scholarly journals Transitivity Structure of Research Articles: Variations across Sections

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Xindi Zheng
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Meaning Construction ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Writing Courses ◽  
Experiential Meaning

This study investigates the transitivity structure of research articles and examines the variations of process types across sections, aiming to explore experiential meaning construction in academic discourse. The corpus for this study consists of ten applied linguistics research articles published from 2018 to 2020 in the top journals of the discipline. Features of the transitivity structure of the whole research articles are presented. The distribution of different process types is also examined in relation to the rhetorical purposes and stylistic features of the abstract, introduction, method, results and discussion, and conclusion sections. The findings reveal that transitivity structure could largely reflect the stylistic features of research articles, which are characterized as being informative and objective as well as interpersonal. Results also show that the distribution of process types may contribute to the regularity manifestation and purpose fulfillment of distinctive sections. This study has implications for both academic writers and academic writing courses.   

Bridging boundaries across genre traditions

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-293
Author(s):  
Isaac Nuokyaa-Ire Mwinlaaru
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Frequency Distribution ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Systemic Functional Linguistics ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
Functional Linguistics ◽  
Research Article

Abstract This study explores the benefits of a synergy between ESP research on genre and theoretical dimensions of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). It models genre on SFL dimensions and employs this model to analyse 200 biodata written by Applied Linguistics scholars, 100 each from research articles and seminar posters. Data were analysed from contextual, logico-semantic and lexicogrammatical perspectives. The findings reveal five generic stages in biodata. The frequency distribution of these stages and the phases that realise them shows variation between research article bios and seminar bios. The most frequent logico-semantic (or rhetorical) relations identified among stages and phases are of the expansion type, namely addition and elaboration, Further, collocational frameworks are used in organising some generic phases into waves of meaning and in construing different identities. Finally, evaluative resources, in the form of lexical bundles, modification and circumstantial elements in the clause, are employed by writers to boost their professional achievements and promote themselves. These findings contribute to theoretical discussions on genre and the scholarship on the interface between identity construction and academic writing, and also motivate further research.

scholarly journals COMPARING HEDGES USED BY ENGLISH AND INDONESIAN SCHOLARS IN PUBLISHED RESEARCH ARTICLES: A CORPUS-BASED STUDY

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 209 ◽  
Author(s):  
I Nyoman Suka Sanjaya ◽  
Anak Agung Raka Sitawati ◽  
Ni Ketut Suciani
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Special Instruction ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
Rhetorical Features ◽  
Published Research

The study examines whether English and Indonesian research articles written by their respective native speaker scholars are significantly different from each other in terms of the number of hedges used. Hedges are rhetorical features (e.g. may, perhaps, suggest) used to withhold complete commitment to the truth-value of propositions. The ultimate goal of the study is to examine whether Indonesian scholars need special instruction in hedging propositions. The assumption underlying the present study is that when they write in English, Indonesian scholars will deploy rhetorical features inherent in the Indonesian academic writing. Statistical analysis on 52 Applied Linguistics research articles (26 from each language) reveals that English research articles contain significantly more hedges than their Indonesian counterparts (Mann-Whitney U = 68.00, n1 = n2 = 26, p < 0.05, r = - 0.69), suggesting that Indonesian scholars are indeed in need of instruction that specifically focuses on hedging propositions in English.

scholarly journals Move Analysis of Conclusions as Components of Research Articles in Persian and English

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 09 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerannaz Zamani ◽  
Saman Ebadi
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Civil Engineering ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
International Discourse ◽  
Novice Writers ◽  
Chi Square Analysis ◽  
Conclusion Section

The structure of the conclusion sections in Research Articles (RAs) is of significance in academic writing. The conclusion section does not only provide an outline of the study, but also other important elements, such as recommendations, implications and statements of possible lines of future research. This paper reports on an analysis of the conclusion sections of Persian and English Research Articles (RAs) published in international journals. To meet this end 20 RAs were selected from the fields of Civil Engineering and Applied Linguistics. The Conclusion sections of the papers were examined for their moves based on Yang and Allison’s (2003) move model.  The frequency analysis of the moves showed slight differences among the moves employed and the Chi-Square analysis did not show significant differences between the moves used in Conclusion sections of RAs in Civil Engineering and Applied Linguistics as well as between Persian and English RAs. The study contributes to a richer understanding of the conclusion structure of research articles and offers ESP/EFL instructors and researchers, insights which can be used in the instruction of the conventions or expectations of academic writing. Novice writers and non-native students can benefit from it, mainly because it helps them eliminate their writing dilemmas and assists them to take part in international discourse communities.  Key Words: Conclusion section; Contrastive move analysis; Genre analysis; Research articles

scholarly journals A Comparative Study of Saudi and International Journals of Applied Linguistics: The Move–Bundle Connection Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-30
Author(s):  
Basim Alamri
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Language ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Writing For Publication ◽  
Lexical Bundles ◽  
Raising Awareness ◽  
Novice Writers ◽  
Rhetorical Structures

