Document

A Genre Analysis of Chinese and English Abstracts of Academic Journal Articles: A Parallel-Corpus-based Study NIU Gui-ling School of Foreign Languages, Zhengzhou University [email protected]

Contents I.

Brief Introduction of Chinese-English Parallel Abstract Corpus (CEPAC)  教育部人文社会科学研究规划基金项目“基于平行语料库的中 外学术期刊论文中英文摘要的语类分析研究”

II. A Genre Analysis of Chinese and English Abstracts of Academic Journal Articles

Why RA Abstract?  Introduced into medical research articles first during the 1960s (Swales, 2010) . • Underresearched: In 2005 (Montesi & Urdiciain): barely 28 studies regarding research article (RA) abstracts then. • Now: A sea of information, “an information explosion”, with several million research papers being published each year, and continual announcements of new journals being launched, either online or in hard copy or both.  RA abstracts “have become a tool of mastering and managing the ever increasing information flow in the scientific community” (Ventola 1994a: 333), and developed into an increasingly important part-genre (Swales 2009).

objective MOVEs and steps: differentiate from research articles as an independent genre in rhetorical MOVE structure. To generalize and illustrate the generic structural potential (GSP) of abstracts by using the advantage of big texts of corpus and analyzing the usage of rhetorical MOVE in them, with genre analysis and schematic structure as the theoretical basis.

What is An Abstract?  Cleveland (1983:104): An abstract summarizes the essential contents of a particular knowledge record and is a true surrogate of the document.  Graetz (1985): The abstract is a time-saving device that can be used to find particular parts of the article without reading it; … knowing the structure in advance will help the reader to get into the article; …. An abstract should be concise and precise, indicating to the potential reader two things: (a) what was done, and (b) important results obtained.

Functions  Huckin (2001): 4 distinguishable functions: ⑴They function as stand-alone mini-texts, giving readers a short summary of a study’s topic, methodology and main findings; ⑵They function as screening devices, helping readers decide whether they wish to read the whole article or not; ⑶They function as previews for readers intending to read the whole article, giving them a road-map for their reading; ⑷They provide indexing help for professional abstract writers and editors;  ⑸They provide reviewers with an immediate oversight of the paper they have been asked to review.(Swales, 2010)

成功PPT四要素 Chinese-English Parallel Abstract Corpus (CEPAC) 语料库构成 components

Overview of CEPAC Corpus 3780 texts

673246 words/ characters

Corpus size CC:1260 texts CE:1260 texts EE:1260 texts

CC:209889 /376972 w/c; CE:221240w； EE:242117w.

Corpus Structure Three sub-corpora: CC(Chinese) Corpus

Management & Text Update

CE(English) Corpus EE(English) Corpus

Data Retrieval

Five main Disciplines Under each of the three sub-corpora, five disciplinary categories are respectively established, For each category under the three sub-corpora, 252 abstracts were chosen. The sub-disciplines chosen in the three sub-corpora basically also conform to each other, ensuring the balance of texts.

1

H

Health Sciences

2 S Social Sciences and Humanities 3 P Physical Sciences and Engineering 4 L Life Science and Biomedical Sciences

5 Y Language Sciences and Literature

Inter-,Intra-lingual & Interdisciplinary Comparison CEPAC 中 国 期 刊 中文 摘 要 语料库

中国期刊英文摘要 语料库

国 际 期 刊 英文 摘 要 语料库

单语语内类 比

HCC

HCE

HEE

LCC

LCE

LEE

PCE

PEE

SCC

SCE

SEE

YCC

YCE

YEE

PCC

双语语际对 比

Annotation 

Macrostructure and Meaning of MOVEs and Labels (cited from: Swales & Feak, 2009)

MOVE

Typical Labels

MOVE 1

Background/introduction/situati on

MOVE 2 MOVE 3 MOVE 4 MOVE 5

Purpose /present research

Implied questions 1. What do we know about the topic? 2. Why is the topic important? What is this study about?

