Abstract

Noun phrases, as the basic components of sentences, carry large amounts of information. Based on corpus-based research method, this study aims to explore the use of nouns in the journal abstracts written by Chinese scholars. Statistically significant difference was found in the noun effect between Chinese scholars’ dissertation abstracts (CSDA) and English-speaking scholars’ dissertation abstracts (ESDA), so effect was chosen as an example word throughout the research. The results show that (1) Chinese scholars tend to use more simple noun phrases while international journal scholars are inclined to use complex noun phrases in their articles. (2) As for the use of the colligation adjective+effect, Chinese scholars are likely to use synonyms or to replace the more appropriate adjectives, which cause non-native expressions. (3) As for the colligation of effect+preposition, in is most frequently used by Chinese scholars, but seem to be untypical to the international journal scholars. The study found that interlingual transfer (mother tongue transfer) and intralingual transfer appear to be the main causes of these discrepancies.

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