Abstract
This study attempted to scrutinize the disciplinary and cross-disciplinary generic variations of textbook introductions in humanities and basic sciences with reference to the onion model. The data included a sample of 60 introductions (i.e. ten each from applied linguistics, sociology, and psychology within humanities, and ten each from biology, agriculture, and geology within basic sciences). Humphrey and Economou’s (2015) onion model of discourse analysis was adopted, and MAXQDA 10 software of qualitative analysis was used for coding. The findings revealed similarities and differences not only within but also between the two disciplines, which can be attributed to the nature of disciplines as well as the generically accepted conventions in each discipline. Moreover, the results of the study highlighted the predominance of descriptive and analytical phases in textbook introductions not only in isolation but also in establishing more complicated genres like persuasion and critique. The study highlights the importance of teaching which is concerned with learners' rhetorical consciousness-raising of the disciplines as well as the discipline-specific lexico-grammatical features in expert texts.
Highlights
This study attempted to scrutinize the disciplinary and cross-disciplinary generic variations of textbook introductions in humanities and basic sciences with reference to the onion model
The results indicated that the introduction of all textbooks in humanities and basic sciences began with an entity-based descriptive phase, which aimed to establish the background for the study and engage the readers with the topic under investigation
This is consistent with Jalilifar, Alipour, and Parsa (2014) who found no significant difference in the use of nominalization in applied linguistics and biology
Summary
This study attempted to scrutinize the disciplinary and cross-disciplinary generic variations of textbook introductions in humanities and basic sciences with reference to the onion model. The results of the study highlighted the predominance of descriptive and analytical phases in textbook introductions in isolation and in establishing more complicated genres like persuasion and critique. Les résultats ont révélé des similitudes et des différences non seulement au sein des deux disciplines, mais aussi entre elles, ce qui peut être attribué à la nature des disciplines ainsi qu'aux conventions généralement acceptées dans chaque discipline. L’étude ont souligné la prédominance des étapes descriptives et analytiques dans les introductions de manuels, non seulement isolément, mais aussi dans la création des genres plus compliqués comme la persuasion et la critique. There are relatively few studies in the area of textbook introductions, most of which are narrow in focus dealing only with genre analysis concerning Swales’ (1990) Creating a Research Space (CARS) model and Bhatia’s (1993) model of genre analysis
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