As an indispensable part of journal article, English abstract can promote the sharing and exchange of international academic achievements. Cohesion and coherence are important criteria of a good abstract. Based on Halliday and Hasan’s cohesion theory, this study compares 60 English abstracts written by Chinese and English native scholars. The results show that ellipsis and substitution are rarely used, while reference and conjunction are often employed, with no obvious difference; native English scholars apply lexical cohesion significantly more than Chinese scholars; the frequency of repetition is the highest in both corpora. The findings suggest that Chinese scholars have made considerable strides in writing English abstracts in recent years. Implications may be provided for Chinese researchers about how to write a coherent English abstract.

He Tiantian. Textual Cohesion in Journal Article Abstracts by Chinese and Native English Scholars in Applied Linguistics: A Comparative Study. Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences (2023) Vol. 6, Issue 16: 87-95. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJHSS.2023.061612.

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