（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）基于体裁分析的论文摘要中学术批评研究.pdf

iii摘 要 在当今竞争加剧的学术界，符合学术规范、呈现新观点是论文发表的基本要求。随着研究领域的日趋国际化，许多中国学者都用英语来撰写科研论文并向国际期刊投稿，以便于他们的科研成果得到国际学术界的认可。作为学术论文的组成部分，论文摘要是关系到论文能否被录用、发表、检索及引起关注的重要因素之一；作为一种语篇组织形式，论文摘要语篇体现一定的交际目的，有其特定的谋篇原则。由此，论文摘要的研究引发了研究者的兴趣。 面对激烈的学术竞争，研究者必须首先证明其学术研究的创新所在，阐明前人研究中的空白与不足之处，从而为自己的立论预设空间。这就会涉及使用一些修辞策略来对自己的学术社团进行批评，即学术批评。而在当今英语为主流语言的国际学术团体中，特别是对于母语为非英语的研究者，在指出先前研究缺陷时，更重要的是符合国际论文写作及发表的规范。既要敢于明确地表明观点，确立研究地位，同时又要遵循学术写作的惯例，尤其要采取不同的策略来表达学术冲突，从而使自己的研究成果更易于得到广泛意义上的认同。目前针对这一现象学术批评的研究还不多见，一些实证研究曾指出其必要性和不同语言文化下具体实施的差异性，但都没有对差异性进行更深入的分析。 基于这一原因，本研究主要采用语料库研究方法，随机抽取应用语言学领域中130 篇学术论文摘要，其中 50 篇是由英语为第一语言的作者所写的论文摘要，50 篇来自中国学者用英语撰写的在国内发表的论文摘要, 另外 30 篇选自中国大陆作者在国际上发表的论文摘要。首先在宏观结构上分析了两组语篇的语步构建的异同，然后进一步研究了论文摘要中作者用来传递批评言语行为的各种不同策略。研究的理论框架是建立在两个基础之上:其一是swales用于分析语步的i- m- r- c 模式和分析引言的 cars 模式，其二是在对前人学术批评相关研究分析的基础上，笔者初步总结出一个学术批评策略表达模式，然后以此对两组语料进行对比研究。 结果显示，一方面，中国作者虽然在论文摘要的宏观语步分析上和英语本族者 iv趋于一致，但微观层面上，具体的语步和步骤构建上还存在差异，写作理念还存在分歧。另一方面，英文本族者摘要中批评言语行为的数量相对高于我国作者，而且英文作者更倾向于采用非所指的、间接的方式来传达批评言语行为；相比之下，中国作者更多地采取直接策略来进行学术批评。这和先前研究成果所指出的中国学者倾向于使用迂回模式，谨慎提出批评的观念相反。造成这一差异的主要原因在于论文发表环境方面的社会因素，即作者与言语社团的关系，毕竟两组语篇的作者所出的两个言语社团在规模与压力上有所不同。另外一个原因还在于英语为非母语的学者自己语言水平的限制和日常学术写作教学的不足。 此外，本研究还有着潜在的教学实践上的启示与应用价值，它能较好地帮助国内学术界了解国际刊物的写作规范，从而使我们的学术论文写作符合国际惯例与要求，更好地为国内科研服务。 关键词: 体裁分析 学术批评 学术论文摘要 iabstract in today s competitive academic world, conforming to academic writing conventions and presenting new ideas are essential for publications. with the internationalization of scientific researches, many chinese scholars have to engage themselves in this form of english writing, and submit their research articles to some international journals so as to get the results of their studies recognized by academic circles. as one part of research papers, abstracts may directly decide whether their articles can be published, retrieved, or even worth reading; meantime, as a textual pattern, abstracts represent some set of communicative purposes and possess certain schematic structures for the discourse. therefore, researches on abstract writing have aroused great interest among scholars. but the pressure to publish is continuously increasing and, in order to justify publication, the writers of scientific texts have to indicate a knowledge gap with regard to previously published work and create a research space that allows them to present new knowledge claims to the other members of the discourse community. this implies the use of a number of rhetorical strategies which involve the criticism of members of their own academic community, that is, the enactment of academic criticism. in present english- dominant international academia, the most important issues for scholars, especially non- native researchers, are to conform to the international writing conventions when pointing out the research gap. linguists have done some researches on the necessity and rhetorical variations of academic criticism in different language cultures. however, so far not much deeper analyses on the discoursal level have been carried out form the aspect of genre analysis. to carry out the present research, 130 pieces of abstracts in the field of applied linguistics selected randomly have been analyzed. 50 of them are chosen from foreign journals by native english writers, 50 english- version abstracts from chinese journals, and another 30 from overseas journals by native chinese from the mainland of china. the analysis of data was carried out on two models, one is swales imrc structure of whole research article and cars model for the introduction part, aiming to find the similarities and differences of move construction among three groups of samples; and the other, based iion previous studies, is a tentative model summarized by the present author, used to analyze different rhetorical strategies to enact this phenomenon of academic criticism. the results of this research show that, on the one hand, chinese writers tend to be in accordance with international writing conventions on the macrostructure of the abstracts, but at micro level, there are obvious discrepancies on specific move construction and writing philosophy. on the other hand, the total number of occurrence of ac is relatively higher in abstracts written by native english, and more impersonal and indirect critical speech acts are employed in these texts, whereas in the chinese text, the writers opted more frequently for the use of personal and direct academic criticism. these findings are contrary to previous researches that chinese prefer to convey criticism in a discursive and cautious way. the rhetorical variation is mainly due to the influence of the social context of publication, that is, the relationship between the writers and the discourse community they are addressing, which is different both in terms of size and pressure. the language barrier of chinese writers and the defect of academic writing in tertiary education may be the other reasons. moreover, this study also has some basic pedagogical implications. it can help foreign language learners, especially chinese researchers, write effective english abstracts to meet the international scientific communitys expectations. key words: genre analysis academic criticism research article abstracts 独创性声明 本人声明所呈交的学位论文是我个人在导师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的研究成果。尽我所知，除文中已经标明引用的内容外，本论文不包含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的研究成果。对本文的研究做出贡献的个人和集体，均已在文中以明确方式标明。本人完全意识到，本声明的法律结果由本人承担。 学位论文作者签名： 日期： 年 月 日 学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，即：学校有权保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版，允许论文被查阅和借阅。本人授权华中科技大学可以将本学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存和汇编本学位论文。 保密 ，在_ _年解密后适用本授权书。 不保密。 （请在以上方框内打“” ） 学位论文作者签名： 指导教师签名： 日期： 年 月 日 日期： 年 月 本论文属于 1introduction scientists in academic discourse communities are characterized by the wish to communicate new knowledge with the other members of the community and the primary way of exchanging scientific research results is by means of publication in academic journals. perhaps in all disciplines in contemporary academia, journals are the primary forum for the publication of research results, or, the codification of knowledge contribution (li, 2006). moreover, in present english- dominant publication culture, writing in english is perhaps increasingly inevitable for non- anglophone scholars who want to make their research paper published internationally. therefore, the ability to write effectively in english and a solid command of the discourse conventions featuring scientific writing have become a prerequisite for full participation in the international research community. especially in today s competitive research society, the pressure to publish forces writers to project a strong voice, not only persuading the readers to notice the worth of their own study but also evaluating the previous researches or theories that concern about their own claims. but using a strong and evaluating voice can be particularly problematic for l2 writers (cited from bloch, 2003). it is the process, as one of the features in academic writing pointed by hyland, 2000, that has been defined as academic criticism (ac), implying the use of rhetorical strategies which involves the criticism of other members of their specific academic community. there is one academic genre, the research article abstract, which has lately aroused great interest due to the important role it fulfils for the scientific community. as most abstracts present in a condensed way the macropropositions of the accompanying article, they have the main function of serving as a time- saving device by informing the readers of the exact content of the article, indicating whether the full text merits their further attention. we choose to look at abstracts partly because of their manageable length and compact presentation of argument, but mainly because this is a high stake genre where writers must foreground both the main claims of the paper and their importance (hyland, 2000). although it is sometimes considered to be merely a neutral descriptive summary of the longer paper (kaplan&cantor, 1994), abstracts are actually heavily rhetorical. 2as is mentioned above, using a strong, evaluative voice can be particularly problematic for l2 writers. as a mini- version of the paper， abstracts should provide a brief summary of each of the main sections of the paper. therefore, a well rhetorically organized abstract with appropriate and powerful ac can be helpful for the engagement of the author in this international academic community. as is pointed out by hyland (2000), cross- cultural issues have not become a focus of genre study, although initial interest has been developed towards this. what s more, for esl/ efl researchers who want to be accepted by the english- dominant academic world, writing ra in english is increasingly imperative. therefore, it is necessary to throw some light on this much neglected genre, especially on the cross- linguistic study of english abstracts written by native speakers and english abstracts written by chinese. although the previous cross- linguistic research of taylor & chen (1991) and bloch & li (1995) pointed out that, unlike native english speakers, chinese tend to avoid focusing on research gaps and shortcomings and seem to favor a more cautious and indirect style when expressing judgment, these observations do not predict the marked disparities between l1 and l2 argument paradigms (hyland, 1997). therefore, this study attempts to answer these two questions: (1) do the english abstracts written by chinese conform to the restrictions of the writing conventions in the international english- speaking community? (2) what are the differences when ac is conveyed cross- linguistically, especially in terms of frequency and rhetorical characteristics in different moves? with the purpose of analyzing the enactment of ac in the research article abstracts, a contrastive study of english abstracts written by both native english researchers and chinese writers from a cross- linguistic perspective is reported here in this paper. all the articles are selected from the most prestigious periodicals in the field of applied linguistics both at home and abroad. the primary purpose of the research is to reveal whether the english article abstracts written by chinese writers live up to the international writing conventions of this particular genre. based on swales i- m- r- c model of research article and cars model of introduction section, the frequency of different moves and steps appeared in these two groups of selected abstracts is examined first. and then, according 3to the tentative model summarized from the previous studies by the author, the phenomenon of ac is analyzed to achieve the ultimate purpose of the present study, that is, to find out the significant differences in the relative frequencies and preferred rhetorical strategies used by native english writers and chinese to convey ac in the research article abstracts. in order to further confirm the findings in the second phase, another 30 abstracts published in international journals are examined to make an in- depth analysis of the enactment of ac by chinese writers. this thesis consists of three chapters. after the introduction, the author presents a literature review, which mainly deals with the theoretical basis about the concept of genre analysis and academic criticism, and a brief evaluation of previous studies as well. chapter two provides the framework of the whole research, in which data collection and data analysis are introduced. in the third chapter, a contrastive study is conducted to find out the similarities and differences in the writing of abstracts by both native english writers and chinese writers, especially the strategies used to manage ac in research article abstracts. subsequently, with the report of statistical results, discussion is presented from different perspectives. the last part is conclusion, in which some implications and limitations of the present study are included. 