Functional Stylistic Analysis: Transitivity in English-Medium Medical Research Articles

In this paper, we report a corpus-based transitivity analysis on the six process types employed in realizing some stylistic features of the English-medium medical research article (RA). By studying 25 complete English-medium medical RAs from five SCI English-medium medical journals, we find that the transitivity system plays an important role in the realization of stylistic features of the English-medium medical RA and that the application of different process types in the different sections may be associated with the purposes and style requirements of each section. Proper application of the process types from the perspective of the different style requirements may enable nonnative English speaking (NNES) medical RA writers to produce stylistically appropriate medical RAs, and eventually lead to the ultimate goal of successful publication.