A Comparative Study On Engagement Markers In Engineering Academic Articles Between Chinese Scholars And English-speaking Scholars

As an effective method to connect readers within the discourse,engagement markers have gained their positions in the study of applied linguistics.Engagement markers help writers invite readers to participate in the discourse intentionally in order to communicate with them effectively.Therefore,they can develop a good writer-reader relationship,build themselves authorities in the discourse and help readers understand their arguments.Researchers abroad have examined these devices from different aspects as cultural backgrounds,disciplines and genres and have made some contributions on this topic.However,when looking for research at home,Chinese scholars pay little attention to engagement markers in EFL writings and related research is very rare.As a consequence,this study examined published articles written by scholars from engineering schools in Chongqing University and explored the characteristics of using engagement markers in different parts in their articles.Then,by comparing their characteristics with those in English-speaking scholars' articles,the differences between two group writers in using engagement markers can be concluded and these differences can be used to guide EFL communicating with readers effectively in writing academic papers.Based on the approaches of corpus linguistics and text analysis,two corpora are built.One contains 41 published articles from international journals written by scholars from engineering schools in Chongqing University and the other contains also 41 articles selected randomly from SCI and EI journals written by English-speaking scholars in engineering.According to the IMRD theory proposed by Swales(1990),each corpus is divided into three sub-corpora according to introduction,methodology and results and discussion.These corpora are marked and retrieved based on the classifications of five engagement markers(reader mentions,appeals to shared knowledge,directives,personal asides and questions)and subcategories proposed by Hyland(2005a).The results are calculated and checked to see the characteristics of engagement markers used in different corpora and in different parts and later comparisons are made to see the differences between Chinese and English-speaking scholars.This study aims to deal with three questions.1.What are the characteristics of engagement markers in English-speaking scholars' articles? 2.What are the characteristics of engagement markers in Chinese scholars' articles? 3.What are the differences of engagement markers between Chinese scholars' and English-speaking scholars' articles? What are the possible reasons that result in these differences?Results show that,in engineering articles,there are no significant differences in using engagement markers in two corpora in total,but five engagement markers are used differently from one to another.The characteristics are:1)Both Chinese and English-speaking scholars rarely use Questions to establish a good communication environment with readers;English-speaking scholars prefer to use rhetorical questions to draw readers' attention,but Chinese scholars barely use them.2)Reader mentions are seldom used to invite readers to join in the discourse by both writers.Chinese scholars favor inclusive first-person pronouns to build membership with readers,while English-speaking scholars prefer words that directly indicate readers,which reminds readers to participate in the discussion.3)Chinese scholars use less personal asides to add extra information on the text,and explanatory asides are almost not found in their articles.On the contrary,English-speaking scholars use explanatory asides the most frequently to give more information to support their arguments.4)Appeals to shared knowledge are used significantly more in Chinese scholars articles,they try to support their ideas with familiar knowledge.5)Both Chinese and English-speaking scholars use directives the most.By commanding certain actions to readers,the discourse in emphasized and readers are reminded,so readers would positively participate in the argumentations.The study also shows differences in using subcategories of engagement markers and the typical word-choices in two group writers.Cultural background differences and proficiency of the English language would be the possible reasons that influence the uses of engagement markers in Chinese scholars' articles.Through comparing engagement markers in two corpora,this study hopes to provide theoretical evidence in guiding EFL academic writings.In teaching EFL writings,teachers should emphasize the importance of using engagement markers and inform students not to overuse these devices in order to achieve successful communication.