Email this article 
Hide
Show all
A Genre Analysis of English and Iranian Research Articles Abstracts in Applied Linguistics and Mathematics
Abstract
In recent years, genre studies have attracted the attention of many researchers. The aim of the present study was to observe the differences in generic structure of abstract written by English native and non-native (Iranian) students in two disciplines of mathematics and applied linguistics. To this end, twenty native English students’ abstract texts from each discipline and the same number of non-native (Iranian) ones were selected. In this study, Hyland’s (2000) five‐move model was used to identify the rhetorical structure of the four sets of texts. After analyzing each text, the main moves were extracted and the frequencies of each one were calculated and compared. The cross-disciplinary and cross‐linguistic analyses reveal that linguistics abstracts follow a conventional scheme, but mathematics abstracts in these two languages do not exhibit the usual norms in terms of moves. Besides, greater difference in move structure is seen across languages in mathematics. The findings of the study have some pedagogical implications for academic writing courses for graduate students, especially students from non-English backgrounds in order to facilitate their successful acculturation into these disciplinary communities.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Ackland, G. M. (2009). A discourse analysis of English and French research article abstracts in linguistics and economics. San Diego, CA: Montezuma Publishing.
Atai, M.R.(2007). Genre Analysis : An investigation of the structure of research article results & discussion and colocation frameworks in medical research Articles. Proceedings of the 6th International AELFE Conference : Teaching and Learning LSP : Blurring the Boundaries. ISCAL, Lisboa, Portugal.
Bhatia, V.K. (1993). Analyzing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings [M]. London & NY: Longman.
Bhatia, V. K. (1997). Introduction: Genre analysis and world English. World English, 16(3), 313–319.
Giannoini, D, S. (2002).Words of gratitude: A contrastive study of acknowledgement texts in English and Italian research articles. Applied Linguistics, 23(1)1-31.
Golpour Lasaky, F.(2011). A contrastive study of generic organization of doctoral dissertation acknowledgements written by native and non-native (Iranian) students in applied linguistics. Modern Journal of Applied Linguistics, 3( 2), 175-200
Hyland, K. (1996). Talking to the Academy: Forms of hedging in science research articles. Written Communication, 13(2), 251‐281.
Hyland, K. (2000). Disciplinary discourses: Social interactions in academic writing. London, UK: Longman.
Hyland, K. (2002). Options of identity in academic writing. ELT Journal, 56(4), 351‐358.
Hyland, K. (2003). Self‐citation and self‐reference: Credibility and promotion in academic publication. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 54(3), 251‐259.
Lim, J. M. H. (2006). Method sections of management research articles: A pedagogically motivated qualitative study. English for Specific Purposes, 25(3), 282‐309.
Loi, C. K., & Evans, M. S. (2010). Cultural differences in the organization of research article introductions from the field of educational psychology: English and Chinese. Journal of Pragmatics, 42(10), 2814‐2825.
Nwogu, K, N. (1997).The medical research paper: structure and function. English for Specific Purposes,16(2),119-137.
Martin, P. M. (2003). A genre analysis of English and Spanish research paper abstracts in experimental social sciences. English for Specific Purposes, 22,223-43.
Peacock, M. (2002). Communicative move in discussion section of research articles. System, 30,479-497.
Pho, P. D. (2008). Research article abstracts in applied linguistics and educational technology: A study of linguistic realizations of rhetorical structure and authorial stance. Discourse Studies, 10(2), 231‐250.
Salager‐Meyer, F. (1992) A text‐type and move analysis study of verb tense an modality distribution in medical English abstracts. English for Specific Purposes, 11(2), 93‐113.
Samraj, B. (2002). Disciplinary variation in abstracts: The case of wildlife behavior and conservation biology. In J. Flowerdew (Ed.), Academic discourse (pp. 105‐120). New York, NY: Longman.
Samraj, B. (2005). An exploration of a genre set: Research article abstracts and introduction in two disciplines. English for Specific Purposes, 24(2), 141‐156.
Santos, M. B. D. (1996). The textual organization of research paper abstracts in applied linguistics. Text, 16(4), 481‐499.
Swales, J. M. (1987). Aspects of article introductions. Birmingham, England: Language Studies Unit, University of Aston.
Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Swales, J. M. (2004). Research genres: Explorations and applications. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Swales, J. M., & Feak, C. B. (2009). Abstracts and the writing of abstracts. Ann Arbor, MI:University of Michigan Press.
Taylor, G., & Chen, T. (1991). Linguistic, cultural, and subcultural issues in contrastive discourse analysis: Anglo‐American and Chinese scientific texts. Applied Linguistics, 12(3), 319‐336.
Yang, R. Y, & Allison, D. (2003). Research articles in applied linguistics: Moving from results to conclusions. English for Specific Purposes, 22(4), 365‐385.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.3n.5p.173
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
2012-2023 (CC-BY) Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.
International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature
To make sure that you can receive messages from us, please add the journal emails into your e-mail 'safe list'. If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox', check your 'bulk mail' or 'junk mail' folders.