南京大学研究生毕业论文英文摘要首页用纸

THESIS: A Normative Approach to the Text Generation of English Abstracts for Papers in Literary Studies

SPECIALIZATION: English (Translation Studies)

POSTGRADUATE: Gui Tao

MENTOR: Professor Cao Jianxin

This research attempts to explore the generic structure and linguistic features of English abstracts for papers in literary studies from a normative approach. The abstract is an indispensable part of a research paper. It is essential for the abstract itself to follow the discourse conventions that characterize the specific genre of writing. However, there is very little research on the translation of abstracts of papers in literary studies. Although there are guidelines regarding the structure of English abstracts both in China and America, they are often vague, general and sometimes conflicting each other. Most of the rules only roughly refer to the composition of the English abstract, while rarely mentioning the textual-linguistic aspects of the abstract and the mistakes which may possibly occur during the rendering of the text because of the differences between Chinese and English. In addition, some textual-linguistic and structural features in abstracts have not been explored. These unexplored features, including the definition of culture-loaded or unfamiliar terms and the strategy of modesty, just to name a few, come with the fact that most Chinese students translate or ask others to translate their Chinese abstracts into English. Since the “translation of abstracts” is a reality in China, the present research addresses related problems that occur during the translation.

The research methodology consists of an Internet survey, building of a corpus with 120 Chinese and English abstracts produced by Chinese students and their American counterparts, and comparative and descriptive studies of these abstracts.

The results of the Internet survey indicate that most Chinese students produce their English abstracts by translating, or asking others to translate, their Chinese abstracts, rather than directly writing in English mainly because of their lack of English proficiency and because most of them fail to realize that English abstracts should be a self-contained and rule-governed text rather than a literal translation of their Chinese abstracts which are found always incomplete in structure in my research.

I divided the 80 English abstracts in the corpus within a framework of four generic moves: background - research methodology - research findings - conclusions.

The following norms reflect that an English abstract should follow some academic criteria.

First, a four-move structure of background - research methodology - research findings - conclusion should be followed and at the beginning of an English abstract, it is preferred to use one sentence to summarize the content of the whole article. Especially, the Methodology part and the Conclusion part should be added to the English abstracts no matter whether these parts are included in the Chinese abstracts or not.

Second, the simple present tense, simple past tense and the present perfect tense can be used in the Background part of an English abstract and no past present tense and present progressive tense should be used. The simple present tense or a gerund phrase or a prepositional phrase can be used in the Methodology part while the future tense and the simple past tense should not be used. The simple present tense should be used to report the findings in this part. The simple present tense should be used in the Conclusion part.

Third, culture-loaded words should be presented with a short explanation to the foreign readers.

Fourth, no self-denigration expression should be used.

Fifth, the surname and first name should be capitalized with a blank between them to present people’s names in the abstract and italicization should be used to present a book in an English abstract.

Sixth, “I” and “This/My dissertation/thesis” should be used to start a sentence in an English abstract.

Seventh, metaphors, similes and hyperboles can rarely be used in an English abstract.

This thesis demonstrates that an English abstract should be regarded as a self-contained and rule-governed text rather than a literally rendered counterpart of an incomplete Chinese abstract. It is expected to enhance students' awareness of producing (translating or writing) English abstracts by referring to a set of norms.

南京大学研究生毕业论文中文摘要首页用纸

毕业论文题目： 文学论文摘要英译文本生成规范研究

英语 专业 2005 级硕士生姓名： 桂 涛

指导教师（姓名、职称）： 曹建新 教授

本研究试图从规范角度探索文科论文英文摘要在篇章结构和语言特征方面的特点。摘要是科研论文不可缺少的一部分。摘要写作本身应该被认为是一种写作种类。掌握其本身的特点对摘要的生成具有很大作用。但是，目前关于论文摘要的研究较之对论文文体本身的研究可以说是少之又少。尽管国内外针对论文摘要的写作结构都有一些相关的要求和指导，可是大多数都很笼统的，在表述上含混模糊，各种规定之间经常出现互相矛盾的情况。而且绝大多数相关规则只是在英文摘要的组成方面做了大致的规定，而很少涉及到篇章语言各方面以及在从中文摘要翻译成英文摘要过程中因中英语言本身不同而出现的一些典型问题，比如文化负载词的处理以及谦虚策略。这些问题出现在中国学生采用翻译中文摘要的方法来生成其英文摘要的过程中。“摘要翻译”的问题，在中国学生中普遍存在。因此，本文旨在解决翻译过程中的相关问题，使得中国学生直接用英文写作或者翻译出的英文摘要更加符合摘要本身特点和要求。

本项研究所采用的研究方法和手段包括一个网上调查，一个包含120篇来自中国学生和美国长青藤高校学生论文中英摘要的小型语料库，以及对这些摘要进行的对比研究和描述性呀就的方法。

网上调查的结果表明，绝大多数中国学生是通过自己翻译或者请别人帮忙翻译其中文摘要的方式来产生论文英文摘要的，而非直接用英文写出。这主要是由于多数中国学生的英语水平尚不足以让其直接进行摘要的英文写作，也是由于大多数中国学生并没有意识到英文摘要本身就是一个独立的系统，在内容上和形式上受到一系列规则的制约，而非完全是中文摘要的投影。

作者将80篇中美学生的论文摘要按照“背景-研究方法-研究发现-结论”的框架进行划分。通过划分、观察、比较等方法，作者探讨了中美学生英文摘要在各方面的相同与不同。通过描述性研究的方法，英文摘要在结构和语言方面的规范被建立起来。

英文摘要文本生成的首要准则是遵循学术标准的要求进行写作而非完全尊重中文摘要文本，采取逐字逐句的翻译策略。

英文文本摘要生成的基体准则是按照背景-研究方法-研究发现-结论的四部分来产生摘要。在摘要开头，应有一句整体描述全文的句子。在中文摘要中常常缺失的研究方法和结论部分，在英文摘要生成的过程中，也应该注意要被包括到摘要中。

时态方面的准则是，在背景部分中，一般现在时、简单过去时和现在完成时可以被采用，而中国学生英文摘要背景部分常出现的过去完成时和现在进行时则不应使用。在研究方法部分，研究者可以使用一般现在时或者介词、动名词短语来引出研究所使用的方法，而将来时和一般过去时则不应被使用。在研究发现和总结部分，应该使用一般现在时。

文化负载词和一些读者可能不熟悉的词语方面的准则是，应该使用简短说明来说清该词语的基本意思或者基本属性。

谦虚策略方面的准则是，英文摘要中不应该使用谦虚语和谦虚的表达方式。

人名和书名方面的准则是，人名应该采用姓和第一个名的首字母大写并且在姓和名之间使用空格；书名的表述应该使用斜体，而非中国学生喜欢使用的下划线或者书名号。

句子人称使用方面的准则是，“I” 和 “This/My dissertation/thesis”可以被使用在句子开头。

修辞表述方面的准则是，在英文摘要中要注意中文摘要中经常出现的比喻等修辞手法不应该被逐字翻译到英文摘要中。

本文主要阐释了英文摘要应该被视为一个独立的、自含的系统，受到一系列规则的约束，在英文摘要生成的过程中，不能逐字逐句进行翻译，而要考虑到其内容和语言方面的准则。作者希望提高学生在直接写出或者是按照中文摘要翻译出英文摘要过程中遵循规则的意识。