A Contrastive Analysis Of Metadiscourse Uses In RA Introductions By English And Chinese Scholars

Metadiscourse is used to negotiate interactional meanings in a text, assisting writers to express viewpoints and engage with readers as members of a particular community(Hyland, 2005). Metadiscourse is vital to the success of writing. The present study is to analyze metadiscourse uses in English and Chinese RA introductions from a contrastive perspective.Based on Hyland’s(2005) model and Swales’(1990) CARS model, the present study aims to investigate the metadiscoursal features and move structures of RA introductions written by English and Chinese scholars. The data for this present study consists of two corpora: English Corpus(100 English RA introductions) and Chinese Corpus(100 Chinese RA introductions). These two corpora are selected from the leading journals of two disciplines, namely, linguistics and literature. The introductions of both English and Chinese corpora are read through carefully to label the metadiscourse uses and the patterns of move structures. Meanwhile, the distributions of metadiscouse and the patterns of move structures are analyzed.The findings of the present study reveal that there are similarities as well as differences in metadiscourse uses and move structures between English and Chinese RA introductions. Speaking of the similarities, they are mainly:(1) interactive resources are used much more frequently than interactional resources and within interactive dimension, evidentials and transition markers are used most frequently;(2) most English and Chinese introductions conform to Swales’(1990) CARS model and move 1 and move 3 outnumber move 1 in frequency. The major differences are:(1) English scholars use significantly more metadiscourse features than Chinese counterparts;(2) as for English introductions, move 3 is the most frequent one. While, Chinese scholars attach more importance towards move 1.