Methods/materials/subjects/proc How was it done? edures Results/findings What was discovered? Conclusion/discussion/implicati What do the findings ons/recommendations mean?

Move Attributes & Values 语步层

语步属性

MOVE 1

Background

MOVE 2

Purpose

MOVE 3

MOVE 4

MOVE 5

Method

Result

Conclusion

含义

背景介绍

研究目的

方法和步骤

结果/发现

结论/讨论

步骤属性

含义

Step 1 Topic Generalization Step 2 Previous Research Step 3 Research Gap Step 4 Research Question Step 5 Continuing a Tradition Step 6 Other Step 1 Aim/Objective Step 2 Focus Step 3 Hypothesis /Research Question Step 4 Other Step 1. Empirical (Primary) Research a. Qualitative 定性研究 b. Quantitative 定量研究 Step 2 Documentary (Library ) Research Step 3 Procedure a. Sampling 抽样(抽样方法和试验对象：subjects/ population) b. Materials 材料 c. Tools 研究工具或软件 d. Data Collection e. Statistics f. Specific Steps f. Other Step 4 Other Step 1 Data Presentation Step 2 Data Interpretation / Analysis a. Correlation 有无相关性 b. Significant difference 有无显著性差异 c. Other Step 3 Brief Summarization Step 4 Other Step 1 Data Analysis Step 2 Inference / Implication

中心议题概括 前期相关研究 前期研究空白 提出研究问题 继承和发展前期研究 其它 研究目的 研究重心或核心 提出假设 其它

Step 3 Question Answering

回答目的语步中的问题

Step 4 Hypothesis Substantiating Step 5 Hypothesis-Deflating Step 6 Value /Significance Step 7 Future Work Step 8 recommendations Step 9 Limitations Step 10 Other

证明假设 推翻假设 研究价值 未来要做的研究 提出建议 现研究的局限性 其它

实证性研究 文献性研究

具体研究步骤

其它 数据呈现 数据解读 简略概括 其它 数据分析（普遍意义） 推论/含义

TOOLS Data Retrieval & Statistics

Annotation

POS Tagging

Text Processing, Alignment

Wordsmith Tools,Antconc, Self-disigned programms, SPSS,etc MMAX2

ICTCLAS & CLAWS

Editplus, Paraconc

Annotation Interface _ MMAX2

Multi-level Annotation (Stand-alone)

POS Tagging Move Level

Background Purpose Method Results Conclusion

Sentence pairs (Alignment)

Syntax 1－1 •1－2 •1－3 •2－1 •3－1 •2－2 •

Semantic Translation …

•

Chinese Word Segmentation

…

Data Analysis • Figure 3 Normalized Frequency of Move Distribution (Every 10,000 running words) Normalized Frequency of Moves YCC 4500

SEE

YCE

4000

3500 SCE

YEE

3000

INTRODUCTION

2500 2000

PURPOSE

1500

SCC

HCC

1000

METHOD

500 0

RESULT

PEE

HCE

CONCLUSION

PCE

HEE

COMPOUND MOVES

OTHER PCC

LCC LEE

LCE

Completeness (Wholeness) of MOVEs in Texts: Move Number Distribution • Figure 2 MOVE Numbers and Percentage in Texts in Three Sub-corpora（unit：text） MOVE Distribution and Percentage in Three Sub-corpora

CC CE EE

One Move CC CE EE

70 68 30

5.56% 5.40% 2.38%

Total Two Three Four Five Number Moves Moves Moves Moves of Texts 241 19.13% 368 29.21% 521 41.35% 60 4.76% 1260 252 20.00% 348 27.62% 508 40.32% 84 6.67% 1260 139 11.03% 349 27.70% 508 40.32% 234 18.57% 1260

Significant Difference MOVEs

SCE

SEE

Chi-Square Test Chi-Square

Introduction Purpose Method

154 75 61

133 203 149

Log-likelihood Ratio

Significance(P) 1.7341

0.188

66.2430

0.000***

40.2286

0.000***

Result

132

177

7.4693

0.006**

Conclusion

162

188

2.2429

0.134

YCE

YEE

MOVEs

Introduction Purpose Method Result Conclusion

156 106 47 66 189

122 183 165 172 182

Chi-Square 4.6739 23.1731 71.7122 52.1338 0.1549

Significance(P) 0.031* 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.694

Log-likelihood

Sig.

