中英应用语言学论文摘要中模糊限制语与增强标记语的对比研究

A Contrastive Study of Hedges and Boosters in Chinese and English Applied Linguistics Article Abstracts

摘要: 本研究以互动元话语、跨文化修辞和英语作为学术通用语(ELF)视角为基础，采用IMRD语步模式，通过构建中英应用语言学领域平行语料库(各含50篇期刊论文摘要)，结合定量与定性分析方法，对比了中英文摘要中模糊限制语(hedges)和增强标记语(boosters)的使用异同。研究发现：1) 总体上，中文摘要使用更多增强标记语和更少模糊限制语，而英文摘要则相反；2) 在语步分布上，两类摘要的增强标记语均集中于“结果”部分，但模糊限制语的分布存在差异，中文集中于“结果”和“讨论”，英文则在“引言”、“结果”、“讨论”中均高频出现；3) 在表现形式上，中文增强标记语种类更多样，而英文模糊限制语种类更丰富。本研究的推进在于将总体频率、语步位置、词项语用和期刊制度结合为多层解释框架，并明确语种、期刊与作者构成相互混杂所限定的推论边界。

Abstract: This study draws on interactive metadiscourse, cross-cultural rhetoric, and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) perspectives. Adopting the IMRD move framework, it constructs a parallel corpus of 50 research article abstracts each from Chinese and English applied linguistics journals and employs a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to compare the use of hedges and boosters in the two languages. The findings reveal that: (1) overall, Chinese abstracts use more boosters and fewer hedges, whereas English abstracts show the opposite pattern; (2) in terms of move distribution, boosters in both sets of abstracts concentrate in the Results section, while hedges differ in their distribution—in Chinese abstracts they cluster in Results and Discussion, whereas in English abstracts they occur frequently across Introduction, Results, and Discussion; and (3) regarding formal realization, Chinese boosters exhibit greater lexical variety, while English hedges are more diverse in form. The contribution of this study lies in integrating overall frequency, move position, lexical pragmatics, and the institutional context of journals into a multi-layered explanatory framework, while delineating the inferential boundaries imposed by the interplay of language, journal type, and author composition.