A corpus-based comparative study of exemplification in hard and soft sciences research articles: a case of Chinese and English authors
Exemplification, an essential part of argumentation in academic writing, helps authors to support general ideas with specific examples. This corpus-based investigation is a preliminary comparative study on the use of exemplification by Chinese and English native authors in research articles (R...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2023
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/22967/1/Gema_23_4_12.pdf http://journalarticle.ukm.my/22967/ https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1621 |
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| Summary: | Exemplification, an essential part of argumentation in academic writing, helps authors to support
general ideas with specific examples. This corpus-based investigation is a preliminary comparative
study on the use of exemplification by Chinese and English native authors in research articles
(RAs) of hard sciences and soft sciences covering six different disciplines. The study focuses
primarily on three aspects: Exemplifying Markers (EMs), exemplifying units, and functions of
exemplification. A corpus of twelve RAs with a total number of 143,604 words across six
disciplines was built with six articles each from the hard sciences and the soft sciences. Triki’s
(2021) model of exemplification was used as the analytical framework. The exemplification theory
serves as the theoretical basis for the study and K-means clustering and Welch Two Sample t-tests
are employed as the research methods. Findings show that diverse categories of EMs are used by
authors from these two different linguistic backgrounds and in different disciplines. It is also
revealed that the authors from the two linguistic backgrounds use EMs more similarly in hard
sciences than in soft sciences, even though EMs are usually used more frequently in the soft
sciences. In addition, there are significant differences in the use of EMs between the two groups
of authors and different disciplines. More exemplifying groups than exemplifying clauses are
employed across linguistic backgrounds and disciplines. Various categories of functions are
performed by exemplification. The findings may be valuable in guiding exemplification
instruction and learning in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) environments. |
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