113 / 2018-06-25 22:28:45

Genre Analysis of the English and Chinese Research Articles in Clinical Medicine－A corpus based comparative study

corpus; genre analysis; move; research articles (RAs) in clinical medicine; comparative study

全体主题 > 学术与职业英语的教学与研究

Researchers of scholarly literacy have always been interested in how a non-native English author can succeed in the international publication of a research article (RA), including in the field of medicine as an important branch of science. This paper intended to make comparative genre analysis of the English and Chinese RAs in clinical medicine by establishing two small corpora of 30 RAs with the traditional IMRD format, written by native speakers both in English and Chinese. We selected the articles according to the principles of representativity, reputation, accessibility and timeliness, and made the analysis following Swales’ (1990) model of genre analysis and Nwogu’s (1997) schema. The results showed that the English and Chinese RAs in clinical medicine shared generally a similar generic structure with eleven moves. However, there were still some obvious differences in the frequency, sequence, and length of these moves between the two corpora, and the analysis was made for the possible reasons for these discrepancies. It is concluded that the findings of the present study will provide some practical guidance for improving the reading and writing abilities of Chinese medical authors and helping them to gain more success in the international publication of their research works.