学术论文文献综述的体裁对比分析

Styles of Literature Review in Research Papers:A Contrastive Genre Analysis

文献综述是学术论文的重要部分,其语篇结构及语言特征等都是研究者应该考虑的问题。然而,与学术语篇的其他组成部分相比,学术界对文献综述的研究相对较少。本文运用体裁分析理论,对60篇国内外文献综述的语篇结构和语言特征进行了定量对比分析。结果显示,文献综述语篇主要由四个语步构成:关键术语的定义、研究的理论框架、对相关实证研究的评价、对相关研究设计的评价;关于语言特征,时态的选择和情态动词的使用与语步相关,语态则不受语步制约。四个语步中主动语态远远多于被动语态。

Literature review is an important component of research papers, and its textual structure and linguistic feature deserve the researcher＇s serious attention in thesis writing. Compared with the other components of academic writing, however, literature review has been neglected. This paper, building on the theory of genre analysis, is a contrastive analysis of the textual structure and linguistic feature of the literature review in 60 research papers published in and outside China. Statistics show that the text of literature review consists chiefly of four moves, i.e. , definition of key terms, theoretical framework of research, comments on pertinent study, and critical review of related research designs. As to linguistic features, the choice of the tense and the use of modal verbs are closely related to the specific move where they are made, whereas the voice is seldom affected by the move. It is also found that in all the four moves the active voice is far more frequently used than the passive voice.