イリョウケイ　ニホンゴ　ロンブン　ノ　エイゴ　ショウロク　ノ　ゲンゴ　トクチョウ　ニ　カンスル　タンサクテキ　ケンキュウ　ジャンル　ニ　モトヅク　コーパス　ケンキュウ　ノ　イッカン　ト　シテ

Linguistic features of English abstracts for Japanese medical science research papers : A part of a genre-based corpus study project

アサノ, モトコ

Asano, Motoko

Division of Language and Culture, Graduate School of Humanities, Osaka University

日本語抄録

コーパス

ジャンル

ESP

EAP

research article abstracts

corpus

genre

This study aims to examine the linguistic features of English abstracts in medical research papers published in a Japanese academic journal, as part of a “genre-based” (Tojo, 2015, p. 19) corpus study project for exploring support strategies for research communication. While abstracts in international journals have been studied extensively, the need for investigating English-language abstract texts prepared within the Japanese context has arisen from the benefit of using learners’ first language as a scaffolding tool in learning environment. This study focused on the “rhetorical functions” (Swales, 1990, p. 138) and examined the “constituents of phrases” (Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik, 1985, p. 68). The analysis revealed frequent use of “[p]urposive metadiscoursal statements” (Van Bonn & Swales, 2007, p. 98) such as “This study aimed to” and a preference for nouns such as “study” that fulfilled roles similar to those observed in the Japanese texts, suggesting an influence of Japanese text structure. Considering that these English abstracts are accessible via PubMed (National Library of Medicine, 2023), the texts could serve as “reference sample[s] for Japanese learners of English” (Hino, 2018). English texts explicitly describe impacts like “affecting the quality of life,” in contrast to Japanese abstracts, which tended to use softened expressions when communicating potential health risks. The findings may indicate the “locality of abstract texts” (Van Bonn & Swales, 2007), potentially offering insights into the teaching and learning of disciplinary preferences of highly conventional texts in the target region.