A Contrastive Study On Conclusion Sections Between Chinese And English Agriculture Research Articles

China is a big agriculture-oriented country. It has always been a key national policyto revitalize agriculture through science and technology. International agricultureacademic communication is of great significance to the development of agricultureindustry in China. International English agriculture journals work as a good platform foracademic communication. In order to publish papers in these journals, Chineseresearchers need to have innovative researches as well good knowledge related tostructural and linguistic distinctions between Chinese and English journals. In the fieldof discourse analysis, researches on academic writing have been playing an importantrole. However, up to now, academic discourse analysis has mainly focused on abstracts,introductions and discussions. There are few researches on conclusions. Contrastiveanalysis lags even behind. Therefore, it is of much significance to carry out comparativestudies on conclusion sections in Chinese and English agriculture journals.With the development of studies on discourse analysis deepening, researches onacademic discourses have gradually been done from the interpersonal perspectiveinstead of just analyzing linguistic phenomenon. Academic discourses have no longerbeen considered just as an objective transaction of academic information. Writers alsotend to use some linguistic tactics for their communication purposes. Thecommunication function of discourses relies on macro generic structures as well asmicro linguistic signals. Therefore, in this research, the comparative analysis of Chineseand English journal conclusions will be carried out from the macro and microperspectives. The theories for the macro analysis are based on Hasan’s generic potentialtheories and the move-step division in the conclusion section by Yang&Allison. Forthe micro perspective, this research will focus on stance markers: hedges, boosters,attitude markers and self-mention. Stance markers can show writer’s attitude topropositions so they can influence readers’ opinions indirectly.This research tries to analyze60Chinese and English agricultural journal papersfrom the macro and micro perspectives. The30Chinese agriculture journal articles arecollected from three journals in CNKI: Pratacultural Science, Acta ecological Sinica,Acta Pedologica Sinica, the impact factor of which is more than1.3.The30Englishagriculture journal articles are collected from Agricultural Water Management,Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Animal Feed Science and Technology, the impact factor of which is more than1.9. The time period of these journals is from2007to2011.Two empirical study agriculture journal articles with independent conclusion sectionsare randomly selected each year. Wordsmith is used for labeling and statistic analysis.The statistic results are discussed.Through the contrastive studies, a few research results are found:For the macro generic structures (1) Chinese conclusions mainly focus on thesummary of researches through presenting study results and restating argumentationwhile English conclusions tends to go beyond just summarizing researches and oftenintroducing research applications and making suggestions for further studies.(2)Chinese conclusions tend to pay much attention to indicating research significancewhile English conclusions focus more on interaction with readers rather than indicateresearch significance.For the micro stance markers,(1) On the whole, the frequency of using stancemarkers is higher in English conclusions than in Chinese journals.(2) Hedges used inChinese conclusions are mainly about degree while in English journals are aboutcommitment.(3) Boosters in Chinese conclusions mainly focus on importance. InEnglish conclusions, boosters on importance and agreement are both used.(4) Forattitude markers and self-mention, the usage frequency is very low with no self-mentionat all. In English conclusions, the frequency of attitude markers and self-mention canstill be found to a degree..Through comprehensive analysis, it can be found that Chinese writers are inclinedto present the research significance while English writers tend to recommendapplication and further studies. Chinese authors are inclined to hide themselves in theirpapers to show the objectivity of their papers while English authors tend to have moreinteraction with readers. Chinese writers want to sustain the positive face of readers andthemselves while English authors focus more on the use of negative politeness policies.This research can help to enrich the application of generic structural potentials andstance markers in academic discourse analysis as well as provide some reference foracademic paper writing and teaching.