A Contrastive Study Of The Rhetorical Relations Of M.A.Thesis Abstracts By Chinese And American Students

Abstract has great importance in international academic exchange and always draws much attention.This research chooses 15 Chinese abstracts and 15 English s of English linguistics M.A.theses as the research data.Based on the rhetorical structure theory(RST),this research establishes the rhetorical structure trees and counts the rhetorical relations by using the RST Tool for the Chinese and English abstracts.Through the contrastive analysis of the rhetorical relations of these s,this paper aims to solve the following three questions:(1)Which rhetorical relations do the Chinese abstracts and the English abstracts use respectively?And what are the distribution frequencies of these rhetorical relations?(2)What are the similarities and differences of the rhetorical relations between Chinese and English s of English linguistics M.A.theses?(3)What are the possible factors that are related to the similarities and differences of the rhetorical relations between Chinese and English abstracts of English linguistics M.A.theses?The results show that there are 18 rhetorical relations used in the Chinese s and 16 rhetorical relations used in the English abstracts.Among these relations,there are 14 rhetorical relations both used in the Chinese abstracts and in the English abstracts.They are background relation,elaboration relation,interpretation relation,joint relation,volitional result relation,solutionhood relation,summary relation,circumstance relation,nonvolitional cause relation,evaluation relation,concession relation,sequence relation,contrast relation and purpose relation.In addition,joint relation,elaboration relation,background relation,concession relation,volitional result relation and evaluation relation are the five dominant frequently used rhetorical relations of Chinese abstracts,which account for 66.03%of the total.Elaboration relation,joint relation,volitional result relation,background relation,and evaluation relation are the five dominant frequently used rhetorical relations of English abstracts,which account for 73.69%of the total.Except for the concession relation and the distribution frequencies,the frequently used relations are the same both in the Chinese abstracts and the English abstracts.At last,the author holds that the similarities and differences of the rhetorical relations between Chinese and English abstracts arise from the spiral and implicit feature of Chinese thought pattern,the linearity and accuracy of American thought pattern as well as the feature of genre of abstract.Through the contrastive analysis of the rhetorical relations of the Chinese and English abstracts,this research reveals the features of the frequently used rhetorical relations of Chinese abstracts and the English abstracts and reflects the characteristics of discourse construction of abstract,which have the reference value for helping Chinese writer to write high quality English thesis abstract and for English writing teaching.