are Move 1 Stating the field,Move 2 General information of the book and Move 3 Book description. Through the contrastive analysis of linguistic features of self-made prefaces, the author of this thesis finds that the use of modal verbs, pronouns, voice, tense and parallelism are different in Chinese and English self-made prefaces.This thesis reveals the generic structure of Chinese and English self-made prefaces in linguistic monographs and analyzes linguistic features of each move of linguistic monograph’s self-made prefaces. It provides examples and framework for contrastive genre analysis on self-made preface, and enriches the theory of genre analysis. This study can helplinguistic monograph preface writers or readers to have a better understand of the structure and linguistic features of self-made prefaces. It can also shed light on the reading and writing of self-made prefaces.