A contrastive study on the macro-structure and metadiscoursal features of the introduction section in the English L1 and Chinese L2 research articles

• Main Authors: Zhu, Ying, Gocheco, Paulina M.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2014
• Subjects: Discourse analysis; Contrastive linguistics; Academic writing; English language; Chinese language; East Asian Languages and Societies; English Language and Literature
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/6504
• Institution: De La Salle University

This paper reports a contrastive study on the rhetorical structures and metadiscourse resources used in the introduction section of research article genre in two different cultural contexts-­-­English L1 texts by native speakers of English and L2 texts by Chinese speakers. The researchers examined RA introductions in the field of Applied Linguistics by adopting Swales' (1990, 2004) CARS Model and Hyland's (2005) metadiscourse model as investigative tools. Through an analysis of 100 RA introductions, the study found that not only at the macro level but at the micro level, English writers seem to be more sophisticated than Chinese writers in the realization of genre structures and metadiscourse categories. Chinese L2 texts tend to display a less elaborate but more implicit version than L1 texts. The major differences identified between groups are most likely to be attributed to socio-­cultural factors, that is, Confucian Thought and Collectivism in China, versus Aristotelian Philosophy and Individualism in western countries. The results gained from this study could help teachers devise relevant EAP teaching materials for Chinese writers to develop their writing skills and meet the expectations of native-­English speaking readers.