Genre Analysis of the Method Sections in Applied Linguistics Research Articles: A Cross-Linguistic Study (original) (raw)
Related papers
2017
The study investigated whether there was any significant generic difference between the Research Questions (RQs) and Method sections of applied linguistics research articles (RAs) published in international and local Iranian journals. Two hundred applied linguistics RAs (100 from each group) were selected from 5 SSCI-indexed international journals and 5 Iranian Scientific-Research (Elmi-Pazhouheshi) ISC-indexed journals. Having analyzed the Introduction and Method sections based on Swales’ (2004) CARS model and Lim’s (2006) model, respectively, we found there were no significant differences in the frequency of occurrence of RQs in the Introduction sections, on the one hand, and between the Method sections of both groups of RAs, on the other. However, significant differences were found in the frequency of occurrence of certain moves and steps in both sections. Moreover, the findings of an expert-viewed validated questionnaire indicated that the RQs were of paramount importance to the...
International Journal of Linguistics, 2016
This study discussed rhetorical features of Iranian applied linguistics research articles (RAs) in English. The main focus of this research is on the examination of the patterns of communicative purposes or “moves” and their subsequent elements or “steps” of different sections of these articles. The researchers randomly chose 30 research articles from four Iranian journals of applied linguistics published within five recent years (2008-2012). The analysis includes the examination of communicative purposes of the texts following Pho’s (2008b) model of move analysis in applied linguistics research articles. For the ease of comparison, this corpus was compared with Pho’s (2008b) corpus of study. The results showed that the macro rhetorical structure of the Iranian research articles is relatively similar to that of non-Iranian RAs with some minor differences. However the communicative purposes in different sections in the two groups of RAs (Iranian and non-Iranian) are relatively differ...
Research Article is one of the most important genres that received extensive attention in genre analysis. Research abstracts have received extreme importance due to the valuable academic information in the world. The present study aims to explore the rhetorical structure of the Iranian and international abstracts published in leading English and Persian journals. The researcher randomly selected 40 research articles from six Iranian journals of applied linguistics and international journals of applied linguistics. The study used two types of instruments. The Ant Mover software is a freeware text structure analysis program (developed by Anthony Laurence, 2003). According to Hyland's model, five moves are involved, including Introduction (M1) purposes (M2) Method (M3) product (M4) and conclusion (M5). The corpus, then, was analyzed based on the Ant Mover software and Hyland's (2000) five move frameworks to identify the rhetorical structure of the selected corpus. As a result, the frequency of each move in each abstract was calculated after the moves were analyzed. A frequency and percentage were counted and a chi-square analysis was run to answer the research hypothesis. The finding also showed that despite the differences in frequency of moves in two corpora, these differences were not statistically significant.
Journal of Modern Research in English Language Studies, 2022
There is a shortage of studies on the generic structure of research article abstracts published in Iranian and international applied linguistics journals considering their employed research approach (i.e., quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods). Thus, this study endeavored to analyze the moves in 288 quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research (MMR) article abstracts in six Iranian and six international applied linguistics journals published between 2012 and 2019, following Hyland's (2000) model. To analyze the data, the frequency of distribution and percentages of the rhetorical moves were estimated, and the Kruskal-Wallis test was run on the data. The findings indicated that the moves of Purpose, Product, and Method occupied the largest portion of local and international abstracts. Furthermore, in comparison to the international corpus, the Iranian corpus contained more moves based on Hyland's (2000) model. A deeper analysis of both corpora revealed that the rhetorical moves were distributed almost evenly within quantitative, qualitative, and MMR abstracts, with the exception that in the international corpus, the Product move appeared significantly less in qualitative abstracts than in quantitative and MMR abstracts. The most frequently used move patterns in both datasets were; I-P-M-Pr-C, P-M-Pr-C, P-M-Pr, and I-P-M-Pr. It can be concluded that applied linguistics researchers tend to follow Hyland's (2000) model as much as possible when writing research article abstracts. Furthermore, although some divergences exist regarding the rhetorical moves frequency of distribution and patterning in qualitative, quantitative, and MMR abstracts in both local and international datasets, similarities are more remarkable than differences. The results can provide practical insights into the rhetorical and discursive practices associated with research article abstracts to applied linguistics researchers, students, and instructors.
2018
This study aimed to investigate the realizations of verbs’ syntactic and semantic features in moves of applied linguistics research article introductions published in international and Iranian local journals. To this end, a data of 30 research article introductions (15 published in Iranian local journals and 15 in high impact international journals) was selected. The research article introductions were analyzed for the move structures using Swales’s CARS (1990) model. The research article introductions were also analyzed for tense, aspect, voice (Syntactic features) and semantic meaning of verbs. The results indicated that simple present and active voice were the predominant tense and voice in both sets of research article introductions. Concerning the semantic meaning of verbs, the results showed that three kinds of semantic meanings of verbs were used more frequently. They are namely mental, activity, and existence or relationship verbs. This study could have implications for novi...
