A Contrastive Analysis Of The Application Of Metadiscourse In Research Articles By Chinese And English Native Speakers

Metadiscourse is discourse about discourse, which refers to the elements in the discourse expressing meanings beyond ideational meaning, that is the overt language method to organize the discourse, attract readers, engage the audience and signal the writer's attitude.This paper studies the contrastive analysis of the application of metadiscourse in research articles written by Chinese and English native speakers. The study attempts to address the following issues: Are there any similarities and differences on the application of metadiscourse? Why have there been such similarities and differences? How to explain these? What are the regularities of using metadiscourse in research articles? It aims at revealling the reasons why the different native speakers have such kind of differences on the application of metadiscourse. Trying to sum up the regularities of the application of metadiscourse by different native speakers, and to provide valuable theoretical and practical foundation for genre and discourse analysis, scientific paper writing and academic writing teaching.The author establishes two corpora of research articles written by Chinese researchers published in Chinese Journal of Mechanical Engineering (English version) and by English native speakers published in Mechanism and Machine Theory respectively. This study adopts Hyland's frame work of metadiscourse, including interactive metadiscourse and interactional metadiscourse. Based on this categorization, through the data analysis and discussion, to find out the similarities and differences from the perspectives of genre, pragmatics, social culture, etc. Sum up the regularities of the application of metadiscourse.The results shows, both Chinese and English native speakers have similarities when they apply the metadiscourse devices, as well as differences. Both parties applied plenty of interactive metadiscourse. From the facet of function, interactive metadiscourse is rhetorical, realize the textual function. This results show, English native speakers and Chinese native speakers have the same preference on organization of the article, rhetoric, and language expression.While the interactional metadiscourse is pragmatic, it also realizes interpersonal function. The author wants to draw the attention of the Chinese academics to the metadiscourse devices, to the application of metadiscourse. To enhance the awareness of proper use of metadiscourse and improve the writing ability in English.