| Abstracts are an indispensable part of research articles.The pattern of tenses in abstracts of research articles is a key and difficult point.It is hard for non-native English speakers to master the usage of all the tenses.Based on the self-compiled Corpus of English abstracts in Chinese Journals(for short,CEA-CJ)and Corpus of English abstracts in American Journals(for short,CEA-AJ),this comparative study explores patterns of tenses in abstracts of research articles in Chinese journals by comparing with those in American journals.Three research questions are proposed.(1)How are tenses distributed differently between abstracts in Chinese journals and those in American journals?(2)How do abstracts in Chinese journals differ from those in American journals in terms of distribution of tenses across moves?(3)How do the semantic features of verbs influence patterns of tenses in abstracts?Is the influence similar in abstracts in Chinese and American journals?The results are summarized as follows.(1)There were significant differences in overall distributions of tenses between CEA-CJ and CEA-AJ.Both corpora included Present simple tense,Past simple tense,Present perfect tense,Future simple tense and Present continuous tense.CEA-AJ also included Past future simple tense,Present Perfect Continuous tense,Past Continuous tense and Past perfect tense.The total number of tenses in CEA-AJ was larger than that in CEA-CJ.For both corpora,the dominant tense was Present simple tense,the frequency of which in CEA-CJ was higher than that in CEA-AJ.In addition,the disciplinary difference was one of the factors of patterns of tenses.In CEA-CJ,abstracts of linguistics and transportation were significantly different in distributions of Past simple tense and Present perfect tense.But in CEA-AJ,the disciplinary difference focused on usage of Future simple tense.(2)With regard to move features,CEA-CJ and CEA-AJ were not significantly different in distributions of tenses in Purpose.But significant differences were examined in distributions of tenses in Background,Method,Results and Conclusion.In Background and Conclusion,frequency of Past simple tense was higher in CEA-AJ;in Method and Results,Present simple tense had higher frequency in CEA-CJ,but Past simple tense had higher frequency in CEA-AJ.(3)Concerning semantic features,CEA-CJ and CEA-AJ were not significantly different in distributions of tenses of Communication verbs,Occurrence verbs and Aspectual verbs.But the two corpora differed significantly in distributions of tenses of Activity verbs,Mental verbs,Causative verbs and Existence verbs.For Activity verbs,Mental verbs and Existence verbs,frequency of Present simple tense was higher in CEA-CJ,but frequency of Past simple tense was higher in CEA-AJ;for Causative verbs,Past simple tense had higher frequency in CEA-AJ.The results of the present study are expected not only to enrich the research of academic writing,but also to provide reference materials for Chinese scholars to write abstracts in idiomatic English.Furthermore,the study has important pedagogical implications for the teaching of academic writing. |
