Introduced the phased research results of the 2021 Tsinghua University Independent Research Program Humanities Special Fund project, and thanked Professor Lv Zhongju of Tsinghua University for his guidance and support of the paper.

1 Introduction

In the context of English as the academic lingua franca, Chinese scholars not only demonstrate their national scientific research strength in international publications, but also their discourse identity shaped by academic and cultural contexts and their role in promoting the development of international academic discourse. Comparative study of academic discourse is an important means of grasping the characteristics of academic discourse in specific groups. The comparative study of Chinese authors used multiple types of foreign authors as reference objects, including native English speakers, international experts, overseas university teachers and students, etc. These groups represent the language ability, academic level, cultural context and other influencing factors involved in academic discourse. Jiang Feng (2019) pointed out that comparative research on English academic discourse requires careful selection of reference objects based on the research topic, as the influencing factors associated with the characteristics of different academic discourse are different. In the evolution of academic discourse, only by clarifying the referentiality reflected by different comparison objects in previous discourse comparative studies can we more effectively use comparative analysis to interpret the characteristics and causes of Chinese authors' English academic discourse in the future, and provide inspiration for local Chinese writers and educators. However, no scholars have conducted a systematic review of this field yet. Therefore, this article combines literature coding and content analysis to review the corpus comparison research of English academic discourse by Chinese and foreign authors from 2000 to 2023, aiming to explore the development space of academic discourse comparison research by sorting out the current research status in this field.

2 Data Collection and Analysis

Detailed explanation of the literature screening criteria, data collection methods, and analysis process for the comparative study of English academic discourse by Chinese and foreign authors. The screening criteria include empirical research papers comparing Chinese and foreign authors, clearly indicating English academic discourse produced by native Chinese speakers, and excluding literature that does not specifically analyze the characteristics of Chinese author discourse. The data collection was conducted through China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Web of Science Core Collection, limited to the years 2000-2023, with subject categories of "Foreign Languages and Literatures" and "Language Linguistics". Through keyword search and manual screening, 225 eligible papers were ultimately obtained. Data analysis includes two stages: literature coding and content analysis. In the coding stage, reference corpus, research tools, and discourse features are annotated. In the content analysis stage, the main conclusions of previous comparative studies are summarized and evaluated based on the research path and high-frequency themes obtained through classification statistics.

3 Research Status

Analyzed the current status of corpus comparison research on English academic discourse by Chinese and foreign authors. The number of studies is showing a phased upward trend, with more studies published in domestic journals than in foreign journals. There are three types of comparative studies: Chinese authors and native English speakers, Chinese students and international experts, and Chinese authors and overseas multilingual authors. Among them, there are the most comparative studies between Chinese authors and native English speakers. The research methods are mainly based on corpus data, with a few incorporating tools such as questionnaires and interviews. The research topic focuses on three paths: domain, rhetoric, and genre, corresponding to textual competence, social context competence, and genre competence, respectively. The discourse features of high-frequency attention include lexical chunks, syntax, meta discourse, evaluation systems, etc. The research on discourse pathways is extensive, with rhetorical pathways focusing on communicative functional units and syntactic pathways focusing on academic text structures. Abstract is the most prominent feature in the discourse pathway. Research shows that Chinese authors differ from native speakers in terms of chunk usage, syntactic structure, and stance markers, which may be related to their native language habits and language abilities.

4 Research Prospects

This chapter discusses the future prospects of comparative research on English academic discourse by Chinese and foreign authors, points out the shortcomings of existing research, such as imbalanced reference objects and single research methods, and proposes improvement suggestions. Suggestions include: 1) expanding research topics, combining rhetoric, register, and genre studies, focusing on interpersonal functional features, and examining the discourse functions of different sub categories and steps; 2) Optimize corpus selection, consider differences in corpus properties, provide comprehensive author and corpus information, and establish comparable corpora; 3) Innovate research methods, make more use of human centered tools, combine text analysis and case studies, and apply comparative research to teaching practice. These suggestions aim to enhance the depth and breadth of comparative research and promote the development of academic writing teaching.

5 Conclusion

This paper summarizes the overall situation, types, research methods, and hot topic distribution of comparative studies on English academic discourse by Chinese and foreign authors from 2000 to 2023. The main findings are discussed, and future research directions are proposed. The study mainly focuses on three types of reference objects: native speakers, international experts, and authors in overseas contexts, to grasp the discourse characteristics of Chinese authors in terms of domain, rhetoric, and genre dimensions, and to discover the weaker stance expression and interactivity in Chinese authors' discourse. In response to existing problems and highlights, research suggestions have been proposed, including the mutual infiltration of discourse feature paths, balancing reference object types, strictly screening comparable corpora, and strengthening the use of humanistic tools. This article aims to propose future research directions by reviewing the current status and conclusions of comparative studies, more effectively exploring the characteristics and causes of Chinese authors' English academic discourse, and inspiring writing teaching. The significant development of academic English requires researchers to rely on local academic contexts and inject vitality into academic discourse.