1.54

0.215

+

61.22

0.000***

-

38.04

0.000***

6.58

0.010*

-

1.93

0.164

-

Log-likelihood Ratio Log-likelihood Sig. 4.17 0.041* 20.77 0.000*** 69.58 0.000*** 48.91 0.000*** 0.13 0.716

+ +

asterisks (*) indicate significance level, and the “+” and “-” signs on the right column indicate “overuse” and “underuse”. [The

Proportionality(Balance) of MOVEs in Texts:Text Coverage(文本覆盖率) • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Independent Moves Background YCC 27.17% YCE 28.97% YEE 18.21% HCC 4.78% HCE 5.44% HEE 20.00% LCC 16.45% LCE 17.52% LEE 17.67% PCC 10.47% PCE 12.96% PEE 21.82% SCC 26.57% SCE 28.44% SEE 14.71% Average 18.08%

Purpose 6.97% 10.41% 14.49% 11.39% 12.42% 10.30% 6.94% 10.41% 11.52% 7.77% 9.27% 14.57% 3.60% 5.83% 17.61% 10.23%

Method 2.31% 4.23% 20.26% 27.24% 27.71% 16.36% 11.84% 15.89% 12.50% 25.01% 30.69% 17.47% 5.24% 6.80% 20.09% 16.24%

Result 11.17% 11.83% 23.75% 37.21% 37.30% 36.84% 38.33% 38.64% 39.12% 23.11% 27.60% 25.29% 23.08% 24.65% 24.43% 28.16%

Compound Moves Conclusion 34.39% 35.68% 19.48% 15.84% 16.49% 15.48% 13.16% 13.30% 15.21% 10.40% 11.88% 18.61% 22.10% 24.30% 17.77% 18.94%

Regular 10.01% 4.45% 2.87% 3.35% 0.65% 0.96% 8.76% 3.17% 2.93% 21.50% 6.54% 1.66% 13.69% 6.59% 3.41% 6.04%

Irregular 7.63% 4.03% 0.82% 0.19% 0.06% 4.53% 0.97% 0.92% 1.74% 1.05% 0.57% 5.67% 3.34% 1.99% 2.23%

Other 0.34% 0.40% 0.11%

0.10% 0.13%

0.05% 0.05% 0.08%

注：1. Text Coverage＝该语步词数/语步所在摘要的总词数。2. 独立语步：一个句子中仅包含一种语步内容。 3. 复合语步：一个句子中包含两种或两种语步以上的内容。正序复合语步指一个句子中的复合语步按“背景-目的-方法-结果-结论”的先后顺序正常排列； 而逆序复合语步则指一个句子中的复合语步并非按上述顺序排象，譬如，方法语步置于目的语步之前，或结论语步置于结果语步之前。

Text Coverage (Bar-Chart) Text Coverage 45.00% 40.00% 35.00% 30.00% 25.00% 20.00% 15.00% 10.00% 5.00% 0.00%

Y

H

L

P

S

Average

SEE

SCE

SCC

PEE

PCE

PCC

LEE

LCE

LCC

HEE

HCE

HCC

YEE

YCE

YCC

背景语步INTRODUCTION 目的语步PURPOSE 方法语步METHOD 结果语步 RESULT 结论语步CONCLUSION

Data Query

Data Query_KWIC

Future Work Data Retrieval & Application

Short-term Online Retrieval

Genre Analysis Translation Hedging Grammar

Online Retrieval Pragmatics Semantics Discourse Analysis World Englishes etc.