Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Background
With the development of social economy, the relationship among all countries in the worldbecomes closer and closer. Now, the whole world has become a small village. The scholarsfrom different countries communicate with each other more conveniently and directly. The wayin which the experts express themselves is to publish their works. Therefore, it is significant andcrucial for Chinese researchers to write well-organized articles according to the standardinternational prescriptions. Abstract is the important part of the articles. As the mini-version ofthe whole paper, abstracts are of great importance to convey the main ideas of the writer.Usually, the abstract includes the main parts of the article such as the method, the result and theconclusion. In this information explosion age, most of the researchers will not read the wholepaper but the abstract only in order to save their time. Therefore, it is significant and vital towrite a well-organized and rich-contented abstract. A well-written abstract will draw thereaders’ attention to read continually, but a poor abstract will not.Due to the importance of abstracts, a large volume of scholars have made analysis ofabstracts from various perspectives such as abstract reading (e.g. Mazzeo & Harvey 1988),abstract writing (e.g. O’Connor & Woodford 1976, Day 1988), discourse structure (e.g. Swales1990, Bhatia 1993) and linguistic features (e.g. Graetz 1985, Martin-Martin 2003). Domesticresearcher Ju (2004) has analyzed the similarities and differences between Chinese abstractsand English abstracts.As mentioned above, most of the studies about abstracts concentrate on generic andlinguistic analysis. The contrastive studies of English abstracts between Chinese and Englishare fewer. Furthermore, the contrastive studies of abstracts between international experts andChinese postgraduates are much fewer. The current study will conduct a contrastive analysis ofEnglish abstracts between Chinese postgraduate students and international scholars.
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1.2 Significance of the Thesis
Based on appraisal theory, this thesis is important both in theory and in practice.In theory, appraisal theory is a new development of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL).This theory is not static but dynamic. Appraisal theory has been used to make analysis ofdiscourse in many fields including mass media (e.g. Idema & White 1994, White 1998), emailtexts (e.g. Don 1997), literary criticism (e.g. Rothery & Stenglin 2000), infant language (e.g.Painter 2003), narratives (e.g. Page 2003), academic writing (e.g. Hood 2004) and so on. Thecontrastive analysis of English abstracts between TAG and JAG will not only contribute towiden the scope of appraisal theory application but also make appraisal theory morecomprehensive and more thorough.In practice, it is useful for us to write a well-organized abstract. The publication of paper isa significant channel to convey writers’ voice and viewpoints. As the central part of theacademic article, abstracts play a crucial role to publish articles in international journals. Theeditors will not have enough time to scan the whole paper but read the abstracts only. Theabstract writer should better adopt some strategies to attract the eyes of the editor and persuadehim or her to publish the article. Therefore, to write a well-organized abstract is vital for paperpublication. Based on appraisal theory, the author will make a contrastive analysis of Englishabstracts between TAG and JAG, which will provide some helpful devices to write anacceptable and well-organized abstract.The analysis of English abstracts from international journals will help our postgraduatestudents to follow the international prescriptions and write abstracts more acceptable and moreeffective.
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Chapter Two A Review of Previous Studies on Abstracts
2.1 Definitions of Abstracts
These days most researchers and students have attached importance to abstract writing.However, abstracts have been defined in different ways.American National Standards Institute (ANSI) puts abstract in this way ‘an abbreviated,accurate representation of the contents of a document, preferably prepared by its author(s) forpublishing with it’ (ANSI 1979).In accordance with GB7713-87 (national standard), abstract is the brief statement of thecontent of the paper without notes and comments. Abstract is independent and self-contained,that is to say, you can get the necessary information avoiding reading the whole report or paper.As a complete essay, abstract include data and conclusion. Abstract content should contain themain information of the paper so that readers decide whether to read the full text in accordancewith abstracts. Generally, abstract should describe research purpose, method, result andconclusion. Meanwhile, GB7713-87 also provides that ‘generally there should be abstracts forreports and papers in order to international interaction, and there should be foreign language(mostly English) abstracts.’
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2.2 Significance of Abstracts
With the development of science and technology, information grows faster and faster. Theinformation exploration era has been coming. As a condensed version of a long report, theabstract sums up the main ideas of the paper and helps readers decide whether to read it fully ornot. The significance of abstracts can be shown in the following four ways.From the perspective of readers, a good abstract is not only information-loaded, but alsotime assuming. Nowadays, society is fully filled with various kinds of information. How tochoose the information quickly and rightly? Therefore, it is very important to realize that anabstract would include more effective information. A good abstract will tell the main sections ofthe paper such as the method that is used, the purpose that is about and the result that is attainedto. It can also help readers recognize whether it is relevant with their research field. What’smore, with the help of abstracts, researchers and scholars will know the latest development intheir field quickly and efficiently.
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Chapter Three Theoretical Foundation: Appraisal Theory..... 12
3.1 Background of Appraisal Theory ..... 12
3.2 The Framework of Appraisal Theory .... 13
Chapter Four Methodology....... 25
4.1 Research Questions ........... 25
4.2 Rational for Data Collection ....... 25
4.3 Data Collection........ 26
4.4 Research Procedures ......... 26
4.5 A sample for Semantic Coding......... 27
Chapter Five Appraisal Resources in JAG and TAG ..... 29
5.1 Contrastive Analysis of Attitude in JAG and TAG ........ 29
5.1.1 Realizations of Explicit Attitude ...... 29
5.1.2 Contrastive Analysis of Explicit Attitude in JAG and TAG..... 31
5.2 Contrastive Analysis of Engagement in JAG and TAG ...... 32
5.2.1 Realizations of Engagement........ 33
5.2.2 Contrastive Analysis of Engagement in JAG and TAG ...... 36
5.3 Contrastive Analysis of Graduation in JAG and TAG ........ 41
Chapter Five Appraisal Resources in JAG and TAG
5.1 Contrastive Analysis of Attitude in JAG and TAG
In this section, the author first codes all attitude resources, and then makes a detailcontrastive analysis of attitude and its subcategories. In the framework of appraisal theory,attitude includes the utterances which express the negative or positive attitude towards humanbehavior, text/process and phenomena. The three subcategories comprise respectively affect(feeling response), judgment (assessment about human behavior), and appreciation (assessmenttowards text/social phenomena). Attitude also includes explicit attitude and implicit attitude.Explicit attitude resources can be easily recognized but implicit attitude resources cannot easilyrecognized. Depending on prospective readers with their own opinions and viewpoints, implicitattitude resources will be recognized. The readers depend on their own knowledge tounderstand the implicit attitude in discourse. Therefore, the author only carries out semanticcoding of explicit attitude resources. In the following section, the author will make analysis ofthree subcategories of attitude one by one.
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Conclusion
The current study has presented a tentative analysis of English abstracts of internationaljournal articles and postgraduates’ dissertations in Chinese mainland based on appraisal theory.Initially, this chapter will generalize the major findings of the current research, followed bysome implications for students’ abstracts writing and limitations of the present study, finallymake some suggestions for further studies. The current study has made a contrastive analysis of English abstracts in TAG and JAGfrom the three aspects: attitude, engagement and graduation. Based on the detail analysis, themajor findings of the present study are summarized into the following three aspects: With attitude resources, the three subcategories (affect, judgment and appreciation)distribute from low to high in the two groups. Appreciation resources have the largestproportion in the two groups. However, judgment resources in TAG are much more than thosein JAG. It shows that students prefer to make assessment about human behavior. Moreover,scholars adopt more affect resources than students. It reveals that scholars have the preferenceto express their own viewpoints more directly and confidently.
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Reference (omitted)
