A Comparative Study Of Abstracts Of English And Chinese Science And Technology Research Papers-A Functional Approach

In modern society, with the fast development of science and technology, more and more academic papers are published. Meanwhile, the researches on abstracts of science and technology research papers attract more people's attention. An abstract is a summary of the main content of an article, so the quality of abstracts of academic research papers directly influences the exchange and spread of scientific findings between countries in the global-economic times. Consequently, on the one hand, a comparative study of the abstracts of English and Chinese science and technology research papers can offer some help in strengthening academic exchanges between China and other countries; on the other hand, this comparative study can provide a guide to write abstracts of scientific papers.Systemic-Functional Grammar, of which M.A.K. Halliday is a representative, creates a great influence on linguistic fields, such as discourse analysis. This thesis just presents a comparative study of the abstracts of English and Chinese science and technology research papers from the perspective of Systemic-Functional Grammar. This study is mainly carried out under the metafunction theory of SFG, namely, under ideational function (transitivity system), textual function (thematic structure, thematic progression and cohesive theory) and interpersonal function (mood structure). Among these three functions, the textual function is the focus of this study.This thesis adopts quantity and quality approaches to make a comparative study of 60 abstracts, of which 30 English abstracts are from American engineering index and 30 Chinese abstracts from six important domestic journals. Therefore, all these 60 abstracts are authoritative, which ensures the reliability of comparison.This thesis includes six chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the background, motivation and organization of the study. Chapter 2 presents the theory and methodologies of this study and a review of abstracts. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 describe respectively how three metafunctions are realized in the English and Chinese abstracts of science and technology research papers. Similarities and differences between these two types of abstracts are identified, and then some reasons for those similarities and differences are discussed. Chapter 6 is the last part, which points out the significance and weaknesses of this thesis and suggestion for further study.By comparison between the abstracts of English and Chinese science and technology research papers, it is found that both similarities and differences exist in these two types of abstracts. Differences may be related to two different cultures and thinking modes. Meanwhile, the findings in this thesis indicate that the genre of a text is reflected by its linguistic realizations to some extent.