Literature And History Article Abstracts Discourse Intertextuality Analysis

This dissertation makes a systematic analysis of abstract texts of literature and history academic thesis by using Textlinguistics and Intertextuality theory. In the past textual consciousness, abstract of academic thesis is deemed to be a constituent part. However, this dissertation holds the point that abstract is a necessary and interactive component of academic thesis. The significant functions of abstract are:it prompts and supplements the body of the thesis, transmits academic information and makes the retrieval conveniently.This dissertation adopts the methods of positive analysis, comparative analysis and quantitative study. On the basis of former classification it divides intertextual relation into recessiveness and dominance. The phenomenon of intextuality which existing in the abstract of literature and history academic thesis is systematically analyzed from the two aspects of text generate and text interpretation, so do the rhetorical cause and the textual function that lead to becoming the phenomenon. Through studying academic thesis from intextual view and further interpreting the intertextual relations between abstract and body, abstract and key words, and abstract and titles, this dissertation aims to explore the rhetoric causes of the formation of intertextual parts of the body, and in what way those parts reappear, and how those intertextual parts finally condense into abstract text. At the same time, it analyses in what way the para-texts such as abstract, title, key words come into a intertextual relation with the body. This dissertation anticipates finding the rules that command the becoming of the abstract text and its reception, and by this way hopes to offer some enlightenment to the writing and the standardization of abstract, and to the formulation of the strategy of academic information transmission.This dissertation includes eight parts. The first part of introduction gives an overview of the present situation relevant to the research, reviews previous achievements and states the subject, method, value and significance of this research. Chapter one defines the definition, function and semantic feature of the abstract of academic thesis, and summarizes four main structural categories, i.e. informative abstract, indicative abstract, informative-indicative abstract and structural abstract. Chapter two reviews the development of intertextuality theory, defines it from linguistic perspective and commentates on the classifications of five influential intertextual relations. Then it divides intertextual relations into dominance and recessiveness according to whether they have a formal mark, and enumerates two intertextual strategies under their respective intertextual relations. Chapter three and chapter four analyze the concrete intertextual strategies in abstract text and some possible problems from the angels of dominant and recessive intertextuality. Chapter five and six unfold the discussions separately on another two factors in the textual system of a thesis——title and key words. They study intertextual relations between abstract and title, title and body, abstract and key words, and key words and body in different levels, and sum up the structural features and textual functions of the title and the key words under the intertextual relations. The conclusion part makes a summary of the dissertation, concludes the research, points out its innovations and weaknesses.