A Comparative Study On The Use Of Shell Nouns In English Scientific Research Article Introductions Written By Chinese And Native Authors

With the deepening process of globalization,international academic communication is becoming increasingly frequent.In parallel with this development,English scientific research article(RA)as an important information carrier has received extensive attention.Based on the definition and lexico-grammatical patterns of shell nouns proposed by Schmid,this thesis conducts a comparative study on the use of shell nouns in English scientific RA Introductions.Treetagger 3.2 and Antconc 3.4.4 are applied to analyze 80 English scientific RA Introductions that are selected as samples in CAC(Chinese Author Corpus)and NAC(Native Author Corpus)corpora.This thesis obtains the following results.First,Chinese authors make use of shell nouns less frequently than native authors.Second,in order to achieve shell nouns' cohesive function,Chinese authors use such lexico-grammatical patterns as the/a/an-N-PP,th-N,N-be-that and N-to,while native authors use the/a/an-N-PP,th-N,N-to,N-that,N-EP,N-wh,N-be-to and fixed phrase lexico-grammatical patterns.Finally,Chinese authors' lexico-grammatical patterns are mainly distributed in move 3,while native authors' are in move 2.These findings will be of benefit for Chinese authors who are inclined to publish papers in international journals.