Abstract
The aim of this multi-dimensional corpus-based study is to contrastively analyze the genre-specific features of introductions in a corpus of PhD theses in Applied Linguistics written at Turkish universities and the research articles published in reputable international academic journals in the same field. The move structure analysis conducted using the Create-a-Research-Space (CARS) Model (Swales 232) and the analysis of the lexico-grammatical features associated with the identified moves revealed extensive variations across the two sub-corpora. The hand-tagged move structure analysis was complemented with the electronic analysis of the data using a corpus software. One important finding was that the thesis authors tended to avoid Move 2, “establishing a niche” and inserted moves such as “stating assumptions” into their introductions, which were not aligned with the conventions of research articles. Research article authors, on the other hand, used Move 2 effectively through a wide range of linguistic strategies to highlight the significance of their study and to promote their work. Based on the findings, the paper offers awareness-raising strategies and pedagogical recommendations for novice writers who would like to recontextualize their theses as research articles and for graduate programs and thesis supervisors in assisting graduate students in this process.
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