基于语类的英汉应用语言学书评对比研究

Contrastive Genre Analysis of the Chinese and English Book Reviews in Applied Linguistics

书评作为学术话语的一部分,是相关领域学术社团成员交流信息的平台,也是书评作者与原书作者和读者构建良好人际关系的渠道。研究基于"语步-步骤"书评结构分析模式,运用跨语言和跨文化的方法考察英汉应用语言学书评这一语类在不同文化语境中修辞结构的异同。两者的相同之处表现在:英汉书评在开始和结束时通常采用相同的语步;在对著作的总体评价中多采用相似的步骤;在实施批评这一威胁面子的言语行为时,采用了相似的礼貌策略。两者的不同之处为:汉语书评的段落数明显多于英语书评,英语书评的语步和步骤结构与汉语书评相比显示出较大的灵活性。研究结果有助于人们熟悉国际学术领域的写作规约,迎合新的文化语境期待,提升学术观点的认可度,以达到传播学术思想的目的。同时,对汉语书评的研究有利于丰富现有的语类研究,推动语类研究的"生物多样性"。

As a part of academic discourse, book reviews function both as a platform for the academic community members to exchange academic information and as a means for book review writers to build a sound interpersonal relationship with the writers of the reviewed books and the readers. Based on the Move-Step model of book reviews put forward by Motta-Roth(1995), and adopting the cross-language and cross-cultural approaches, the present study carries out a contrastive genre analysis of the Chinese and English book reviews in applied linguistics. The similarities between them are as follows: most of them begin with the same step; and the same step is also employed to provide closing evaluation in most of the book reviews; similar politeness strategies are used to soften the face-threatening speech act of criticism. The differences between them are: the paragraphs in the Chinese book reviews are obviously more than the ones in the English book reviews; the move and step structures are more flexible than the ones in Chinese book reviews. The findings in this study are helpful for the writers to know about the writing conventions in international academic world, to meet a different culture and context expectation, to enhance the acceptability of their opinion, and finally to achieve the purpose of communicating the academic ideas. At the same time, the study on Chinese book reviews will enrich the established genre theory and push forward the biological diversity of the genre study.