A Multidimensional Analysis of Linguistic Realizations and Rhetorical Move Structure in Geography Research Article Abstracts: A CorpusBased Study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.28914/Atlantis-2023-45.1.11Abstract
Novice Geography researchers need to be acquainted with the rhetorical move structure and organization of scientific research article abstracts (RAAs); yet there is a lack of studies investigating the linguistic realizations involved and their connections to the rhetorical move structure in Geography RAAs. This paper conducted a multidimensional analysis to explore phrase frames/collocations and move length and their connection to the rhetorical move structure and sequence in 190 Geography RAAs from journals indexed in the Web of Science Master Journal List. The move structure was investigated employing Hyland’s (2004) move scheme, Introduction Purpose-Method-Product-Conclusion. The results revealed that Geography RAAs have a five-move structure, consisting of three “essential” moves whose functions are to present Purpose, Methods and Results, and two “conventional” moves, whose functions are to present Introduction and Conclusion. The findings of the multidimensional analyses indicated that the moves that occurred most frequently in Geography RAAs (Purpose, Methods and Results) occupied most text space and included more phrase frames. The findings indicate the importance of combining investigations of the rhetorical move structure in a particular genre with an exploration of the linguistic realizations in each move as this may provide both researchers and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) tutors with valuable resources for understanding the rhetorical and linguistic characteristics of specific RAA types.
Downloads
References
Alyousef, Hesham Suleiman. 2021a. “A Move-Structure Model for Dentistry Research Article Abstracts: A Genre-Based Study of Variations and Similarities in Eight Dentistry Subdisciplines.” Discourse & Interaction 14 (1): 25-52.
—, 2021b. “Structure of Research Article Abstracts in Political Science: A GenreBased Study.” SAGE Open 11 (3): 1-8.
Amnuai, Wirada. 2019. “Analyses of Rhetorical Moves and Linguistic Realizations in Accounting Research Article Abstracts Published in International and Thai-Based Journals.” Sage Open 9 (1): 1-9.
Anthony, L. 2021. “AntConc.” Waseda University. [Accessed online on 22 January, 2021].
Barabadi, Elyas, Mohammad Robatjazi and Mokarrameh Bayat. 2020. “A Phraseological Examination of Research Articles in the Field of Environment Using Key Phrase Frame.” Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics 6 (1): 81-100.
Bhatia, Vijay. 1993. Analyzing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings. London: Longman.
Biber, Douglas et al. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.
Biber, Douglas, Ulla Connor and Thomas Upton. 2007. Discourse on the Move: Using Corpus Analysis to Describe Discourse Structure. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Can, Seden, Erkan Karabacak and Jingjing Qin. 2016. “Structure of Moves in Research Article Abstracts in Applied Linguistics.” Publications 4 (3): 1-16.
Cao, Yan and Richard Xiao. 2013. “A Multi-Dimensional Contrastive Study of English Abstracts by Native and Non-Native Writers.” Corpora 8 (2): 209-34.
Cervetti, Gina N., Tanya S. Wright and HyeJin Hwang. 2016. “Conceptual Coherence, Comprehension and Vocabulary Acquisition: A Knowledge Effect?” Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal 29 (4): 761-79.
Chen, Jie. 2010. “A Generic Analysis of English Research Article Abstracts and the Use of Modal Verbs for Financial Economics.” Sino-US English Teaching 7 (12): 33-37.
Cortes, Viviana. 2013. “‘The Purpose of this Study is To’: Connecting Lexical Bundles and Moves in Research Article Introductions.” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (1): 33-43.
Cotos, Elena, Sarah Huffman and Stephanie Link. 2017. “A Move/Step Model for Methods Sections: Demonstrating Rigour and Credibility.” English for Specific Purposes 46: 90-106.
Crookes, Graham. 1986. “Towards a Validated Analysis of Scientific Text Structure.” Applied Linguistics 7 (1): 57-70.
Cross, Cate and Charles Oppenheim. 2006. “A Genre Analysis of Scientific Abstracts.” Journal of Documentation 62 (4): 428-46.
Crossley, Scott A. and Danielle S. McNamara. 2010. “Cohesion, Coherence, and Expert Evaluations of Writing Proficiency.” In Ohlsson and Catrambone 2010, 984-89.
Darabad, Ali M. 2016. “Move Analysis of Research Article Abstracts: A CrossDisciplinary Study.” International Journal of Linguistics 8 (2): 125-40.
Dos Santos, Mauro Bittencourt. 1996. “The Textual Organization of Research Paper Abstracts in Applied Linguistics.” Text-Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse 16 (4): 481-500.
Durrant, Philip. 2009. “Investigating the Viability of a Collocation List for Students of English for Academic Purposes.” English for Specific Purposes 28 (3): 157-69.
Durrant, Philip and Julie Mathews-Aydınlı. 2011. “A Function-First Approach to Identifying Formulaic Language in Academic Writing.” English for Specific Purposes 30 (1): 58-72.
Fletcher, William H. 2011. “KfNgram.” USNA. [Accessed online on 22 January, 2021].
