A Contrastive Study On The Use Of Linking Adverbials In Chinese And American MA Theses Of Linguistics

Since academic writing is becoming an effective way of communications at home and abroad, and is evaluated through the accuracy, logicity and coherence of the language, the ability to use linking adverbials to flexibly connect ideas is essential for Chinese postgraduates who are majoring in linguistics. Linking adverbials play a determining role in improving the coherence of a text and fulfilling the function as signals of logical relationship. Recent studies on linking adverbials have shown that there are still errors in students’ writings so that a study on the use of linking adverbials in Chinese and American MA theses of linguistics is of great value.By adopting two self-built corpora of theses of linguistics, a contrastive study from the aspects of distribution patterns, distribution of semantic types and functional classifications as well as preferences in the choice of linking adverbials has been conducted with retrieval tools of Antconc, SPSS and so forth. The results reveal that Chinese postgraduates are inclined to use much more linking adverbials than American postgraduates and the coverage of linking adverbials in each of the six parts in thesis are randomly distributed in theses for its unique genre features. As for distribution differences, the types of enumeration, result and contrast take up the most for its features in theses and much more linking adverbials are used to implement textual function in Chinese MA theses of linguistics corpus(CTLC for short) and American MA theses of linguistics corpus(ATLC for short). Considering the differences, further comparison of the overused and underused linking adverbials in CTLC and ATLC has been investigated. Additionally, a few distinctive linking adverbials are particularly analyzed in order to observe whether there are differences,and can be explained from the point of semantic meaning, cognitive schema or mental lexicon. The possible reasons for the findings can be attributed to L1 transfer, language fossilization as well as the lack of awareness in registers of language.What has been explored in this research are expected to shed some light on theses writing and academic teaching research, and it is beneficial for Chinese advanced English learners to be aware of the role that linking adverbials play in constructing a coherent writing. Also, this research offers guidelines to vocabulary acquisition and how to make good use of online resources with regard to teaching.