A Comparative Study On Reporting Verbs In Literature Reviews Of Master Theses By Native Speakers Of Chinese And English,and Chinese EFL Learners

Reporting verbs are the core elements in writing literature reviews.However,Chinese EFL learners often use them inappropriately and discretionarily,failing to express exact ideas and critical comments(Xu Shu,2012).Thus,this research aims to find out the problems in the use of English reporting verbs by Chinese EFL learners through comparing it to the use of English reporting verbs by English native speakers,and to the use of Chinese reporting verbs by Chinese native speakers.The research questions are:1.What are the categories and pragmatic functions of the reporting verbs in literature reviews of master theses by native speakers of Chinese and English, and Chinese EFL learners?2.What are the differences in categories and pragmatic functions among the three group data?3.To what degree do Chinese and English influence the use of English reporting verbs by Chinese EFL learners?Reporting verbs in literature reviews are collected respectively from 40 English master theses by Chinese EFL learners,40 English master theses by English native speakers,and 40 Chinese master theses by Chinese native speakers.They are categorized based on Hyland's(2002)classifications,and analyzed through tabulation,correlation analysis and Chi-square test.The results show that firstly,English reporting verbs by Chinese EFL learners are almost partially from English and partially translated directly from Chinese.They are moderate in terms of categories and amount,while English reporting verbs by English native speakers are the richest,and Chinese reporting verbs by Chinese native speakers are the fewest.English reporting verbs by Chinese EFL learners are the highest in terms of frequencies,while English reporting verbs by English native speakers are moderate,and Chinese reporting verbs by Chinese native speakers are the lowest.Secondly,the noteworthy difference among three group data is that the proportion of reporting verbs in Discourse Acts by English native speakers is the largest,while the proportion of those in Cognition Acts is the smallest.Proportions of reporting verbs in Research Acts by Chinese native speakers and Chinese EFL learners are larger than those by English native speakers.Thirdly,there exist statistically significant differences in proportions of reporting verbs in Procedures,Positive and Non-factive in Discourse Acts between Chinese EFL learners and English native speakers.Finally,the use of reporting verbs by Chinese EFL learners is more influenced by English semantically on lexical level,and more influenced by Chinese pragmatically in general.English reporting verbs by Chinese EFL learners is on a special language stage where transferring from mother language to the target language affected by factors such as cultural and cognitive differences.