A Comparative Study of Comment Adjuncts in Chinese and English Medical Research Articles

This paper adopts the system of comment adjuncts proposed by Halliday and Matthiessen, and compares and analyzes, by the use of Kconcordance, the comment adjuncts in the corpora of Chinese and English medical research articles. In the use of comment adjuncts, the similarities show the common discourse nature of medical research articles; the differences reflect different cultural traditions of Chinese and native English writers. Understanding of these similarities and differences contributes to the analyzing of academic texts in different cultural backgrounds and the improving of cultural awareness in the analysis of academic texts. The study also reminds us that we must reform and improve the course design in medical and pharmaceutical universities in order to improve the writing of medical research articles and the ability to exchange in academic English of medicine.