A Comparative Study On Evaluation In English Chemistry Research Article Introductions: Published Writers Versus Student Writers

Introduction is an important part of English research articles as it functions to claim centrality of a research topic in international scientific research community,establish research niche in international academic environment and express the author’s own contribution.These three communicative purposes are realized by three consecutive steps.Constructing the communicative purposes requires the writer to take use of linguistic strategies to express the evaluative stance which advances arguments toward different communicative purposes and negotiates with readers.Therefore,it is worthy of great efforts in investigating how evaluative language constructs the communicative purposes of different moves.This study purports to analyze the similarities and differences in English chemistry research article introductions written by native English speaking published writers and Chinese student writers with a focus on the generic structure and evaluation resources drawing on an integrated CARS model(Swales 1990,2004)and Appraisal theory(Martin & White 2005).Two corpora were established.One is the published writer research article introductions(PWRAI)which is made up by 20 English research article introductions(ERAI)extracted from SCI journal articles in chemistry discipline and the other is student writer research article introductions(SWRAI)which consist of 20 ERAI written by Chinese graduate students.The findings are as follows:With respect to generic structure,the findings show that that the NES published writers employ much more moves than the Chinese student writers,especially Move 1 and Move 2.Due to the lack of Move 2,the completeness of the general organization of ERAI written by the Chinese student writers is much weaker than the NES published writers.From the perspective of the constituent steps,the findings show that the lack of Move 1-Step 3 causes the overall insufficiency of Move 1 in the SWRAI compared with PWRAI and the inadequate Step 1A “indicating a gap” leads to the overall deficiency of Move 2 in SWRAI.In Move 3,Step 1 is most frequently used in both groups.Although Step 5 and Step 6 are employed in this move but their frequency is low and quite similar to each other in these two groups.With respect to appraisal resources,it is found that within Attitude,Affect is totally missing in both groups;Judgement is nearly absent in SWRAI while in PWRAI it occurs but only for a few times;Appreciation is abundant in both groups.The further investigation into the subcategories of Appreciation shows some similarities and differences between the two sets of introductions.The findings show that:(1)in Move 1-Step 1 “claiming centrality”,there is a significant difference in the employment of positive Impact and positive Valuation between the two groups of writers with the published writers using much more these subcategories than the student writers.In Move 1-Step 2 “making topic generalization”,there is no significant difference in the employment of subcategories of Appreciation between the two groups.In Move 1-Step 3,there is a significant difference in the employment of positive Impact,positive Quality and positive Valuation between the two groups of writers with the published writers using much more these subcategories than the student writers.(2)In Move 2,Appreciation mainly occur in Step 1A and Step 2.In Step 1A,both groups mainly use negative Quality but the frequency in PWRAI is much more than in SWRAI.In Step 2,both groups mainly use positive Valuation.Besides,the published writers also frequently use positive “Quality” while this subcategory is missing in the student writers’ text.(3)In Move 3,Appreciation resources occur for only a few times mainly in Step 1 and Step 6.There is no significant difference in the employment of the subcategories of Appreciation in Step 1 between the two groups of writers.In Step 6,positive Valuation has a prominent presence in PWRAI but it is missing in SWRAI.Within Engagement,Contraction and Expansion occurs in both groups.The comparative study shows that:(1)in Move 1,Engagement mainly occurs in Step 3.Both groups mainly use Counter and Endorse in Contraction,but the frequency of Endorse in PWRAI is much higher than that in SWRAI.Within Expansion,student writers mainly employ Entertain while the published writers use both Entertain and Attribute quite frequently.(2)In Move 2,Engagement mainly occur in Step 1A.The mainly employed subcategory of Engagement is Contraction.Both groups employ Deny and Counter,but the weight given to these two subcategories leans to the latter in SWRAI while in PWRAI the employment of the two categories is quite balanced.(3)In Move 3 both groups rarely employ Engagement.Within Graduation,only Force occurs in both groups.The closer examination of Force in both groups shows that:(1)In Move 1-Step 1,the published writers use much more upscale Number and upscale Extent than the student writers but they are quite similar in the employment of upscale Quality and upscale Process.In Move 1-Step 3,the student writers are similar to the published writers in the employment of upscale Number,upscale Extent in time and upscale Process.There is a distinct difference between the two groups in that the frequency of upscale Quality in PWRAI is much more than that in SWRAI.(2)In Move 2,there is a distinct difference in the employment of Graduation in Step 2.The published writers use upscale Quality and upscale Process prominently while these two subcategories are missing in SWRAI.(3)In Move 3 both groups rarely use Graduation resources.With respect to the patterns in the use of evaluative resources,the finding shows that the evaluation pattern in PWRAI is complex while in SWRAI it is quite simple.The published writers manage to use different Appraisal resources to co-articulate with each other to form different prosodies to construct the communicative purposes of different steps,whereas the student writers fail to employ different evaluative resources to achieve the similar rhetorical effect.The above findings imply that EAP teaching should focus on cultivating students’ genre awareness which helps them acquire the generic structure of Chemistry ERAI and construct the communicative purposes of different moves with Appraisal resources.The present study explored the patterns in the use of appraisal resources in relation to moves,which enriches the studies on the relation between moves and evaluation.In addition,the analysis framework of generic structure of chemistry ERAI proposed by the present study enriches the analysis model for RAI.