41 literature review 1.1 theoretical base 1.1.1 genre analysis one of the most interesting developments in discourse studies in the past two decades has been the predominant use of genre theory, not only in the teaching and learning of language in context, but also in the description of language in use. an overview of genre the concept of genre, which had been so prevalent in literature, sociology, and rhetoric for a long time, has started assuming importance in linguistics only recently. in the field of genre analysis, most discussions have drawn on the definitions by swales (1990) or martin (1984), thus forming two trends in genre analysis: the swalesian school represented by john swales and bhatia, and the australian school represented by martin. according to the swalesian school, swales (1990:58) contends that, a genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes. these purposes are recognized by the expert members of the parent discourse community, and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre. “ each genre is an instance of successful achievement of specific communicative purpose using conventionalized knowledge of linguistic and discourse resources” (bhatia, 1993:3). such a definition of genre is frequently quoted and accepted by researchers of esp, who are interested in genre as a tool for analyzing and teaching the spoken and written language required of non- native speakers in academic and professional settings. the australian approaches to genre analysis have been centered within the framework of systemic functional linguistics, which is concerned with the relationship between language and its functions in given socio- cultural setting. martin (1987) refers to genres as staged, goal- oriented social processes, structural forms that cultures use in certain contexts to achieve various purposes. according to martin, genre is how things get done which range from literary to far from literary forms: poems, narratives, expositions, lectures, appointment making, lectures, news broadcast and so on. the term genre is used here to embrace each of the linguistically realized activity types which comprise so much of our culture. 5 genre analysis: a new approach to discourse analysis one of the earliest approaches to the description of varieties of language use, characterized in terms of what reid (1956) called “ register” . then three situational and contextual dimensions in terms of field, mode and tenor were proposed to identify various registeral characteristics. this is generally done by undertaking a large- scale corpus- based statistical analysis of a representative sample. but the findings remain severely constrained by their emphasis on surface features and do not provide adequate insights about the way information is structured in a particular variety. stylistic analysis in linguistics refers to the identification of patterns of usage in speech and writing. there are two aspects in stylistic analysis. one is linguistic description which lay emphasis on the description of internal mechanism of discourse in terms of phonetics, lexicon, grammar, syntactic pattern and discourse structure, providing answers to the question, “ what does the text mean” . linguistic analyses of lexico- grammatical properties in different texts are useful in the sense that they provide typical language patterns to facilitate the understanding of the same genre. the other is appropriateness of language, in order to answer “ how (or by what means) does the text mean what it means” . the former linguistic description laid the road for next explanation and the latter can make a deeper exploration of particular meanings in particular discourse. through these two aspects, appreciation of a certain discourse can be achieved, but this approach is still at the surface description level and not explanatory in nature. in order to introduce a comprehensive description of language in use, swales (1981) proposed one such model genre analysis. while differing from those traditional analyses which are based solely on linguistic description, and fail to explain why certain texts have got certain features; genre analysis, as an important branch of discourse analysis, has shifted its focus from a surface- layered description of the lexical and syntactical features or formats of discourse to a deeper and mufti- layered explanation of rhetorical devices and communicative functions of discourse. in nature, it is rich in social- cultural, institutional and organizational explanation, relevant and useful to language teachers and applied linguists rather than to grammatical theorists; and requires minimal support and interference from grammatical theory, and exploits maximally the conventional aspects of language use. 6in recent years, genre analysis has received more and more attention from linguists of relevant fields. linguists begin to recognize the importance of communicative purposes and linguistic strategies which are used to achieve the purposes in discourse studies, and there is a growing interest among them in providing a deeper and mufti- layered textual account in assessing rhetorical purposes; in unpacking information structures and in accounting for lexical and syntactic choices of discourse. therefore genre analysis emerges and becomes an important branch of discourse analysis. genre analysis involves dividing texts into chunks by shifts in emphasis which swales calls moves. the form of each move is then examined in order to build up a pattern of moves representing the genre of the text. according to swales (1990), a genre consists of a series of moves. a move can be thought of as part of a text, written or spoken, which achieves a particular purpose within the text. different texts are represented by different patterns of moves. and in turn, each move is realized by several strategies/steps. thus genre analysis can be understood as understanding textual organization in terms of the typical meaning- constructing moves the writer chooses appropriate to regulariz