Chinese PhD thesis acknowledgements: A communities of practice perspective

While there is a comparatively rich research literature on English acknowledgement texts, research into Chinese PhD thesis acknowledgement texts, especially the social roles of the texts, has received little attention. To fill this gap, this book examines a corpus of Chinese PhD thesis acknowledgement texts in order to explore both the typical structure of the texts and their social function within the particular university setting as well as within a broader social context. The author uses stratified purposive sampling and semi-structured text-based interviews with PhD graduates, their supervisors and other acknowledgee representatives to gather data. Furthermore, PhD guidebooks, supervisors’ CVs and graduates’ publications have been collected. Three theoretical notions - communities of practice, audience and politeness - are drawn into account for the findings of the study. Besides uncovering several undocumented move patterns, the book offers insightful understanding of acknowledgement texts both as a part-genre of research writing as well as a window of the textual and social world of PhD graduates’ chorus of gratitude.