A Corpus-based MD Analysis Of English Academic Papers

With the development of corpus linguistics,there has a great change on language research method.In recent years,corpus-based multi-dimensional analysis(MDA)on language style has attracted the interest of linguists and researchers at home and abroad.Biber's MDA model can be used to conduct multi-dimentional analysis on linguistic features to reveal stylistic differences comprehensively.By adopting MDA model,the aim of the present study is to analyze the variation and linguistic features differences between EAPS(English Academic Papers)Corpus and General English Corpus CROWN with regard to five dimensions.The investigation is based on CROWN Corpus as reference corpus,and self-built corpus EAPS as the observed corpus,whose language materials are selected from authoritative International English Journals with high Impact Factor.The analysis shows that(Optical)English academic papers is characterized by informational production,unmarked non-narrative concerns,highly explicit and elaborated reference,highly abstract information,but is not characterized with respect to overt expression of persuasion;Some specific linguistic features,such as nouns,prepositions,nominalization and passive constructions,etc.,tend to be frequently used in EAPS,while some certain linguistic features are overused or underused,for example,the overuse of sentence-relatives and the underuse of relative clause constructions.Based on major findings of this research,suggestions for English learners,educators as well as textbook researchers have also been provided.Firstly,English learners should learn more about the characteristics of English in order to select appropriate expression in academic writing;secondly,educators are supposed to help students get rid of the mother tongue interference;finally,researchers of English textbooks should fully understand the stylistic features of EAP in order to provide scientific materials for English learners and educators.