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2009-11-17 09:04:22晉爭伍輕苒
中國校外教育(下旬) 2009年13期
晉 爭 伍輕苒
Abstract:This study explores paper properties of English research article abstracts written by native English and Korean writers, taking a more broad approach. This approach is based on the assumption that abstract constitutes a genre in its own right, and at the same time, is a type of discourse, which can be approached with various tools of discourse analysis. Thus, various levels of analysis of abstracts that include thematic structure, cohesion, rhetorical structure and lexico-grammatical features are considered.
Key words:abstract English and Korean writers cohesion
Ⅰ Introduction
Abstract is a research tool that serves a "gatekeeping function" in helping readers decide if they want to invest more time in the rest of the paper. A total of fifty-four RA abstracts were selected for analysis in the present study. They were from four journals in the field of linguistics: English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Language (L), English Education (EE), and Korean Journal of Linguistics (KJL). The first two, ESP and Language, represent international journals written by English-speaking academics, and the latter two, EE and KJL, represent Korean journals written by Korean-speaking academics. All the abstracts analyzed were written in English. As variations may exist across disciplines in the field of linguistics, four journals were selected to represent two different disciplines: ESP and EE representing the area of applied linguistics, while Language and KJL representing research in the more 'pure' area of linguistics. The corpus written by English-speaking academics is made up of ten abstracts from ESP and seventeen abstracts from Language, selected at random from recent issues of the journals. Likewise, for the Korean journals, ten abstracts were selected from EE and seventeen abstracts from KJL.
Before looking carefully at the findings from a comparison of English research article abstracts written by English and Korean writers, it would be a good idea to present examples of various analyses based on the theoretical frameworks. Thematic Structure: thematic structure was analyzed according to Halliday's approach. The whole text from an abstract is displayed and an analysis of thematic structure in the abstract is charted. Cohesion: analysis of types and functions of various cohesive ties used in the fifty-four abstracts was carried out based on Halliday and Hasan.Move Structure: Swalessuggests that research article abstracts reflect the pattern of the research article itself, and have the Introduction-Method-Results-Discussion (IMRD) format. He also proposes the CARS model for the introduction section. Based on these two models, the conceptual macrostructure of the chosen fifty-four abstracts was analyzed.ア Result
A major difference between English and Korean writers is that Korean writers seem to depend more on textual themes, in particular conjunctives, to bond clauses in an abstract into a whole unit than their English counterparts. Results of the comparison between English and Korean writers in terms of thematic structure showed that in general, there was no marked difference between the two groups, in the use of themes for research article abstracts. The fact that Korean writers employ more cohesive ties than English writers (52.6, 47.4% respectively), specifically lexical (52.1, 47.9%) and conjunctive (67.9, 32.1%) cohesion, mainly results from the discrepancy in the degree of dependence on explicit linguistic markers to connect meaning into a coherent whole between the two groups of academics. The major source that could account for the differences between English and Korean writers found appears to be different styles of perceiving and structuring academic facts or discoveries in writing, caused by different linguistic, socio-cultural environments. One important consideration suggested by this study is whether and how to fill the gap found between the two groups of academics.
Reference:
[1]Halliday, M. A. K. 1994b. An introduction to functional grammar (2nd ed.). London: Edward Arnold.
[2]Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. 1989. Language, context, and text: Aspects of language in a socialsemiotic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[3]Swales, J. M. 1990. Genre analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
晉 爭 伍輕苒
Abstract:This study explores paper properties of English research article abstracts written by native English and Korean writers, taking a more broad approach. This approach is based on the assumption that abstract constitutes a genre in its own right, and at the same time, is a type of discourse, which can be approached with various tools of discourse analysis. Thus, various levels of analysis of abstracts that include thematic structure, cohesion, rhetorical structure and lexico-grammatical features are considered.
Key words:abstract English and Korean writers cohesion
Ⅰ Introduction
Abstract is a research tool that serves a "gatekeeping function" in helping readers decide if they want to invest more time in the rest of the paper. A total of fifty-four RA abstracts were selected for analysis in the present study. They were from four journals in the field of linguistics: English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Language (L), English Education (EE), and Korean Journal of Linguistics (KJL). The first two, ESP and Language, represent international journals written by English-speaking academics, and the latter two, EE and KJL, represent Korean journals written by Korean-speaking academics. All the abstracts analyzed were written in English. As variations may exist across disciplines in the field of linguistics, four journals were selected to represent two different disciplines: ESP and EE representing the area of applied linguistics, while Language and KJL representing research in the more 'pure' area of linguistics. The corpus written by English-speaking academics is made up of ten abstracts from ESP and seventeen abstracts from Language, selected at random from recent issues of the journals. Likewise, for the Korean journals, ten abstracts were selected from EE and seventeen abstracts from KJL.
Before looking carefully at the findings from a comparison of English research article abstracts written by English and Korean writers, it would be a good idea to present examples of various analyses based on the theoretical frameworks. Thematic Structure: thematic structure was analyzed according to Halliday's approach. The whole text from an abstract is displayed and an analysis of thematic structure in the abstract is charted. Cohesion: analysis of types and functions of various cohesive ties used in the fifty-four abstracts was carried out based on Halliday and Hasan.Move Structure: Swalessuggests that research article abstracts reflect the pattern of the research article itself, and have the Introduction-Method-Results-Discussion (IMRD) format. He also proposes the CARS model for the introduction section. Based on these two models, the conceptual macrostructure of the chosen fifty-four abstracts was analyzed.ア Result
A major difference between English and Korean writers is that Korean writers seem to depend more on textual themes, in particular conjunctives, to bond clauses in an abstract into a whole unit than their English counterparts. Results of the comparison between English and Korean writers in terms of thematic structure showed that in general, there was no marked difference between the two groups, in the use of themes for research article abstracts. The fact that Korean writers employ more cohesive ties than English writers (52.6, 47.4% respectively), specifically lexical (52.1, 47.9%) and conjunctive (67.9, 32.1%) cohesion, mainly results from the discrepancy in the degree of dependence on explicit linguistic markers to connect meaning into a coherent whole between the two groups of academics. The major source that could account for the differences between English and Korean writers found appears to be different styles of perceiving and structuring academic facts or discoveries in writing, caused by different linguistic, socio-cultural environments. One important consideration suggested by this study is whether and how to fill the gap found between the two groups of academics.
Reference:
[1]Halliday, M. A. K. 1994b. An introduction to functional grammar (2nd ed.). London: Edward Arnold.
[2]Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. 1989. Language, context, and text: Aspects of language in a socialsemiotic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[3]Swales, J. M. 1990. Genre analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
