Abstract:

Research article (RA) abstracts have received considerable attention in the academic writing literature. However, studies regarding stylistic features and linguistic realizations of literary research article (LRA) abstracts remain limited. In the present study, a corpus-based multi-dimensional analysis is conducted to compare the stylistic differences between 600 English RA abstracts in empirical linguistic and literary studies. The results reveal that, compared to empirical linguistic RA abstracts, LRA abstracts tend to be lower in each of narrative, explicit, persuasive and abstract dimensions. Specifically, in terms of linguistic devices, literary scholars tend to employ the present tense verbs, attributive adjectives, time adverbials and necessity modals, whereas their linguistic counterparts prefer to use past tense verbs, passive voices, nominalization, conjuncts and wh-relative clauses. These differences could be attributed to variations in the disciplinary discourse practice in these two disciplines. These findings have implications for English academic writing instruction and research.

Keywords: English abstracts; stylistic variation; multi-dimensional analysis; linguistics realizations; academic paper writing

摘要：

摘要一直是学术话语研究关注的热点。然而,以往研究很少涉及文学类论文摘要的文体特征及其语言实现方式。通过采用基于语料库的多维度分析方法,本文对600篇文学类和实证类语言学期刊论文英文摘要（各300篇）的文体特征差异进行了对比分析。研究发现,与实证类语言学论文摘要相比,文学类论文摘要在叙述性、指称明晰程度、劝说性和抽象性4个维度上都呈现出分值偏低的趋势。具体到语言实现方式上,文学类论文摘要倾向于使用一般现在时、定语形容词、时间状语和必要情态动词;实证类语言学论文摘要则更青睐一般过去时、各类被动结构、名词化、连词和WH关系从句。这些差异反映了两类学科学术话语实践方式的不同,这一研究发现对学术英语写作教学与研究有一定的启示。

关键词: 英文摘要, 文体变异, 多维度分析, 语言实现方式, 学术论文写作