中外期刊英文摘要各语步的元话语名词功能对比研究

A Contrastive Study of the Functions of Metadiscursive Nouns in the Moves of International and Local Journal English Abstracts

元话语名词在学术语篇中具有衔接语篇和构建作者立场的功能。目前,从跨语言文化角度分析学术语篇中元话语名词功能的研究不多。本文自建多学科中外期刊英文摘要可比语料库,对比分析中外期刊英文摘要的语篇结构和元话语名词的语篇人际功能,证实国内期刊英文摘要比国际期刊英文摘要少用“背景”和“结论”语步。尽管中外期刊英文摘要都广泛使用元话语名词,但它们运用元话语名词功能实现语步目的的方式不同。我们呼吁国内期刊编辑和论文作者共同重视英文摘要的撰写或翻译工作,以提高国内科研成果在国际学界的有效传播。

Metadiscursive nouns play a very important role in the textual cohesion and authorial stance construction of academic discourse.To date,little research has been conducted to examine the metadiscursive nouns in academic discourse from the cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective.Using a small-scale comparable corpus of international and local Chinese journal English abstracts from a range of disciplines,we compare their discourse structures and the textual/interpersonal functions.It is verified that the background and conclusion moves are significantly less employed in the local Chinese journal English abstracts than in the international journal English abstracts.While metadiscursive nouns extensively occur in both the international and the local Chinese journal English abstracts,the cohesive and interpersonal functions to achieve rhetorical purposes are varied between the international and the local Chinese journal English abstracts due to their different cultural background.It is appealed that the editors and authors from local Chinese journals had better to align their English abstracts writing or translation with the international rhetorical conventions for the purpose of effective promotion of Chinese scientific research.