A Genre Analysis Of Linguistics Thesis Abstracts Written By Chinese And US MA Students

The past few decades have seen considerable discussion and research on genre analysis. There is one academic genre, the research article (RA) abstract, which has lately aroused great interest due to its important role as a time-saving device by informing the readers about the exact content of the article and indicating whether the full text merits further attention (Martin,2003). In spite of the importance of the abstract, it continues to remain a neglected field among discourse analysts (Swales,2001).Following ESP (English for Specific Purposes) genre analysis, the author attempts to make a comparative analysis of MA thesis abstracts written by Chinese and US MA students in the discipline of English linguistics. The generic structure of the abstracts is explored and some specific linguistic features are investigated as well.The corpus in the study is composed of 66 MA thesis abstracts written by Chinese and US MA students in the discipline of English linguistics from the year 2005 to 2009. The Chinese corpus (CC) is composed of 33 abstracts selected randomly from CDDBFT (China Dissertation Database of Full Text), while the US corpus (USC) is composed of 33 abstracts selected randomly from ProQuest Dissertation Database of Full Text.Taking Swales'IMRD (Introduction-Method-Results-Discussion) pattern as a reference, the author adopts Swales'(2001) Move-Step model in the analysis of macro-structure of MA thesis abstracts in the discipline of English linguistics. Five stable moves,"Announcing importance of the field", "Introducing present research", "Presenting the methodology", "Announcing the results", and "Discussing the results", are identified in the CC, which reveal some deviations from the widely recognized IMRD framework. Apart from moves of introduction, method, result and discussion, a new move—"Announcing importance of the field" (M1) is identified. On the other hand, four stable moves are identified in the USC—"Introducing present research", "Presenting the methodology", "Announcing the results", and "Discussing the results", which conform to the IMRD framework. As for specific linguistic features of the MA thesis abstracts, major findings are as follows:(1) The analysis of tense choice reveals that the simple present tense is the dominant tense in the CC while the simple present tense and the simple past tense are used with almost equal frequency in the USC. Significant differences are identified in the Move "Presenting the methodology" and "Announcing the results", where the simple present tense is preferred by Chinese MA students while the simple past tense is favored by US MA students; (2) The analysis of voice choice presents a high level of similarity in the CC and USC. Active verbs are extensively used in the two corpora. In both CC and USC, active voice dominates in all five moves except the Move "Presenting the methodology", where the active voice and passive voice are given almost equal importance; (3) The first person pronouns have low frequency in both the CC and the USC. The first person singular "I" is absent in the CC and the first person plural "we" is absent in the USC; (4) The simple sentence and complex sentence have highly frequent occurrence while the compound sentence and compound-complex sentence are rarely used in both the CC and USC.It is hoped that this study can enrich studies on MA thesis abstracts and throw some new light on cross-cultural comparative analysis of this academic genre. It is also hoped that this study can offer both the teachers and MA students important insights in MA thesis abstract writing, helping the MA students to produce effective English abstracts.