A cross-cultural investigation of English and Turkish research article abstracts in educational sciences

Duygu Candarli

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    The abstracts are essential components of the research articles since scholars are highly likely to read the abstract first and decide to continue or stop reading the research article according to the content of the abstract. Therefore, writing an effective abstract is crucial in order to produce acceptable research articles in the international discourse community of specific disciplines. This study examines the rhetorical variations between Turkish and English research abstracts by adopting Swales’ framework of move analysis (Swales, 2004). The results indicate that there are similarities between Turkish and English research abstracts in terms of the employment of moves and steps though there is a significant difference in the frequency of Move 2 where writers justify their work in their research field as a way of creating a niche. The rhetorical and lexicogrammatical divergences may be explained by both the characteristics of cultures and different expectations of the scientific communities, which results from situatedness of writing, but further research is required with a larger corpus. The study has both theoretical and pedagogical implications in that knowledge of these conventions will allow language educators to identify anomalies and enable MA and PHD students to internalise the accepted styles in international academic discours
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)12-17
    Number of pages6
    JournalStudies About Languages
    Volume20
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2012

    Keywords

    • genre analysis
    • academic discourse
    • abstracts
    • lexicogrammatical features
    • moves and steps

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