Paper 009: A Comparative Study of Transition Markers in Thesis Abstracts From Chinese Undergraduates and RA Abstracts From Prestigious Journals
CHEN, Xiaojing, the University of Edinburgh
Keywords: genre analysis, metadiscourse, transition markers, thesis abstracts, research article abstracts
Abstract
The researcher conducts a comparative study between thirty thesis abstracts written by Chinese undergraduates and thirty research article abstracts collected from top-ranked journals in applied linguistics. Abstracts become an independent genre which can reflect language proficiency and critical thinking of the researchers. This study focus on the frequency of using transitions (e.g. “but” and “therefore”), which are the metadiscourse markers particularly used to structure the text by explicit connection between the main clauses. Five types of transition markers are identified and log-likelihood scores are used to investigate whether there are significant differences between the two kinds of abstracts. Subsequently, two interviews are also conducted to explore the in-depth reasons for the LL scores. The overall frequency of using transitions is not significantly different. However, according to the interviews, Chinese undergraduates sometimes overuse the transitions because it is easier to structure their articles which reveals their abundant vocabulary but deficiencies in text organization. The low frequency in the use of comparison may be attributed to the lack of questioning competence in examination-oriented education. Based on the results, the researcher believes that the focus for Chinese EFL learners in academic writing should be shifted from grammatical knowledge to research logic and critical thinking.
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Q&A live (Zoom) session
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This looks to be an interesting topic. I look forward to watching the presentation.