English Research Article Titles: Cultural and Disciplinary Perspectives

Abstract

This article investigated the English research article (RA) titles across different disciplines and cultures. To this end, 600 RA titles in the Chinese context and 600 RA titles in the international context were collected from six disciplines, which are grouped as social and natural sciences. The frequency of title types, their subtypes, and title length are calculated in terms of cultural and disciplinary factors. The result showed a significant difference in title types and subtypes along two dimensions. It suggested that Chinese culture and language and the discourse practice of academic publication are responsible for the salient features of English titles by Chinese scholars. The suggestion for further study is to collect more titles from other disciplines and cultural contexts to verify the results.