Grabowski, Łukasz. 2015. “Phrase Frames in English Pharmaceutical Discourse: A Corpus-Driven Study of Intradisciplinary Register Variation.” Research in Language 13 (3): 266-91.
Gray, Bethany, Elena Cotos and Jordan Smith. 2020. “Combining Rhetorical Move Analysis with Multi-Dimensional Analysis: Research Writing across Disciplines.” In Römer et al. 2020, 138-68.
Gries, Stefan Th., Stephanie Wulff and Mark Davies, eds. 2010. Corpus Linguistic Applications: Current Studies, New Directions. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
Hill, Susan S., Betty F. Soppelsa and Gregory K. West. 1982. “Teaching ESL Students to Read and Write Experimental-Research Papers.” TESOL Quarterly 16 (3): 333-47.
Hoey, Michael et al., eds. 2007. Text, Discourse and Corpora: Theory and Analysis. London: Continuum.
Huang, Ju Chuan. 2018. “Marine Engineering and Sub-Disciplinary Variations: A Rhetorical Analysis of Research Article Abstracts.” Text & Talk 38 (3): 341-63.
Hunston, Susan. 2010. “Starting with the Small Words: Patterns, Lexis and Semantic Sequences.” International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 13 (3): 271-95.
Hyland, Ken. 2004. Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing. Michigan: U of Michigan P.
—, 2008. “‘As Can Be Seen’: Lexical Bundles and Disciplinary Variation.” English for Specific Purposes 27 (1): 4-21.
Kanoksilapatham, Budsaba. 2005. “Rhetorical Structure of Biochemistry Research Articles.” English for Specific Purposes 24 (3): 269-92.
—, 2009. “Generic Structure of Research Article Abstracts in Sciences.” Journal of English Studies 4: 95-111.
—, 2013. “Generic Characterization of Civil Engineering Research Article Abstracts.” 3L: Language, Linguistics, Literature 19 (3): 1-10.
Kaya, Fatma and Oktay Yağız. 2020. “Move Analysis of Research Article Abstracts in the Field of ELT: A Comparative Study.” Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies 16 (1): 390-404.
Khansari, Delaram et al. 2016. “Regularities and Irregularities in Rhetorical Move Structure of Linguistics Abstracts in Research Articles.” 3L: Language, Linguistics, Literature 22 (1): 39-54.
Khany, Reza and Bahareh Malmir. 2020. “A Move-Marker List: A Study of Rhetorical Move-Lexis Linguistic Realizations of esearch Article Abstracts in Social and Behavioral Sciences.” RELC Journal 51 (3): 381-96.
Le, Thi Ngoc Phuong and Michael Harrington. 2015. “Phraseology Used to Comment on Results in the Discussion Section of Applied Linguistics Quantitative Research Articles.” English for Specific Purposes 39: 45-61.
Li, Qian and Issra Pramoolsook. 2015. “Research Article Abstracts in Two Subdisciplines of Business: Move Structure and Hedging between Management and Marketing.” English Language Teaching 8 (1): 52-62.
Lu, Xiaofei, Jungwan Yoon and Olesya Kisselev. 2021. “Matching Phrase-Frames to Rhetorical Moves in Social Science Research Article Introductions.” English for Specific Purposes 61: 63-83.
Martín, Pedro. 2003. “A Genre Analysis of English and Spanish Research Paper Abstracts in Experimental Social Sciences.” English for Specific Purposes 22 (1): 25-43.
Maswana, Sayako, Toshiyuki Kanamaru and Akira Tajino. 2015. “Move Analysis of Research Articles across Five Engineering Fields: What They Share and What They Do Not.” Ampersand 2: 1-11.
Moreno, Ana I. and John M. Swales. 2018. “Strengthening Move Analysis Methodology towards Bridging the Function-Form Gap.” English for Specific Purposes 50: 40-63.
Ngai, Sing Bik Cindy, Rita Gill Singh and Alex Chun Koon. 2018. “A Discourse Analysis of the Macro-Structure, Metadiscoursal and Microdiscoursal Features in the Abstracts of Research Articles across Multiple Science Disciplines.” PLOS ONE 13 (10): e0205417.
Ohlsson, Stellan and Richard Catrambone, eds. 2010. Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Portland: University of Portland.
Omidian, Taha, Hesamoddin Shahriari and Anna Siyanova-Chanturia. 2018. “A CrossDisciplinary Investigation of Multi-Word Expressions in the Moves of Research Article Abstracts.” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 36: 1-14.
Ozturk, Ismet. 2007. “The Textual Organization of Research Article Introductions in Applied Linguistics: Variability within a Single Discipline.” English for Specific Purposes 26 (1): 25-38.
Paydari, Sara Seyed and Shamala Paramasivam. 2019. “Rhetorical Move Analysis in Political Science Research Article Abstracts in English in Iranian Journals.” Journal of Language and Communication 6 (1): 75-90.
Pho, Phuong. 2010. “Linguistic Realizations of Rhetorical Structure: A CorpusBased Study of Research Article Abstracts and Introductions in Applied Linguistics and Educational Technology.” In Gries, Wulff and Davies 2010, 135-152.
