Corpus-based Comparative Study on First Person Pronouns in Abstracts of Medical Papers

Objective: To explore the differences in frequency and discourse function of first person pronouns in abstracts of medical papers at home and abroad and to give suggestions for the problems revealed in domestic English abstracts. Methods: Taking the self-constructed corpus of English abstracts of domestic and foreign medical papers as a sample, we analyzed 120 English abstracts of domestic medical core journals and foreign medical journals from 2023 to 2024 by using the corpus analysis tool AntConc. Results: It was found that the frequency of first person pronouns in English abstracts of foreign medical papers was significantly higher than that in abstracts of domestic medical papers, and their discourse functions were mainly applied to propose the purpose and describe the study process. Conclusion: The results of the study are valuable for further improving the academic quality of domestic medical journals and the writing quality of contributors.