Cultural differences in the organization of research article introductions from the field of educational psychology: English and Chinese
Department of English and Linguistics, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand
This paper investigates the rhetorical organization of the introduction sections of English and Chinese research articles in the field of educational psychology. The study reported in this paper adopts Swales’s (1990, 2004) framework of move analysis. In general, the findings of the present study reveal that there are similarities and differences between English and Chinese research article introductions in terms of the employment of moves and steps. It is suggested that the rhetorical differences reflect some of the distinctive characteristics of the two different cultures, English and Chinese.
The findings of the present study have both theoretical and pedagogical implications.
2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Contrastive rhetorical studies confirm cultural preferences for certain rhetorical patterns and the use of first language
rhetorical patterns by novice English second-language writers. Chinese speakers often include discourse features valued in
Chinese culture in their writing, which differ from those used in English prose and include the use of a preponderance of
proverbs, quotations, allusions and historical references to delay arguments (Tsao, 1980, 1983); the use of proverbs or
formulaic expressions in conclusions (Chen, 1981); references to Confucian philosophy (Becker, 1995); and language (e.g.
idioms, clichés and set phrases) used primarily as adornment (Matalene, 1985). The differences in preferred Chinese and
English rhetorical patterns may cause problems for Chinese students writing academic English prose which tends to use
logical reasoning and English rhetorical structure.
To illuminate possible difficulties faced by Chinese ESL students in producing acceptable academic English writing and to
suggest ways in which they and their teachers might deal with these difficulties, the study reported in this paper applied a
genre-based contrastive rhetorical examination of textual differences between English and Chinese research article
introductions.
2. The rationale for a genre-based contrastive study
