A Text-Type and Move Analysis Study of Verb Tense and Modality Distribution in Medical English Abstracts  

Oleh:

Salager-Meyer, Franqoise

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: English for Specific Purposes (Full Text) vol. 11 no. 2 (1992), page 93-113.
Fulltext: 11_02_Salager-Meyer.pdf (1.94MB)

Isi artikel

In order to account for finite verb tense and modality usage in medical English (ME) abstracts, and to examine how the meaning conveyed by the different tenses and modal verbs is related to the communicative function of the different rhetorical divisions of abstracts and to that of each ME text type (see below), we carried out a genre-specific discourse study and move analysis of 84 well-structured ME abstracts. The three major ME text types were considered: (a) research papers, fb) case reports, and (c) review articles. These covered the four basic ME research types: (a) clinical, (b) basic, Cc) epidemiological, and fd) operative research. The different moves were identified in each abstract, and the frequency of occurrence of the above-mentioned microlinguistic surface signals was recorded for each move. (hi-square tests were run for the observations. Our study shows that: 1. There is a close relationship Cp < ,051 between the rhetorical function of the “history” type of discourse (in the purpose, methods, results, and case present&ion moves of research papers anli/or cuse rep&) and the past - the predominantly used tense in our corpus. 2. The present - particularly favored in the “comment” type of discourse in the conclwim. recommenddon, and aiata synthesis moves Cp < ,001) - serves the purpose of enhancing and emphasizing the generalizability of specific findings. It is also the preferred tense for reference to established knowledge (or universal truths) that should be part of the readers’ conceptual schemata (statement of the problem). On a text-type basis, the present was found to be associated (p < .Ol) with reuiews (analytic and critical state-of-the-art articles) which claim universality. 3. The present perfect - the third most frequent tense and one of the two tense markers of the statement of the problem move f$ < .Ol) - is predominantly used in ME abstracts to show the authors’ disagreement with previous findings as a way of justifying the new investigation and showing a gap in knowledge. 4. Medals are move- and research-type determined and have the discoursal function of signalling the tentative and suggestive author-marked moves. 5. Modality is significantly more frequent in review articles, which means that the more universal the pretension of a claim, the more hedged the discourse. 6. Medical text types do have a direct bearing on the use of tenses and modality whereas research types do not.

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