The Rhetorical Structure & Discursive Features of Call for Papers as a Genre

Abstract

This paper, at the first stage, presents a genre analysis of 50 calls for papers of conferences held in Iran at both national and international levels from 2000 to 2012 (Swales, 1990). The study also targets the politeness strategies employed in such texts adopting Arundale's (2006) face model. The results obtained from the first phase of the study revealed four moves and a number of constituting steps including opening, salutation, informing (interested areas, necessary dates and formats), and complementary close and signature. Interestingly, findings of the second phase of the study, based on Arundale’s theory, demonstrated that all sentences and phrases used in this genre in Iranian academic contexts function as connection face as all were apparent as unity, interdependence, solidarity, association, congruence, and more, between the conference chair/s and other academicians as the members of a same discourse community. It can also further justified by different request strategies employed by the conference chair/s.