چکیده:
Thesis acknowledgement is a written genre in which MA graduate students offer their gratitude to individuals, who have contributed to the completion of their study. The aim of the current study was to examine the thesis acknowledgements written by Iranian MA students in the field of Persian Language Teaching to Non-Persian Speakers (Amouzeshe Zaban e Farsi be Kharejian, AZFA) and TEFL in terms of their generic structures, linguistic choice, preferred authorial subject, and acknowledges. To this end, 41 (20 in AZFA and 21 in TEFL) thesis acknowledgement texts were selected. The corpus was analyzed with reference to Hyland’s (2004) generic structure pattern, Hyland and Tse’s (2004) linguistic choice framework, and Yang’s (2012) category of the acknowledges and subject types. The results showed that, on the whole, Hyland’s (2004) three-tier structure has been employed in both disciplines. However, five other moves/steps were discovered throughout this study, namely, praising God and His Prophet (PBUH), thanking God, blessing, closing/signing off. In both disciplines, the most acknowledged individuals were advisors. Both groups selected the first-person subject “I” to extend their thanks. Besides, both groups consented in using “nominalization” pattern as the linguistic realization of their gratitude. Although the texts analyzed demonstrated variations in the texts, the fixed conventions of theses genre systems suggest that teachers can help their students by raising their awareness of these conventions and showing them how to best construct their academic identity. Finally, additional studies are needed to complement this research.
خلاصه ماشینی:
The aim of the current study was to examine the thesis acknowledgements written by Iranian MA students in the field of Persian Language Teaching to Non-Persian Speakers (Amouzeshe Zaban e Farsi be Kharejian, AZFA) and TEFL in terms of their generic structures, linguistic choice, preferred authorial subject, and acknowledges.
By revealing the generic structure, displaying how the writers formulate their thanking expressions addressed to the ones supported them in writing their theses, and comparing acknowledgments written by Persian native speakers and English non-native speakers, the researcher hopes to highlight the importance of the genre, add to the literature, and provide the students and their instructors with a comprehensive understanding of the genre, and finally help the students write impressive and proper acknowledgements.
Therefore, this study attempts to compare and contrast master’s thesis acknowledgements written by native speakers of Persian (AZFA graduates) and non-native speakers of English (TEFL graduates) in terms of their generic structures, linguistic choice, preferred authorial subject, and individuals being thanked.
Similarly, Mingwei and Yajun (2010) investigated 20 MA and PhD dissertations composed by student writers in Chinese mainland, to determine their generic structure and lexico- grammatical patterns used and specify the moves and steps, including acknowledgees, gratitude expressions, modifiers in thanking acts, choice of authorial subjects.
4. 2 Data Collection Procedure The objective of the Present study was to evaluate the thesis acknowledgements, written by AZFA and TEFL students, in terms of their generic structures, linguistic choice, preferred authorial subject, and acknowlegees.