Thematic Progression Patterns in English Abstracts of Doctoral Dissertations by EFL Students

• Published in: Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics Vol. 19; no. 4; pp. 668 - 687
• Main Authors: Zhenzhen Zhang, Borim Lee
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 한국영어학회 01.12.2019
• Subjects: 영어와문학; native language; Rheme; English abstracts; academic writing; Theme; Korean; Chinese; EFL; thematic progression (TP) patterns
• ISSN: 1598-1398; 2586-7474
• DOI: 10.15738/kjell.19.4.201912.668

This study examines the use of thematic progression (TP) patterns in English abstracts of doctoral dissertations written by Korean and Chinese students in medical science. These EFL students’ abstracts are compared with an American university’s dissertation abstracts in the same field. The results of the mixed quantitative-qualitative analyses reveal that the three most preferred TP patterns in all three groups are exactly the same: simple linear pattern, constant Theme pattern, and constant Rheme pattern. However, the detailed uses of the three patterns vary slightly according to the groups. The EFL groups, Korean and Chinese writers, exhibit more similarities than differences with each other on their choices of TP patterns. When compared with the American control group, both EFL groups show deviations. Specifically, both EFL groups tend to overuse the alternative model. Additionally, the Chinese group also overuses the constant Theme pattern, which is known to disturb cohesion and coherence of writing. The results of a pilot study conducted to probe the reasons of these deviations suggest the writers’ native language influences. The results of this study also provide some pedagogical implications in terms of text organization for EFL academic writing. KCI Citation Count: 0