| Citations are important rhetorical devices in academic writings,and using them appropriately is a challenge for L2 learners.Researchers have compared the citations used by learners at different language proficiency levels in previous studies,but only a few of them aim at making comparisons between English-major master's theses and doctoral dissertations.In the few studies that intend to analyze the theses and dissertations,the sample sizes are small,and the analytical frameworks are not systematic.Therefore,this study explores the general,respective and developmental citation features of Chinese English-major master's theses and doctoral dissertations by using a systematic framework.In order to analyze the citation features,a theoretical framework was expanded to organize contents,functions,writer's stances and types of citations into the ideational,interpersonal and textual dimensions.Quantitative and qualitative methods were adopted to investigate the citations in the established corpora.The chapters of literature reviews and discussions in the 30 master's theses and 30 doctoral dissertations form the mixed corpus and the sub-corpora to help the researcher study the general,respective and developmental citation features.The master's theses and doctoral dissertations were randomly collected from CNKI,written from the year 2010 to 2018.A reference corpus including the literature reviews and discussions in the 30 authoritative articles was also established to help the researcher better explain the developmental citation features.First,the study of the general citation features in the ideational dimension shows that postgraduate students use citation contents quite comprehensively,which demonstrates their research ability.In the interpersonal dimension,the citation function,supporting,is employed most frequently for presenting postgraduate students,standpoints.Due to cultural reasons and lack of self-confidence,postgraduate students tend to show their stances covertly rather than overtly.In the textual dimension,the citation type,verb-controlling,is used most frequently.This finding shows novice writers'intention to emphasize the cited author's voice and weaken their own voice.Second,the respective citation features in the ideational dimension are similar to the general citation features.In the interpersonal dimension,master students overuse supporting,but doctoral students increase the use of topic-relevance,which shows master students'novice writers'character and doctoral students'ability to command relevant studies.Both master and doctoral students show positive stances to get the direct support f'rom the citations.In the textual dimension,both master and doctoral students still use non-citation,revealing their ignorance of the publication year.Third,the study of the developmental citation features in the ideational dimension indicates that doctoral students cite theories or models significantly more than master students.This reveals doctoral students' improved analytical skills.In the interpersonal dimension,doctoral students use two citation functions,application and agreement,significantly more than master students.This indicates doctoral students'ability to apply other scholars' concepts,models and frameworks into their own.Master and doctoral students haven't shown significant differences in stances.They both need to improve their critical thinking ability and show more critical stances.In the textual dimension,two citation types.ref'erence and origin,are used significantly more by doctoral students.This finding demonstrates that doctoral students are better informed of the scholars and studies in their research fields,and they use this information to improve the reliability of their own studies.This study provides implications for theorizing L2 academic writing and improving writing pedagogy.It also provides reference for students to improve their citation ability in academic writing. |
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