Evaluative Language In English And Chinese Research Articles Of Chemistry

As one of the academic exchange media,research articles not merely need to introduce research results.More importantly,they also need to evaluate the research procedures,research results,social significance so as to negotiate the studies' reliability and values with readers,construct the dialogic space of writer-reader and other multiple dialogic spaces.This interpersonal function is generally achieved through evaluative language.However,constrained by specific cultures,the expression of evaluation has his own cultural uniqueness.This thesis explores the similarities and differences in the evaluative expressions in Chemistry discourse under Chinese and English cultures in order to enhance Chinese scholars' awareness of cultural differences in writing English articles,specifically in the use of evaluative resources and avoid the occurrence of negative transfer.By reference to the three systems in Martin & White's(2005)Appraisal Theory,namely Attitude,Engagement and Graduation,this study explores evaluative language in research articles and two corpora are established with 15 English research articles and 15 Chinese research articles,which are collected from the core journals of Chemistry with high-impact factors.Both qualitative and quantitative methods are adopted with the help of UAM Corpus Tool 3.3f and SPSS 19.0 to analyze the Appraisal resources in the two corpora.The findings are presented as follow:The total number of Appraisal resources in English research articles(604)is much more than those(349)in Chinese research articles.In the English corpus,the Attitude resources are used mostly(261),followed by Engagement resources(198),and Graduation resources(145),while in the Chinese corpus,Attitude resources(131)are also used mostly,followed by Graduation resources(110),and Engagement resources(108).According to Chi-Square Test,there exists difference in theapplication of Appraisal resources in two corpora(P = 0.037 < 0.05).Significant difference also exists in the use of Attitude resources(P = 0.032 < 0.05),while no difference exists in Engagement resources and Graduation resources(P = 0.172 > 0.05,P = 0.0370 > 0.05).2)In Attitude system,Affect resources are absent in both corpora.Judgment resources(156 and 74,respectively)are far more than Appreciation resources(105 and 57,respectively)in both two corpora.Meanwhile,there are significant differences in the employment of Judgement and Appreciation(P = 0.035< 0.05,P = 0.02 < 0.05).3)In Engagement system,the total number of Contraction resources applied in English and Chinese research articles(122 and 75,respectively)is much more than Expansion resources used(76 and 33,respectively),but there is no difference in the use of these two resources(P = 0.456 > 0.05,P = 0.786 > 0.05,respectively)in both corpora.4)In Graduation system,Force resources(127 and 92,respectively)take higher proportion than Focus resources(18 and 18,respectively)in both corpora,and there is no difference in the use of Force and Focus(P = 0.344 >0.05,P = 0.738 > 0.05)and the total numbers of Focus in the two corpora are equal.5)In terms of Appraisal distribution in sections,the Appraisal resources are used mostly in the chapter of Results and Discussion(364 and 194,respectively),followed by Introduction(148 and 92,respectively),Methodology(60 and 35,respectively),and Conclusions(31 and 27,respectively).In addition,there is no difference in the use of Appraisal resources in two corpora by Chi-Square Test(P = 0.262 > 0.05,P = 0.285 >0.05,P = 0.089> 0.05,P = 0.759 > 0.05).The above findings have shown that the applications of Engagement and Graduation in Chinese corpus are similar to English corpus in terms of writing research articles on Chemistry,but less attention paid to the use of Attitude resources in research processes and research results,especially the employment of Judgment and Appreciation resources in Chinese corpus.Moreover,this study provides some insights into reading and writing research articles for foreign language learners,and it is hoped that this research can help Chinese learners who prepare to publish their research articles in international journals.