A Genre Analysis Of English Literary Article Abstracts

Usually placed before the research article, an effective abstract not only benefits readers but also advertises the article. Its significance has drawn much attention and a number of scholars have conducted genre-based studies on the structure of research article abstracts. However, few of them have touched upon the abstracts of studies in literature and little research has targeted at academic article abstracts written by Chinese postgraduate literature majors.By following the ESP (English for Specific Purpose) generic approach and applying an adapted framework based on Swales’ CARS model (Swales,1990) and Stotesbury’s TAC pattern (Stotesbury,2003), this thesis reports a comparative analysis that investigated the rhetorical structure and linguistic realizations of 40 research article abstracts in the field of literature written by experienced academic writers and Chinese postgraduates.The study generated the following findings:Three of the four moves, Theme, Argument and Thesis, were obligatory in MA thesis abstracts and fairly common in journal article abstracts, whereas the Background move was optional in both corpora. The most frequent move pattern was Background-Theme-Argument-Thesis, with or without the Background move.The step frequency and patterns in each move showed more variations and discrepancies between the two sets of data. It was usually the case that Chinese postgraduates applied more steps and step patterns in each move, which may be attributed to the fact that their thesis abstracts are much longer than those by experienced writers.Similar to the rhetorical structure, the most frequent grammatical subject, tense and voice pattern in both corpora were the same, i.e., target concept/work/writer, simple present tense and active voice in the Background, Argument and Thesis moves, and reference to writer’s own work, simple present tense and active voice in the Theme move. Still, more types of subjects and tenses occurred in each move of MA thesis abstracts. It seems that the identification of moves need be based on a cluster of features rather than on any single linguistic feature.The results indicate that even advanced Chinese EFL learners still need improvement in academic abstract writing so as to meet the international standards. The findings of the study enrich the studies on research article abstracts, cast new light on cross-cultural comparative analysis of this academic genre, and have pedagogical implications for academic writing courses and textbooks for Chinese postgraduates.