中国学者英文学术论文中的非正式语体特征研究

Informality Features in English Research Articles by Chinese Scholars

基于中西学者学术论文可比语料库和中国学者学术论文历时语料库,本研究对比分析了中西学者间和中国学者不同历时时期论文中非正式语体特征使用的异同。研究结果显示,中西学者论文中高频使用的非正式语体特征相似,均为第一人称代词、指示代词和句首连词/连接副词。中国人文社科学者论文中非正式语体特征使用频数显著低于西方学者,中西方理工科学者非正式语体特征使用无显著差异。同时,近20年间中国学者论文中非正式语体特征使用频数显著增加,尤其是理工科学者。这或许表明中国学者对非正式语体特征的使用态度日趋宽容,但与西方学者相比,仍趋于谨慎。

Based on a comparable-corpus of English research articles(RAs)by Chinese scholars(CSs)and western scholars(WSs)and a diachronic corpus of RAs by CSs,this paper analyzed the use and distribution of ten informality features in CSs’RAs at two time periods and across writer groups in comparison to that in WSs’RAs.The results show that:(ⅰ)the most frequent informality features used in both CSs’and WSs’RAs are first person pronouns,unattended anaphoric pronouns and sentence-initial conjunctions or conjunctive adverbs;(ⅱ)while there is no significant difference in the use of informality features between CSs’and WSs’RAs in the hard sciences,CSs’RAs in the soft sciences employ less informality features than WSs’;(ⅲ)CSs’use of informality features over the past 20 years increases greatly,hard sciences scholars’use in particular.This suggests that CSs hold more liberal attitudes towards the use of informality features in RAs,though much more prudent than WSs.