A Comparative Study On The Use Of Metadiscursive Nouns In English Research Article Abstracts By Chinese And English Academics

In today’s globalized world of scientific communication,as an independent discourse genre,abstracts serve a critical role in the dissemination of academic achievements by expressing the authors’ evaluations and attitudes toward the propositions,in addition to conveying factual information.In many non-Anglophone academic journals an English version of the abstract is usually required to distribute academic achievements internationally.However,there appears to be little attention for the abstract as an academic genre,as well as a lack of awareness of the role that using English as a lingua franca may play on their work’s dissemination.Similarly,the interpersonal function of metadiscursive nouns in negotiating meaning and expressing stance and attitudes in the generic structure of research article(RA)abstracts is also neglected.To bridge this gap,the aim of this thesis is to investigate the discourse communicative functions performed by metadiscursive nouns in rhetorical moves in English RA abstracts by Chinese academics published both at home and abroad,and those by English academics in prestigious international journals.In the meanwhile,the diachronic features of metadiscursive noun use will also be examined.To carry out this analysis,three self-built corpora have been compiled:(i)RA abstracts written in English by Chinese academics and published in leading domestic journals(CRA Corpus);(ii)English RA abstracts published in prestigious international journals by Chinese academics(ICRA Corpus);(iii)English RA abstracts published in leading international journals by English academics(NRA Corpus).This study is intended to answer the following questions:(1)What are the similarities and differences in the overall frequencies of metadiscursive nouns in English RA abstracts by Chinese and English academics?(2)What are the similarities and differences in the distributions of metadiscursive nouns in moves of English RA abstracts by Chinese and English academics?(3)What are the similarities and differences in discourse functions performed by metadiscursive nouns in moves of English RA abstracts by Chinese and English academics?To track changes of metadiscursive noun use in research article abstracts over the past 20 years,abstracts from the time period of 2001-2020 are chosen from top domestic and international journals in the field of Applied Linguistics,with 2 abstracts each year from one journal being selected at random.Overall,there are 600 abstracts in total of91911 words.To explore the rhetorical use of metadiscursive nouns in different moves,a topdown approach was adopted and the analysis of the data was carried out in two main stages: first categorizing moves in terms of their communicative functions and then examining the role of metadiscursive nouns in each move.During this process,MAXQDA 2020,a qualitative data analysis tool,was used to code all the moves and rhetorical functions of metadiscursive nouns.Then,the frequencies of the coded data were standardized(per 1000 words)and were input into SPSS for data analysis.The results show that metadiscursive nouns,as an important rhetorical strategy,were frequently used in research article abstracts to arrange arguments in a cohesive way and explicitly package information and engage readers.However,it’s found that compared with the first decade between 2001 and 2010,the overall frequencies of metadiscursive nouns have witnessed a drastic decrease in RA abstracts between 2011 and 2020.This suggests that applied linguists are becoming more cautious and reserved in showing authorial evaluation in the abstracts and choose to provide more objective information.The possible explanation behind this finding might be the emergence of the discipline of Applied Linguistics as an increasingly empirical and scientific field of study.Nevertheless,one point to note is that this decline has not been uniform across all moves,even though the overall trend is downwards.It’s found that Applied linguists increase the use of metadiscursive nouns in the background move and method move in the latter decade.And what all three author groups have in common is that frequencies of attribute nouns in the method move have risen to different extent,reflecting the growing emphasis of the research practice and research methods,which is further evidence of adherence to Anglophone discourse conventions.To sum up,the above findings suggest that researchers in Applied Linguistics consciously manipulate the use of metadiscursive nouns in different moves over time to strengthen the promotive power of their abstracts and keep their work in line with the expectations of disciplinary insiders.In addition to diachronic features,this study also finds that overall,Chinese academics employ much less metadiscursive nouns than English academics do,which collaborates the findings of previous studies that Chinese scholars may find it challenging to convey an appropriate position in the texts.For example,in some moves of RA abstracts,such as background move,purpose move and conclusion move,Chinese scholars might have difficulties in adopting some attribute nouns to construct a confident authorial voice and create a discursive discourse with the readers.The possible explanations behind this finding might be related to the different publishing contexts and cultural backgrounds.However,the absence of these nouns will certainly make it difficult for foreigners to understand the scientific nature of the research design and the significance of the findings,resulting in the authors losing an important opportunity to highlight the value of the research and market the results.Despite all those insufficiencies,this study has observed an encouraging finding,that is,compared with the first decade from 2001 to 2010,there is no longer any significant difference between Chinese and English-speaking academics in the overall frequencies of metadiscursive nouns in the abstracts in the second decade.This contributes to the fact that Chinese scholars are gradually becoming more able to compose a convincing and appropriate abstract by adhering to Anglophone norms and conventions.However,there is still a big gap between Chinese scholars and English scholars in the use of metadiscursive nouns in rhetorical moves of abstracts.Therefore,Chinese scholars should continue to explore the communicative function of each move of research article abstracts,and adopt metadiscursive nouns of different functional types to establish close interaction with readers,so as to achieve the purpose of effectively disseminating academic achievements.In a word,this study has unveiled the value of metadiscursive nouns in English RA abstracts as a tool for writers to offer a viewpoint on their research and strengthen writer-reader interaction.It’s hoped that the research findings could enhance Chinese experts’ understanding and awareness of the use of metadiscursive nouns for performing discourse functions in moves of abstracts.In the meanwhile,this study hopes to emphasize on the necessity of Chinese academics staying alert to the changing patterns in disciplinary norms and Anglophone rhetorical conventions to let their academic voices heard above the national academia and reaching out to the world,thus elevating the academic influence of China.