The primary purpose of this study is to examine, with reference to pioneering studiesof Hyland (2004) and Hyland &

Tse (2004), the generic feature of the English-languageacknowledgements accompanying dissertations written by

Chinese masters and doctoral candidates, with the aim of specifying the
rhetorical preferences of these Chinese student writers in terms of moves and steps as well as the use of sentence patterns, modifiers andhedges employed in thanking acts and the choice of sentence subjects. While attemptingto demonstrate that scientific discourse is culture-specific, rather than universal, and that socio-cultural factors may condition the preference for certain rhetorical strategies by the members of different scientificcommunities, this research has an underlying pedagogical motivation as it also attempts to help Chinese EAP academics write effectiveEnglish acknowledgements in a way that meets the international scientific communitysexpectations.

Dissertation Acknowledgments: Generic Structure and Linguistic Features

Zhao Mingwei Donghua University
Jiang Yajun Xian International Studies University

Prepared by: Najihah bt Talahah Zulbitah bt Sidek

Results and Discussions

Single thanking act The Chinese cultural of the English tradition acknowledgements the Chinese with more than one governments acknowledgee may guiding educational be involved, and policy of Jiaoshu yuren, imparting that the steps may knowledge as well as not have distinct improving students boundaries and moral standard often overlap.

In e.g. (5) First, I would like to express my gratitude to my doctoral supervisor Professor X of X University, for his expert advice and criticism, and to his wife X, who has given her help so unstintingly that it is not possible to detail it here.

An analysis of the generic structure of the MCAs revealed that all the moves and steps identified in Hyland (2004) were found in our corpus and their occurrences are surprisingly similar except Step 3.2 (dedicating the thesis).

Our work is definitely no great accomplishment in any sense, thus not worthdedicating it to others. (MA student) It seems that Chinese mainland students are putting more stress on the modesty maxim of Politeness Principle (Leech, 1983; Gu, 1990).

Chinese students seem to prefer to enumerate first all the acknowledgees (Step 2.1), and then get down to details, which fairly conforms to the traditional English writing stylemoving from general to specific, a pattern highlighted in guides of essay writing they learned in their undergraudate programme (Jiang, 2008).

e.g. (2) Many professors, friends and colleagues have contributed to my thesis more or less directly

In some extreme cases like the following example taken out of a PhD dissertation, each sentence acknowledges moral support from a different acknowledgee. It reveals the attention of Chinese students paid to others encouragement, friendship, sympathy and patience.

e. g. (3) I also want to thank my colleagues, their help and friendship were and will remain a great encouragement to me. I also want to thank my daughter, her confidence in me is always an impetus in my academic life. Finally, I owe to my wife more than to anyone. It is she who has bravely and silently supported the whole family when I went away doing my PhD study. Her support and encouragement are the bases on which each of my words is built. Without these, nothing would have been possible.