The present study implemented a genre-based approach to analyze the rhetorical structure of English language research articles (RAs): specifically, the Introduction-Methods-Results-Discussion-Conclusion (I-M-R-D-C) sections. Next, lexical bundles (LBs) associated with patterns of moves were identified by applying a corpus-driven approach. The study analyzed two corpora of 30 RAs purposely selected from 16 peer-reviewed journals of applied linguistics published in Saudi Arabia and internationally during the years of 2011-2016. First, a genre-based approach was used to identify the move structures of RAs through analyzing different RA sections by different models. Next, lexical bundles associated with each identified move in each IMRDC section were analyzed using a corpus-driven approach, based on structural and functional taxonomies. The study findings showed that both corpora share similarities and differences related to rhetorical structures and lexical bundles. These findings have pedagogical implications for novice writers, graduate students, and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) instruction, including raising awareness of rhetorical structures and LBs in academic writing for publication, which could help produce more successful publishable research articles.

scholarly journals Phrasal Discourse Style in Cross-Disciplinary Writing: A Comparison of Phrasal Complexity Features in the Results Sections of Research Articles

2020 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 191-204
Author(s):  
Muhammed Parviz ◽  
Alireza Jalilifar ◽  
Alexanne Don
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Disciplinary Writing ◽  
Prepositional Phrases ◽  
Manual Search ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Rate Of Success

The present study aimed at exploring how research article writers from two academic disciplines exploit phrasal complexity features (PCFs) to verbalize the results sections of research articles with the eventual aim of assisting advanced EFL writers with their composition strategies. To this end, following a manual search, 200 empirical research articles in the fields of Applied Linguistics and Physics were comparatively examined. Due to the low rate of success of tagging programs in identifying the occurrences of PCFs, the datasets were also manually analyzed. The results revealed that the research article writers drew upon three high-frequency phrasal complexity features, namely, pre-modifying adjectives, post-modifying prepositional phrases, and nominalizations. The study also revealed that the results sections of research articles included different amounts of exceedingly complex patterns of pre-modification, a hybrid of novel appositive structures, and great reliance on hyphenated adjectives. Overall, we believe that these findings can be used to heighten the awareness of academic writers and instructors regarding the linguistic characteristics of academic writing and of the variations of how such phrasal features of compression are constructed in different academic subjects.

A Corpus-based Analysis of Phrasal Complexity across Different Sections of Research Articles in two Academic Disciplines

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajab Esfandiari ◽  
Mohammad Ahmadi
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Clinical Medicine ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Writing Development ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Distributional Pattern ◽  
Complexity Measures ◽  
Leading Journals

Abstract Complexity measures in academic writing have experienced a shift from clausal to phrasal indices in recent years. Drawing on a subset of Biber et al. (2011) hypothesized stages of writing development, we explored phrasal complexity across sections of research articles (RAs) in applied linguistics and clinical medicine. A 389,332-word corpus consisting of 80 randomly selected RAs from leading journals in applied linguistics and clinical medicine was compiled for the purposes of the present study. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and independent-samples t-test, as implemented in SPSS (version 25), were employed to find differences across the RA sections and between two groups of academic writers. The findings indicated that RAs in clinical medicine relied more heavily on noun phrase modifiers in all sections than those in applied linguistics, suggesting that the distributional pattern of these linguistic expressions is discipline-independent. The implications of the findings are also discussed.

scholarly journals Cross-Cultural Variation in the Use of Hedges and Boosters in Academic Discourse

