Abstract
Research article (RA) abstracts play a pivotal role in settling the fate of the academic papers. Despite the abundance of research on investigating the generic structure of this academic genre, the variations in its move patterns between the two venues within a single area of research seem to have remained untouched. The current study attempted to explore the constituent moves and move patterns of RA abstracts published in a local (Iranian Journal of English for Academic Purposes) and an international (The Journal of English for Academic Purposes) journal in the field of applied linguistics. Drawing on Hyland’s (2000) five-move model, the RA abstracts were analyzed. The results indicated that the abstracts published in the two journals included the conventional moves. Furthermore, the most frequent moves were the purpose, method, and product in the two corpora. Moreover, although the results of the chi-square test pointed to no significant difference in terms of the frequency of the moves in the abstracts, the analysis divulged variations in the move patterns across the two sets of articles. The findings carry pedagogical implications for the academic writing course designers, materials developers, and instructors to enhance the novice researchers’ familiarity with the writing conventions to facilitate their accommodation by the scientific communities.
Highlights
To meet the requirements of the academic discourse communities, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners need to gain a good command of the English language for completing various academic tasks [1]
The current study focused on the generic structure of the abstracts published in a local and an international journal on English for Academic Purposes (EAP)
55 research articles were selected from the Iranian Journal of English for Academic Purposes (IJEAP) and 116 articles were selected from the Journal of English for Academic Purposes (JEAP)
Summary
To meet the requirements of the academic discourse communities, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners need to gain a good command of the English language for completing various academic tasks [1]. Researchers are growingly required to publish their research findings in highly prestigious and refereed journals in the field in order to get promoted in their academic and professional communities [2] In this regard, knowledge of genre contributes to building up and boosting their confidence to present the results of their research projects [3]. The results contrasted their study in that they demonstrated the low frequency of the occurrence of the conclusion move in their corpora With regard to these two moves, the findings of the current study might signify the authors’ tendency to take heed of presenting the topic and the existing void before articulating the purpose of the study [13]. The authors of the abstracts in both IJEAP and JEAP preferred to reckon with the implications of their research findings
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