3.1 Research Questions

Corresponding to the research objectives as stated in Chapter one，the present study focuses on such research questions as：

1.What are the formal，semantic and functional features of TSSs？

（1）How are TSSs distributed across different formal patterns？

（2）How do academic writers express various opinions toward propositional content and maintain harmonious writer-reader relations by employing TSSs？

2.What are the Chinese equivalents of TSSs？

（1）To what extent can two word combinations be seen as equivalents？

（2）What are the features and uses of different types of translation units？

3.What co-selection features can be captured in the descriptions of TSSs and in the establishment of cross-linguistic equivalence？

（1）How are lexis，grammar，meaning and function co-selected in the TSSs and in their Chinese equivalents that are used as single choices in the academic discourse？

（2）What are the contextual factors that affect the choices among possible equivalents？

4.How will this study shed light on the practical issues of academic writing，translation，and the lexicon construction for dictionary compilation and machine translation？