A Comparative Analysis Of Moves And Lexical Bundles In The Conclusion Part Of Chinese And International English Academic Writing

As the textual unit of a text,moves with different functions form a complete textual structure.Lexical bundles are ubiquitous in academic discourse,which is helpful for writers to achieve high-level academic writing and build subject identity.Research on the correlation of rhetorical moves and lexical bundles is conductive to better understand the structure and function of each move.However,there are few studies on the combination of move analysis and lexical bundles in research article(RA for short)conclusions.Therefore,based on two conclusion corpora of Chinese and international English academic writing,this study makes a comparative analysis of move structure and the characteristics of lexical bundles used in each move of RA conclusions.The research questions include:(1)What are the similarities and differences in the move structure of RA conclusions in the two corpora?(2)What are the similarities and differences in the structural forms of 3-word lexical bundles in each move of RA conclusions in the two corpora?(3)What are the similarities and differences in the functional features of 3-word lexical bundles in each move of RA conclusions in the two corpora? The specific research steps are as follows: Firstly,two English academic writing corpora are built,which are the Conclusion Corpus of Chinese Journal Articles,and the Conclusion Corpus of International Journal Articles.The former is composed of English RA conclusions published in Chinese journals,and the latter is composed of English RA conclusions published in international journals.All chosen articles are from the field of science including two disciplines of chemistry and physics.Then,taking the move models of RA conclusions put forward by Yang and Allison(2003)and Hu Zhiqing(2007)together as references,this study conducts a pilot study to analyze 40 sampled conclusions,which aims to put forward a more proper model for the current study and analyze the move structure of conclusions.Then Ant Conc 3.5.5 is used to extract 3-word lexical bundles.Based on Biber et al.’(1999)structural classification and Hyland’ s(2008a,2008b)functional classification,lexical bundles in each move of conclusions are compared and analyzed structurally and functionally.This study yields the following findings:(1)In terms of move analysis,steps of Summarizing the results,Briefly introducing the study and Indicating the significance/advantage are among the first three rankings both in the text dispersion and occurrences in the two corpora,which reflects the major functions of scientific RA conclusions.(2)The structural analysis of target lexical bundles shows that,the two groupof writers rely heavily on PP-based bundles and NP-based bundles with different emphasis in each move.In move 1 Summarizing the study,international writers use more VP-based bundles with we as subject,while Chinese writers use less VP-based bundles usually with impersonal subject.In move 2 Evaluating the study,International writers rely more on NP-based bundles,while Chinese writers rely more on VP-based bundles.In move 3 Recommending further research,the difference mainly exhibits in the high proportion of PP-based bundles in journal article conclusions written by Chinese writers.(3)The functional analysis of target lexical bundles reveals that international writers use more research-oriented bundles,and Chinese writers use more text-oriented bundles.The two group of writers seldom use participant-oriented bundles.The functional performance of lexical bundles in each move of conclusions is quite different.