A Corpus-based Genre and Language Feature Analysis of Chinese and English Linguistics and Literature Article Abstracts Fan Chunxiang Zhengzhou University School of Foreign Languages

 Literature review  Objective  Method  Result  Conclusion

Literature review  Teng Zhenru and Tan Wancheng (2004)  Lu Yuanwen (2009)  He Yuyin and Cao Zhenzhen (2010)  Li Qingming and Zhang Min (2012)  Yan Meijuan (2011) and Shi Wenxia （ 2008)  Chen Ruina （ 2011 ） and Ye Ning （ 2008 ）  Li Yanfang (2009) and Wang Zhou (2008)

Objective  the regular usage pattern of the language in Chinese and English linguistic and literature article abstracts  the language traits of Chinese and English linguistic and literature article abstracts

Method  a self-built corpus by collecting the abstract of some essays on linguistics and literature (252 Chinese and English abstracts respectively) (Foreign Language, China Scientific Translation, Foreign Language Learning, Modern Foreign Language, Journal of Linguistics, Language Teaching Research, Language Learning, The Modern Language Journal)  the corpus-driven approach  The AntConc

Result  The analysis on the generic structural potential (GSP) of Chinese and English linguistic and literary article abstracts  Table 1  Table 2  Table 3

Result  Summary of the GSP  The generic structural potential (GSP) of Chinese linguistic and literary article abstracts:  IPMRC, among the 5 moves, the purpose and the conclusion are the basic elements, the introduction, method and the result moves are optional. The frequency of the result move is the least and that of the introduction is relatively higher.  The generic structural potential (GSP) of English linguistic and literary article abstracts:  IPMRC, among the 5 moves, the purpose, method and the conclusion are the basic elements, the introduction and the result are optional. But the frequency of result move in English is 66%, which means most English abstracts will have the result move.

Result  The language features of Chinese and English article abstracts  1. The use of the first person  Table 4  Table 5  Analysis of the use of the first person

Result  2. The use of the passive voice  Table 6  Analysis of the use of the passive voice

Conclusion  From the above analysis on the generic structural potential (GSP) of Chinese and English linguistic and literature article abstracts we can easily see the difference between the two languages, which will be a help to Chinese academic article writers. The writers know how to write a good abstract, both Chinese and English, and catch more publishing opportunities. After all, the authoritative magazines attach much more importance to the high quality abstracts. There are some writers who will publish their papers in the foreign magazines and a high quality English abstract is necessary.  The above analysis on the language features of Chinese and English article abstracts makes us know the difference of the first person and the passive voice between Chinese and English. It can help us make a good translation to Chinese abstracts and keep pace with the English ones.  However, we should not, at the same time, ignore the difference between the Chinese and the English culture. We’d better, in abstract writing, operate on the principle that we try our best to keep pace with the international pattern while not ignoring our own culture (Teng & Tan, 2004). Therefore, we can exactly and timely convey our messages to the readers with a high quality abstract.

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