A Contrastive Study Of Interpersonal Meaning In MA Theses Abstracts In English

Interpersonal meaning is an important research topic in linguistic studies. The present thesis is a cross-cultural study of the realization of interpersonal meaning in abstracts of English MA theses based on a systemic-functional approach. With the framework provided by both Halliday (1985) and Li (李战子, 2002), I attempt to apply the above model mainly through a contrastive study of 40 MA theses abstracts in English from the field of linguistics and TESOL: twenty written by native English-speaking postgraduates and twenty by Chinese postgraduates. The four major exponents for analysis are: mood, modality, evaluation and person. The frequencies and percentages of occurrences of items selected for analysis are calculated for this contrastive study.Research findings reveal that the abstracts collected from the two groups have some characteristics in common: in the mood system, both Chinese and native English-speaking postgraduates tend to use full-declaratives; in the modality system, they adopt modal auxiliaries and modal adjuncts equally frequently; in the evaluation system, they adopt appreciation, possibility and grading words most frequently; in the person system, common nouns are selected most frequently as the subjects. However, the two groups of abstracts differ in several major aspects. Firstly, the Chinese postgraduates tend to adopt median-value modal auxiliaries and high-value modulations. They choose implicit expressions of modality more frequently than the native English-speaking postgraduates. Secondly, they are more likely to use resources of judgment while their counterparts tend to choose the devices of affection and appreciation. Thirdly, they are inclined to use resources of extra-vocalization (attribution and hearsay) while their counterparts prefer intra-vocalization (evidence and claims). Fourthly, they are more likely to choose impersonal labels such as "the author" while their counterparts tend to directly adopt I as the self-reference.The result of the present study largely testifies the applicability of modality, evaluation, and person as analytical exponents for analyzing interpersonal meaning in...