This book contributes to the current research area by achieving an understanding of the organization of our academic activities and by finding evidence for the generic conditioning of texts on the linguistic strata. Drawing on a functional theory, the current study selects naturally occurring abstracts in journal articles from a variety of academic disciplines, viz. linguistics, economics, science, management, and geography. The aim is to find out how the linguistic realizations of a text enact the purpose of a discourse in certain institutionalized academic settings. The result of the study could be incorporated into the language learning classroom and benefit especially those students who are learning to write academic papers. Through reading this proposed book, target readers may be better informed of the “generic expectations” of research paper abstracts.

YU Hui is a professor of School of Foreign Languages and Literature, Beijing Normal University. Her research interests include genre studies, systemic functional linguistics and academic discourse. Her recent publications include Introducing Systemic Functional Linguistics: Theory, description and application (co-edited with Chang Chenguang, Wang Bo and Ma Yuanyi, Routledge 2026); Explorations in Systemic Functional Linguistics (co-edited with Chang Chenguang, Springer 2026), Thompson, G. 2026. Introducing Functional Grammar (Yu Hui, Song Jinge & Wang Le, Trans.). Commercial Press forthcoming. Original work published 2013). She is currently undertaking a translation project of A History of Chinese Grammar by Wang Li, supported by The National Social Science Fund of China.