A Corpus-Based Research On The Use Of Academic Vocabulary In The Abstract Of The M.A. Thesis Of Applied Linguistics

Since Coxhead(2000) compiled Academic Word List(AWL), research into academic vocabulary has received increasing attention from scholars at home and abroad. A variety of studies on the function of academic vocabulary, the compilation of academic vocabulary lists, the use of academic vocabulary and so on were conducted. It is shown that academic vocabulary, covering approximately 10% of running words in all kinds of academic texts, performs the important textual function and rhetorical function. On the other hand, in the M.A. thesis the abstract is a kind of independent academic discourse and an indispensible part. Using academic vocabulary properly is a significant factor to the idiomaticity and the coherence of the abstract. Yet at present little is known about its use in M.A. thesis abstracts.In order to fill in the research gap on academic vocabulary to some extent, this paper studied the use of academic vocabulary in M.A. thesis abstracts by Applied Linguistics postgraduates through the comparison with that by English native linguistics postgraduates. In addition, it also provided some conducive advice about the use of academic vocabulary and academic writing for postgraduates majoring in Applied Linguistics.The present study adopted the corpus-based approach and the interview. At the beginning, abstracts of 200 M.A. theses written by Applied Linguistics postgraduates and abstracts of 300 M.A. theses written by English native Linguistics postgraduates ii were collected for the construction of the observed corpus, C hinese Learner Corpus(CLC) and the reference corpus, Native Speaker Corpus(NSC). Then based on Santos’ five- move analysis model, the two corpora were divided into five sub-corpora of the background move, the introduction move, the method move, the result move and the discussion move respectively for the analysis of the use of academic vocabulary in different moves of abstracts. Next, The present study analyzed the abstracts with the aid of Range32, Ant Conc3.2.4 and SPSS16.0.The result indicated:(1) The percentage of academic vocabulary in abstracts of M.A. theses written by C hinese Applied Linguistics postgraduates is 12.89%, and in this regard, there is no significant difference between Chinese and English native postgraduates. Meanwhile, the coverage rates of academic vocabulary in each move all exceed 11%. The high percentages show the significance of academic vocabulary to academic abstract writing.(2) In abstracts of M.A. theses written by Chinese Applied Linguistics postgraduates, five moves are the introduction move, the method move, the result move, the discussion move, and the background move, in terms of decreasing order of frequency of academic vocabulary. Moreover, C hinese postgraduates overuse academic vocabulary in the introduction move and underuse academic vocabulary in the background move and the discussion move so as to differ significantly from English native speakers.(3) Among the most high- frequency academic vocabulary, some are commonly used in five moves, while some have the tendency to occur in a specific move. Chinese postgraduates’ selection of academic vocabulary is related to the textual function of academic words.(4)Compared with English native speakers, Chinese Applied Linguistics postgraduates overuse such academic vocabulary as “author”, “theory”, etc., underuse such academic vocabulary as “participants”, “items”, etc., and do not use such academic vocabulary as “adult”, “trend”, etc..To explore the root reasons for the use of academic vocabulary, the author conducted interviews with two participants whose theses were included in the observed corpus and who graduated in July, 2015. The interviews mainly involved three aspects: their attitudes towards M.A. thesis writing, their knowledge of academic vocabulary, and their comments on thesis writing teaching and learning. The analyses of the results of the interviews indicated: there are some problems existing in Applied Linguistics postgraduates such as not positive attitude towards thesis writing, lack of awareness and mastery of academic vocabulary; some Applied Linguistics postgraduates claimed the teaching content of thesis writing s hould also contain the use of academic vocabulary except the selection of the topic and research method and so on.On the basis of the above findings, the author proposed four suggestions for thesis writing teaching: imposing strict requirements for students’ academic writing to help them take correct attitudes, introducing the knowledge of academic vocabulary to promote students’ using it consciously, constructing the corpus of theses by English native speakers to provide authentic materials for students’ reference, strengthening academic writing practice to increase the opportunities of academic vocabulary output.