Citation Practices in Applied Linguistics Research Articles: A Comparison of International and Iranian Journals

Abstract

In academic writing, citation employs different phraseological patterns to serve a number of significant functions. The purpose of this study was to examine the citation practices in Iranian and international applied linguistics journals to determine how differently or similarly the two groups of journals use the citation in their writings. The data consisted of a corpus of 120 articles published by Iranian and international applied linguistic journals. WordSmith Tools (Scott, 2009) computer software was used to extract the citation patterns in different sections of the articles. Then, employing Petric’s (2007) and Thompson and Trimble’s (2001) frameworks, the phraseological patterns and rhetorical functions of citation practices were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results showed that Iranian researchers, unlike international researchers, tended to use integral citations by emphasizing the writers rather than information; yet, international researchers preferred non-integral citations. The results also revealed that there is a relationship between articles sections and the type of citations applied. Moreover, the analysis of citations based on Petric's (2007) framework demonstrated that Iranian and international writers prefer using attribution function. In conclusion, the study argued that the phraseological patterns used to report these functions should receive more attention to avoid plagiarism.