Surface Forms and Rhetorical Functions of Citations in Chinese Linguistic MA Theses

Abstract

Citations play an indispensable part in academic writing. This study adopts both qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate the citation practices in 20 Chinese linguistics MA theses. The citations are examined in terms of their surface forms and rhetorical functions. Results reveal that: 1) Authors of Chinese MA theses apply more integral citations than non-integral citations. 2) In integral citations, the authors are more likely to employ verb-controlling citations than naming citations, while in non-integral citations, they show the strongest preference for source citations. 3) The most frequent reporting structure the authors use is X + verb +that clause and most of the ten most frequent reporting verbs in this structure belong to ARGUE verbs. 4) The authors employ citations with limited rhetorical functions, primarily using the attribution function and rarely evaluating the cited content. These findings have implications for academic writing instruction.