Genre Analysis on Introductions of Master's Theses in MTCSOL

Abstract

By utilizing Chen & Kuo's (2012) framework for Applied Linguistics master thesis introductions, this study is intended to investigate the rhetorical structure in the introduction sections of 30 master's theses in the field of Master of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages (MTCSOL) from 2017-2020. The results show that Move 1 <em>Establishing a territory </em>and Move 3 <em>Occupy the niche </em>are considered as obligatory moves for their high occurrences. To be more specific, <em>Providing topic generalization/background</em> is the most frequent step employed in Move 1, while in Move 3, steps related to the purpose, content, method and value of the research are commonly used with the theory-oriented steps less frequent. The occurrence of Move 2 <em>Establishing a niche</em> is much lower, thus being considered as a conventional move. The step <em>Indicating gap in previous research </em>is most frequently used in Move 2, followed by the step<em> Indicating a problem or need </em>existing in the Chinese teaching or learning to emphasize the necessity for further research. In addition, the linear structure 「Move1-Move2-Move3」 rarely appears in the current corpus. However, the circular pattern of 「Move1-Move3」 is widely utilized. The less frequency of Move 2 and the circular pattern of 「Move1-Move3」 indicate that student writers lack sufficient understanding of the communicative purposes and rhetorical structure of 「introduction」, thus they are inclined to present the background information and introduce the current research repeatedly and redundantly in the introduction so as to claim the importance and necessities of the research. This paper calls for applying the genre-based approach to the teaching of Chinese for Academic Purposes and improving the awareness of genre in thesis writing for MTCSOL postgraduate students.