Citation Use In English Theses By Chinese And English Writers:Focusing On Introductions

This study attempts to make a contrastive study on citation use inEnglish-language master’s thesis introductions composed by Chinese writers and theirEnglish native counterparts in the field of applied linguistics.60master’s theses,among which30are from Chinese writers and30are from native writers wereanalyzed in terms of categories and subcategories of citations, reporting forms andreporting verbs on the basis of Thompson&Tribble’s (2001) framework for integraland non-integral citations, Hyland’s (1999) classifications of reporting forms andThompson&Ye’s (1999) framework for reporting verbs. The findings showed thatcitations were used more frequently in the MA theses introductions written by Chinesewriters than native English writers with the former showing a distinct preference forintegral citations over non-integral citations while the latter tending to use themequally. Verb-controlling and source citations from the sub-categories of integral andnon-integral citations were used most by both the Chinese writers and the nativewriters. There were no significant differences in the choice of reporting forms andreporting verbs by the two groups of writers. Qualitative analysis indicated that theproblems and inappropriateness of citation practices by Chinese writers were: nological relationship among the citations, a limited use of reporting verbs andinappropriate citation practices. These findings contribute to the improvement of theawareness of appropriate citation use among Chinese writers and provide pedagogicalimplications in academic writing.