English-language abstracts in finance and accounting journals: a corpus-based comparison of international and Chinese L1 writers

This research is a study of textual variations in the structural moves and linguistic features identified in a balanced corpus of English-language research article (RA) abstracts written by international and Chinese academic writers from the disciplines of Finance and Accounting. Using a range of corpus-based methods of investigation, the study compares English-language research article abstracts written by Chinese writers and published in Chinese-language journals on the one hand, with English-language research article abstracts written by international writers (i.e. academics from a wide range of national backgrounds) and published in leading international journals on the other. The analysis finds that there are significant differences in the move structures of the English abstracts written by international and Chinese writers, both in terms of move sequences as well as in terms of the usage of individual moves. The study also finds that abstracts written by the two groups of writers display differences in their characteristic linguistic features, most notably in the usage of first person pronouns, and in the usage of finite subordinate clauses. Surveys are then conducted to verify the textual findings. In general, the study demonstrates that RA abstracts written by Chinese Finance and Accounting academic writers diverge in a substantial number of important ways from those written by their international peers. The thesis identifies a number of points of difference that could form the basis of an English for Academic Purposes course devoted to the teaching of RA abstract writing skills.