Rashidi, Naser and Hussein Meihami. 2018. “Informetrics of Scientometrics Abstracts: A Rhetorical Move Analysis of the Research Abstracts Published in Scientometrics Journal.” Scientometrics 116 (3): 1975-94.
Römer, Ute, Viviana Cortes and Eric Friginal, eds. 2020. Advances in Corpus-Based Research on Academic Writing: Effects of Discipline, Register, and Writer Expertise. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Salager-Meyer, Françoise. 1990. “Discoursal Flaws in Medical English Abstracts: A Genre Analysis per Research-and Text-Type.” Text-Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse 10 (4): 365-84.
Samraj, Betty. 2005. “An Exploration of a Genre Set: Research Article Abstracts and Introductions in Two Disciplines.” English for Specific Purposes 24 (2): 141-56.
Shamsabadi, Rozana, Parisa Riahipour and Abbas Eslami Rasekh. 2014. “A Genre Analysis on the Rhetorical Moves in Dentistry Research Abstracts.” The Iranian EFL Journal 10 (3): 419-32.
Stoller, Fredricka L. and Marin S. Robinson. 2013. “Chemistry Journal Articles: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Move Analysis with Pedagogical Aims.” English for Specific Purposes 32 (1): 45-57.
Stubbs, M. 2007. “Quantitative data on multi-word sequences in English: The case of the word ‘world’.” In Hoey et al. 2007, 163-89.
Swales, John. 1981. Aspects of Article Introductions. Michigan: U of Michigan P.
—, 1990. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
—, 2004. Research Genres: Explorations and Applications. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
— and Christine B. Feak. 2012. Academic Writing for Graduate Students. Michigan: Michigan UP.
Tankó, Gyula. 2017. “Literary Research Article Abstracts: An Analysis of Rhetorical Moves and Their Linguistic Realizations.” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 27: 42-55.
Tessuto, Girolamo. 2015. “Generic Structure and Rhetorical Moves in EnglishLanguage Empirical Law Research Articles: Sites of Interdisciplinary and Interdiscursive Cross-Over.” English for Specific Purposes 37 (1): 13-26.
Tovar, Rodrigo. 2019. Rhetorical Move Structure in Abstracts of Research Articles Published in Ecuadorian and American English-Speaking Contexts. Arab World English Journal 10 (4): 74-87.
Tullu, Milind S. 2019. “Writing the Title and Abstract for a Research Paper: Being Concise, Precise, and Meticulous is the Key.” Saudi Journal of Anesthesia 13 (Supplement 1): S12-S17.
Vathanalaoha, Kriangkrai and Supong Tangkiengsirisin. 2018. “Genre Analysis of Experiment-Based Dental Research Article Abstracts: Thai and International Journals.” 3L: Language, Linguistics, Literature 24 (3): 1-14.
Wang, Shih-ping and Pin-ning Tu. 2014. “Tense Use and Move Analysis in Journal Article Abstracts.” Taiwan Journal of TESOL 11 (1): 3-29.
WordSmith Tools 8. Oxford: Oxford Up.
Yoon, Jungwan and J. Elliott Casal. 2020. “P-Frames and Rhetorical Moves in Applied Linguistics Conference Abstracts.” In Römer, Cortés and Friginal 2020, 281-305.
Zand-Vakili, Elham and Alireza Fard Kashani. 2012. “The Contrastive Move Analysis: An Investigation of Persian and English Research Articles’ Abstract and Introduction Parts.” Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 3 (2): 129-37.
Zanina, Elena. 2017. “Move Structure of Research Article Abstracts on Management: Contrastive Study (The Case of English and Russian).” Journal of Language and Education 3 (2): 63-72.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The authors retain copyright of articles. They authorise AEDEAN to publish them in its journal Atlantis and to include them in the indexing and abstracting services, academic databases and repositories the journal participates in.
Under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), for non-commercial (i.e., personal or academic) purposes only, users are free to share (i.e., copy and redistribute in any medium or format) and adapt (i.e., remix, transform and build upon) articles published in Atlantis, free of charge and without obtaining prior permission from the publisher or the author(s), as long as they give appropriate credit to the author, the journal (Atlantis) and the publisher (AEDEAN), provide the relevant URL link to the original publication and indicate if changes were made. Such attribution may be done in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the journal endorses the user or their use of the material published therein. Users who adapt (i.e., remix, transform or build upon the material) must distribute their contributions under the same licence as the original.
Self-archiving is also permitted, so that authors are allowed to deposit the published PDF version of their articles in academic and/or institutional repositories, without fee or embargo. Authors may also post their individual articles on their personal websites, again on condition that the original link to the online edition is provided.
Authors are expected to know and heed basic ground rules that preclude simultaneous submission and/or duplicate publication. Prospective contributors to Atlantis commit themselves to the following when they submit a manuscript:
- That no concurrent consideration of the same, or almost identical, work by any other journal and/or publisher is taking place.
- That the potential contribution has not appeared previously, in any form whatsoever, in another journal, electronic format or as a chapter/section of a book.
Seeking permission for the use of copyright material is the responsibility of the author.
