A Contrastive Study Of Acknowledgements In Chinese And American M.A. Theses

The acknowledgements section is a necessary part in theses writing. It provides the writer with a good opportunity not only to express their gratitude to those who have offered intellectual and moral support in the process of theses writing, but also to establish their academic and social identity. However, this genre has received little attention in the English for Academic Purposes(EAP) literature. Furthermore, there are few studies conducted on the comparison of acknowledgements texts composed by American and Chinese master students. With reference to Hyland’s model(2004), this thesis attempts to compare the acknowledgements section of master theses composed by American and Chinese master students.With a self-built data, the present study explores the generic structure and linguistic features of the acknowledgements section in linguistics and literature written by American and Chinese master students. About the generic structure, there are three findings. First, thanking move is the obligatory move in both of the two datasets. The reflecting move and announcing move are optional move. Few acknowledgements texts apply all the three moves listed in the modified version of Hyland’s model. Second, the reflecting move may appear in any position in American dataset while it usually occurs at the beginning or in the middle of Chinese dataset. Third, the announcing move usually appears at the end of the acknowledgements texts. About the thanking move in the two datasets, the thanking move in many acknowledgements texts include only ‘thanking for academic assistance’ and few acknowledgements texts include all the steps. Considering the linguistic features, there are four findings. First, thanking verbs rank the highest in American dataset while thanking nouns are used most frequently in Chinese dataset. Second, sentences including thanking verbs are applied most frequently in American dataset while sentences including thanking nouns are favored by Chinese students. Third, it needs to be noticed that ‘I’ is used as the subject by most of the sentences in thanking move of the two datasets. Fourth, concerning the specific types of nouns/noun phrases as subjects, there are three findings. First, American students tend to use more nouns/noun phrases referring to people/God as subjects than Chinese students. Second, thanking nouns/noun phrases and nouns/noun phrases describing theses writing as subjects are employed far more frequently in Chinese dataset than in American dataset. Third, nouns/noun phrases referring to various support as subjects appear frequently in both datasets.It is hoped that the findings of this thesis could contribute to raise master students’ awareness of the importance of acknowledgements. It may shed light on the teaching of the acknowledgements section in academic writing.