王燕

1 Introduction

In the Information Age， English abstracts have become one of the major means of academic exchange. Every year， millions of academic journals are published. With the information overload， many readers will first read an abstract and then decide whether to read or cite the corresponding article or not. Some of the journals， especially prestigious ones， are published in English while the rest are not， but the latter require English abstracts. For example， in non-English speaking countries like China， France and Spain， most of the journal articles are required of English abstracts. This requirement is “to guarantee that the reported results of scientific work will circulate worldwide” （Ventola， 1994a， p.333， in Lores， 2004， p.281）， which is one of the functions of English abstracts （Lores， 2004）. However， writing an effective English abstract acceptable to international community is still an arduous task for non-English native speakers. Therefore， the study of English abstracts has attracted huge attention in recent years.

During the past decade， many Chinese scholars have conducted cross-cultural studies in an attempt to improve the quality of English abstracts written by Chinese. Most of them （Huang & Chen， 2012； Xiao & Cao， 2014； Hu， 2015） focus on abstracts of scientific works. Yet， few people have made a comparative study of negation in English abstracts of medical research articles. The study was intended to reveal the similarities and differences between English abstracts of medical research articles written by English native speakers and those written by Chinese authors.

2 Research Methodology

Considering the objectives of this study， “negatives” mean sentences that express negation. Such “negatives” are always marked by “negators”， words expressing negation （Chalker and Weiner， 2001）. Common negators are not， no， never， no one， nobody， nowhere， none， neither， no longer， etc. Sentences with one or more such negators will be marked as negatives.

Due to differences in scope of negation， negation can be classified into sentential and constituent negation or into clause and local negation （Quirk， Greenbaum， Leech and Svartvik， 1972）. In clause negation， the scope of negation covers the whole clause， or specifically the predicate， while in local negation， “the scope of negation does not extend beyond a particular word or phrase”.

In the current study， a total of 120 English abstracts （60 written by English native speakers （Corpus A） and 60 by Chinese authors （Corpus B）） of medical research articles were randomly chosen from issues published in four prestigious journals （British Medical Journal （BMJ）， The New England Journal of Medicine （NEJM）， Chinese Medical Journal （CMJ） and Journal of The Fourth Military Medical University （JFMMU））， and were studied both qualitatively and quantitatively in terms of clause negation vs. local negation and negators.

3 Results

Prior to the presentation of results from a comparative study on negation， the basic information of the two corpora is shown in Table 1 to give an overview of the corpora.

The above table shows total words， average abstract length， total sentences and average sentence length of abstracts in each corpus and sub-corpus.

The figure within parentheses represents the percentage of that entity in proportion to all the entities used in one particular corpus.

The figure within parentheses represents the percentage of that entity in proportion to all the entities used in one particular corpus.

The above two tables indicate both similarities and differences between Corpus A and Corpus B in negation and negators. One of the similarities was that clause negation was used more frequently than local negation in both corpora. Another similarity was that not was used more frequently for clause negation than no in both corpora.

The major difference lied in negators used for local negation. In Corpus A， no was used most frequently， followed by other negators such as few， little， neither， nor， and neither …nor. In Corpus B， no and not were used equally frequently； two other negators （none and never） were used once. The finding that not was used less frequently for local negation in Corpus A than in Corpus B may be due to chance or the possibility that Chinese authors， compared with non-native English speakers， might be more familiar with not than other negators， because they have learnt the rule that not was often used to negate a positive sentence by role. The finding that negators in Corpus A showed more diversity than those in Corpus B may be due to the possibility that English native speakers were more flexible in employing negators than Chinese authors.

4 Conclusion

The comparative study has revealed both similarities and differences between English abstracts of medical research articles written by English native speakers and those written by Chinese authors in terms of negation. Compared with the similarities， the differences deserve more attention. They are caused by the fact that that the English proficiency of English native speakers is higher than that of Chinese English learners. It is suggest that EMP teachers or learners should read the latest issues of some prestigious medical journals such as British Medical Journal， Lancet， Journal of American Medical Association， and New England Journal of Medicine to improve their English writing.

References

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[2]Hu X. （2015）. A comparative study on lexical characteristics in different moves of English abstracts by Chinese and English writers. Modern Foreign Languages [J]. 38（6）： 813-822.

[3]Huang Y. & Chen L. P. （2012）. Linguistic features of English abstracts of influential medical journals. Chinese Journal of Scientific and Technical Periodicals [J]. 23 （4）： 685-687.

[4]Lores， R. （2004）. On RA abstracts： from rhetorical structure to thematic organization. English for Specific Purposes [J]. 23 （3）： 280-302.

[5]Quirk， R.， Greenbaum， S.， Leech， G. & Svartvik， J. （1972）. A grammar of contemporary English [M]. Essex： Longman Group Limited.

[6]Xiao Z. H. & Cao Y （2014）. A multidimensional contrastive move analysis of English abstracts by Chinese and English writers. Foreign Language Teaching and Research [J]. 46 （2）： 260-272.