چکیده:
While huge efforts have been devoted to rhetorical moves and the lexico-grammatical features of various sections of academic research articles (RAs) across various disciplines, studies that have focused on RA highlights and their linguistic characterizations are limited. This study involved compiling a corpus of 250 RA highlights sampled from five leading journals in applied linguistics. Guided by qualitative analysis and using AntConc 3.4.4, which is a freeware corpus analysis toolkit, 1,116 highlight entries were studied and classified based on their communicative functions. Based on both qualitative and quantitative analysis, a classification of moves in the structure of research article highlights was proposed. Moreover, the metadiscursive devices and promotional elements deployed by authors in applied linguistics were examined using Hyland’s (2005) model of stance and engagement as well as Lindeberg’s (2004) taxonomies of direct and indirect promotional steps. This study offers insights into the type of entries and the promotional elements used in RA highlights by writers to highlight the value of their research. The pedagogical applications of our findings for academic writing pedagogy are discussed.
خلاصه ماشینی:
The need to publish the findings of research studies in the competitive academia has become even more critical in the contexts where RA publication is a part of PhD graduation requirement and academic promotions and professional success are assessed in terms of research article publications (Hanauer & Englander, 2011; Lillis & Curry, 2010).
This has encouraged researchers in the field of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) to investigate the organizational patterns across different sections of RAs such as abstract (Liardét, Black, & Bardetta, 2019; Pho,2008; Tseng, 2011), introduction (Samraj, 2002), method (Cotos , Huffman & Link, 2017), results (Ruiying & Allison, 2003), discussion (Amnuai & Wannaruk, 2013), and conclusions (Bunton, 2005).
Indeed, following Swales’ (1981) analysis, subsequent research studies examined the expressions characterizing rhetorical moves (Chang & Schleppegrell, 2011; Kanoksilapatham,2003) and provided lists of formulaic phrases (Cortes, 2013; Simpson-Vlach & Ellis, 2010) and move-markers (Khany & Malmir, 2019) associated with each move to help novice and nonnative academic writers write their research paper in English.
Furthermore, consistent with previous studies which have examined frequent tense and voice used in research article abstracts in social sciences (Tankó, 2017, Tseng, 2011, Khany & Malmir, 2019; Pho, 2008), our analysis indicated that entries on research methodology were mainly stated through the use of simple past tense and passive voice which can be explained by writers’ preference to attempt to depersonalize the information and make their tone more academic and professional when summarizing how the research had been conducted.