A Corpus-based Cross-disciplinary Study of Thematic Structures in Rhetorical Units
Date
2024-11-19
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ORCID
0000-0003-1149-3886
Type
Thesis
Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
This study examines the rhetorical structure of research article (RA) introductions across three disciplines—applied linguistics, business management, and computer science—highlighting the variations in lexical and grammatical features. Drawing on genre-based research, the study investigates how expert writers use distinct rhetorical strategies in RA introductions, with a focus on the use of the most frequently used rhetorical units. Swales' Create a Research Space (CARS) model guides the analysis of rhetorical structure, focusing on the distribution and linguistic characteristics of rhetorical moves and steps. While prior studies have explored disciplinary differences in the CARS model’s moves and steps, no research has examined the most commonly used rhetorical units across the disciplines or the lexical and grammatical variation within these units. This study fills that gap by identifying the most common or frequent rhetorical steps used in RA introductions in the chosen fields and analyzing the linguistic elements of these steps using the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)-based framework for analyzing thematic structures. The analysis of thematic structures, centered on clause-initial positions (themes), uncovers how thematic structures vary across disciplines in the frequently used rhetorical steps.
In the present study, a corpus of 90 RA introductions (30 per discipline) was compiled, and the analysis identified M1S1 (Claiming Centrality), M2S1a (Indicating a Gap), and M3S1 (Announcing Present Research Descriptively and/or Purposively) as the most commonly used steps across disciplines. Further statistical tests depicted significant differences in the thematic structures across disciplines, particularly in the use of dependent clause as marked theme (DCMT) and interpersonal theme (IT) in M2S1a, where the chosen disciplines showed distinct preferences for conjunctions and lexical items within these structures. Besides, thematic structures not having statistical significance showed differences across the disciplines in terms of frequency.
Overall, these findings provide valuable insights for EAP/ESP practitioners, genre-based researchers, and novice writers. It aids practitioners in enhancing students' rhetorical skills and theme structuring. For researchers, it opens a fresh research scope of academic writing, and for novice writers, it reveals how experts structure RA introductions in their respective disciplines.
Description
Keywords
Genre-based study, SFL, Academic writing, interdisciplinary use of rhetorical units, Linguistic features, Thematic structures
Citation
Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Department
Linguistics
Program
Linguistics