A Comparative Analysis of Reporting Verbs Used in Literature Review Chapters of Bachelor’s and Master’s Theses of Chinese English Majors

Reporting Verbs (RVs), a crucial aspect of citations in academic writing, are used to report the work of other researchers. A Literature Review Chapter, as a key part-genre of any thesis, or a bigger genre where it is embedded, is the main place that has the highest number of RVs. Accordingly, this study aimed to analyze and compare the use of RVs between 30 bachelor’s thesis (BT) Literature Review Chapters and 30 master’s thesis (MT) Literature Review Chapters of Chinese English majors in terms of denotation and evaluation of RVs based on Hyland’s (2002) classification framework. The findings reveal that the RVs used in the BT Literature Reviews were smaller in amount and narrower in range compared with those in the MT counterparts. Regarding the denotation of RVs, Discourse Act RVs were found to be the most predominant in the BT corpus, while Research Act RVs prevailed in the MT corpus. Cognition Act RVs were the least used in the two corpora. Regarding the evaluation of RVs, factive RVs were the most frequently used in the BT Literature Reviews, while non-factive RVs were the most prominent in the MT counterparts. However, negative RVswere infrequent in both corpora. This study would increase the thesis writers’ knowledge on the significance of RVs, raise their awareness of employing RVs, and help them use RVs appropriately and effectively in writing their thesis and other academic writings. This paper also provides practical implications for teaching RVs in preparing research dissertations.