Journal of Language and Education, 2022
Background. Recent years have seen tremendous research efforts in the development of English for academic and research publication purposes, utilising an established approach to comparative genre analysis. This growing interest is primarily driven by the global dominance of Anglophone writing conventions, which necessitates raising awareness among researchers, particularly in non-Anglophone contexts. Purpose. This study explored and analysed the communicative intents of the discussion sections in research articles in two different contexts to investigate the effect of nativeness on the structural organisation in this genre. The focus of the study was on the rhetorical structure and employment of Moves in the applied linguistics research article Discussions, written in English by Iranian and native English-speaking researchers. Methods. A mixed-methods research study was conducted on two corpora, comprising 40 Discussions written by Iranian scholars and 40 Discussions written by native English-speaking scholars, selected from research articles published in international peer-reviewed journals. Results. The comparison of the two corpora revealed similarities and differences in the frequency, type, structure, sequence, and cyclicity of Moves. While there were significant differences in the frequency and sequence of Moves and Steps, both corpora employed the same types. They featured cyclical structures with no evidence of linear patterns across the Discussions. Both groups of researchers found it essential to provide background information and report and comment on the results in the research article Discussions, however, with notable differences in commenting strategies, i.e., Steps. The results indicated that socio-cultural conventions might have influenced the scholars' under-and over-employment of certain Moves and Steps in the research article Discussions. Implications. The findings of this study provide research-based evidence to practically and pedagogically assist in the context of English for academic and specific purposes, particularly in teaching English for research publication purposes to non-native English-speaking scholars.
There is burgeoning interest in investigating targeted sub-genres of research articles apart from employing Swales' (1994) CARS model, considered as a generalized model that apparently captures all research articles across disciplines. This study investigates the discourse features of methodology sections of research articles employing Peacock's (2011) framework. It is hoped that the established discourse features in this study may somehow serve as rhetorical guidelines in writing the methodology section attributable to ISI or high-impact journals and be adopted by non-ISI or non-high-impact academic writers to enable them to meet the standard criteria and writing-convention practices required by high-impact applied linguistics journals. Thirty (30) research articles extracted from the high-impact and non-high-impact applied linguistics journals were comprehensively analyzed in terms of physical characteristics, rhetorical moves, and cyclicity of moves. The findings revealed that high-impact academic writers were more prolix with respect to the number of words and paragraphs in writing their methodology than their counterpart. Moreover, it was found that there was one obligatory move (Move 1 Subjects/Materials) that both sets of academic writers employed. As the data suggested, Moves 3, Procedure, and 4, Data Analysis, seemed to be obligatory moves in non-high-impact journals. Conversely, the same moves seemed optional for some high-impact academic writers as the statistics revealed. Rhetorical variability was the probable reason for a number of cyclicity of moves found in the research article methodology produced by both sets of academic writers. Based on the results, several pedagogical implications and future research directions were provided.
Rhetorical Moves in Applied Linguistics Articles and their Corresponding Iranian Writer Identity
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2014
Emerging from Kaplan's (1966) pioneering work on contrastive rhetoric, rhetorical organization is today practiced with current critical views in language teaching and is regarded as a major pedagogical tool in writing various articles. The present study aimed to investigate the possible relationship between generic organizations of research articles in applied linguistics Iranian journals and negotiation of researchers' identities. Overall, 30 published research-based articles were selected randomly from four journals. After applying Pho's (2008b) model of move analysis, the obtained results were associated with the instances of writer identity using Hyland's framework (2002). The findings demonstrated different percentages of writer identity categories across different moves of articles. Results suggested that rhetorical moves performing various functions in articles need to be carried out by specific categories of authorial identity to better satisfy the expectations of their respective applied linguistics communities.
A Genre Analysis of Research Article Discussions in Applied Linguistics
2013
This study adopts Peacock's (2002) revised model of move analysis to address questions related to the rhetorical structure of research article discussions and intra-disciplinary variations within the field of applied linguistics. Data were compiled from a corpus of 50 research articles published in five major peer-reviewed journals in applied linguistics. The results indicated that Moves 2 (Finding) and 4 (Reference to previous research) were obligatory; Moves 1 (Information move), 5 (Explanation for expected or unexpected results), 6 (Claim) and 8 (Recommendation) were conventional whereas Moves 3 (Expected or expected outcome) and 7 (Limitation) were optional. The four most common moves included Moves 1, 2, 4, and 5 whereas the least common move was Move 7. The results also suggest some intra-disciplinary differences in terms of the number and type of moves and move cycles in Studies in Second Language Acquisition. This study's findings will benefit teachers, graduate students, and less-experienced research writers in teaching and writing RA discussions that meet the expectation of their research discourse community.
2013
Following Swales’s (1981) works on genre analysis, studies on different sections of research articles in different languages and fields abound. This paper compares Applied Linguistics research article abstracts published in Oxford University and Islamic Azad University of Tabriz in English using Swales’s (1981-1990) move structure model and Halliday’s (1994) description of transitivity processes. One hundred and forty eight English research article abstracts were analyzed at macro and micro level based on the Swales’s model (IMRD) and transitivity system. The results demonstrated that the four structural moves of Swales and transitivity processes of Halliday were evident in both abstract sets but were differently distributed. The research suggests pedagogical implications for TEFL practitioners, especially for the writing skill and for the preparing research article abstracts (RAAs).