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Dontcheva-Navratilova
Keyword(s):  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Rate Distribution ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Target Readership ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract Hedges and boosters are important metadiscoursal devices contributing to the construal of persuasion in academic discourse as they enable academic writers to distinguish facts from opinions, evaluate the views of others and convey a different degree of commitment to their assertions (cf. Hyland 1998a, Hyland 2004, 2005). This study explores cross-cultural variation in the use of lexical hedges and boosters in the academic discourse of non-native writers. The study is carried out on a specialized corpus of linguistics research articles published in the international journal Applied Linguistics and the national Czech English-medium journal Discourse and Interaction. The main purpose of the cross-cultural investigation is to analyze variation in the rate, distribution and choice of hedges and boosters across the rhetorical structure of research articles in order to shed light on ways in which Anglophone and Czech writers express different degrees of commitment in their assertions when striving to persuade their target readership to accept their views and claims.

scholarly journals Exploring Nominalization in the Introduction and Method Sections of Applied Linguistics Research Articles: a Qualitative Approach

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-80
Author(s):  
Alireza Jalilifar ◽  
Elham Saleh ◽  
Alexanne Don
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Knowledge Claims ◽  
Discussion Format

Abstract One of the most distinctive linguistic characteristics of academic writing is the high frequency of nominalized structures. The present study explores how nominalization was used as an approach to making knowledge claims in applied linguistics research articles. Data comprised the introduction and method sections of 16 empirical papers featuring the IMRD (Introduction, Method, Result, Discussion) format, drawn from the most recent issues of 10 journals, with a total of 40,122 running words, from which 3,150 instances of nominalization were drawn. Analyzing these nominalized structures in the cotext of their local spans revealed 15 patterns, with the preference for some of the patterns varying across the introduction and method sections of these articles. Results showed a higher concentration of nominalization in the introductions. The study also identified the more prevalent nominal expressions in each section. The fact that each of these sections serves different purposes appears to justify the use of a contrasting range of nominal expressions. Based on the findings of this study, some pedagogical implications for academic writing and reading, ESP/EAP courses, and researchers are proposed.

scholarly journals La fuerza en la construcción del marco teórico en artículos científicos: un análisis desde la lingüística sistémico-funcional

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-91
Author(s):  
Norma Patricia Barletta ◽  
Diana Chamorro ◽  
Jorge Mizuno
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Systemic Functional Linguistics ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Spanish Language ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Functional Linguistics ◽  
Authorial Voice

Opposite to what is traditionally stated, the theoretical framework often constitutes an independent section in research articles. Therein writers establish the theoretical tradition that supports their research and make an account of the theoretical and research developments in their discipline, specifically, in their topic of research, thus establishing a dialogue with other voices. This article examines how writers organize their theoretical framework by means of verbal clauses using the resources of the graduation subsystem proposed by the systemic functional linguistics to express force —which will help them to construct their authorial voice. This study analyzed the verbal clauses and the graduation resources of the theoretical frameworks in 20 research articles in Spanish language published in Colombian journals from the area of applied linguistics. Findings show the variety of resources deployed by writers in their verbal clauses to strengthen their commitment to their tenets, especially in prominent places of their theoretical framework, such as the macroTheme, hyperThemes, macroNew and hyperNew. Awareness of these theoretical framework features may be relevant for teaching academic writing.

scholarly journals Actor and Goal Representation in the Transitivity System of Undergraduate Theses and Journal Research Articles: an SFL Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
Marsandi Manar ◽  
Siti Wachidah ◽  
Ratna Dewanti
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Lexical Resources ◽  
Material Process ◽  
Goal Representation ◽  
Experiential Meaning

AbstractThe current study scrutinizes the representation of actors and goals of transitivity system in the introduction sections of   theses (ISoT) composed by undergraduate students in reference to that of the introduction sections of research articles (ISoRA) considered as the target writings in the academic discourse of knowledge building. 738 English ranking clauses from 10 English-field ISoT and 694 from 10 ISoRA of TESOL Quarterly were analysed for their material processes as well as their participants and circumstances. The analysis was executed with the tables of analysis adapted from Halliday’s experiential meaning framework.  The analysis reveals that in the material processes of ISoRA previous studies and previous researchers instead of current studies and current researchers are more frequently employed as actors. Contrary, in their ISoT counterpart, the latter outnumber the former. The analysis also finds that goals in the material processes of ISoT in comparison with its ISoRA counterpart still lack previous findings. Overall, the representation of actors and goals in the material processes of ISoT still needs lexical resources that underpin the process of knowledge building. This has been confirmed by the tendency of actors and goals of ISoT to represent its study undertaken, compared with its ISoRA counterpart focusing more on previous related studiesKeywords: actors, goals, material process, transitivity system, ISoT, ISoRA

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document