A Corpus‐based Study of Textual Metaphor in English Academic Writing

Abstract

This article conducted a corpus‐based study on the discipline distributions of two types of textual metaphor identified by He et al. (2015) and He and Wen (2017), conjunctionalization of conjunctive adverbs and zero conjunctionalization of hypotactic conjunctions. It is found that conjunctionalization of conjunctive adverbs is more prevalent in soft science texts than in hard science texts and zero conjunctionalization of hypotactic conjunctions is similarly distributed in hard science texts and in soft science texts. However, conjunctionalization of conjunctive adverbs is more prevalent in native English linguistics texts than in EFL Chinese linguistics texts while zero conjunctionalization of hypotactic conjunctions dominates in EFL Chinese linguistics texts because of the relatively lower frequency of hypotactic clause complexes in EFL Chinese linguistics texts. Textual metaphor functions to increase the grammatical intricacy of text and hence is not a characteristic feature of scientific writing. It is hereby concluded that EFL Chinese linguists do not write as technical texts as native English linguists.

Systematic Metaphors in L2 Public Speaking: A Contrastive Study of Advanced Chinese EFL Learner and Native English Speaker

“…In this field, some previous research focused on the patterns and functions of L2 metaphor produced by L2 learners. For example, it is found that L2 learners could use various types of metaphors to achieve vividness, coherence, and persuasiveness [4][5][6][7]. Other previous studies investigated the influencing factors behind L2 metaphor production.…”