University

of
Gezira

Genre Analysis: An Investigation of MA

Dissertation Abstracts
(A Case Study of Four Sudanese Universities)

By

Ahmed Khider Ahmed Othman

2011
 Genre Analysis: An investigation of MA Dissertation
Abstracts

In English language Departments

At University Level

By
Ahmed Khider Ahmed Othman

B.A in English Language &Literature

Omdurman Islamic University (1996)
M A in Applied Linguistics (2006)
University of Azzaeem Al-Azhari

A dissertation

Submitted for the Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctorate of Philosophy
in
Applied Linguistics
Department of Foreign Languages
Faculty of Education - Hasahisa
University of Gezira

Main Supervisor Co-Supervisor

Dr. Ahmed Gasm Asseed Ahmed Dr. Ebrahim M. El-Faki Ahmed

2011
 Genre Analysis: An investigation of MA Dissertation Abstracts
In English language Departments

At University Level

By

Ahmed Khider Ahmed Othman

SUPERVISION COMMITTEE

Name Position Signature

Dr.Ahmed Gasm Asseed Ahmed Chairman
Dr. Ebrahim Mohammed Al. Faki Co-supervisor
 Genre Analysis: An investigation of MA Dissertation
Abstracts
In English language Departments

At University Level

By
Ahmed Khider Ahmed Othman

EXAMINATION COMMITTEE:
Name Position Signature
Dr Ahmed Gasm Asseed Ahmed Chairman
Prof. Ahmed Babiker El tahir External Examiner

Dr. Abdulgader Adam Ali Internal Examiner

 DEDICATION

To the memory of my father

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks be to Allah, who bestowed me with the energy and capacity to
curry out this work in its present form. It is very hard to name all those
who played particular roles in the creation of this thesis. However, I
always keep in mind all these people with much gratitude.

I am greatly indebted to my supervisor Dr Ahmed Gasm Asseed for his

encouragement and rigorous guidance throughout the stages of this
research. Thanks are extended to Dr Ibrahim Muhammed Al-Faki – the
co-supervisor – for his keen follow-up and encouragement. I also extend
my deep gratitude to Prof. Abdulmajeed Eltaib for his advice and support.

Also, my thanks are extended to Dr. Yasir Muhammed Hasan-

Omdurman Islamic University - for constant assistance and considerable
help during the stages of the research. Also I would like to Thank Dr.
Ghareeb Allah Haju Hamdoon for his valuable advice, comments and
corrections.

Finally, deep respect to my family, for encouragement and support,

especially my mother, my wife, my dearest sons, for their unconditional
love and support. Their patience and understanding will always be
remembered.
An Investigation of MA Dissertation Abstracts in English language
Departments
At University Level
Ahmed Khider Ahmed Othman
Ph D in Applied Linguistics, 2011
Department of Foreign Languages
Faculty of Education – Hasahisa
University of Gezira
ABSTRACT
This study analyzes 39 English language dissertation abstracts from research
articles found in English language departments at Sudanese universities ,and
which written by Sudanese post-graduate students. It first presents some
theoretical background on discourse, discourse community and genre analysis.
The analysis aims at verifying whether the rhetorical patterns of organizations
and the moves found in abstracts coincided with those proposed by Bhatia
(2004) in his study of research articles and introductions. Besides, it intends to
analyze the verb tenses and voice preferably used in this kind of text. The
samples were collected randomly from different universities English
departments. The analysis reveals that the rhetorical patterns and some moves
proposed by Bhatia are found in abstracts, though not in the same order. It
also shows a high occurrence of present simple tense and passive voice in all
moves as well as past simple and present perfect occurred only occasionally.
It is also found out that some of abstracts which written by post-graduate
students have poor strategies and are not likely yield to generic approach. The
study recommends the involvement of generic approach in researchers
abstract writing and the training of advanced students to adopt viable
pedagogical template, which included in the syllabus to develop coping
strategies in response to the rigorous writing demands. A better understanding
of how research articles are constructed can enhance not only their writing
skills to conform to the expectations of the target discourse community, but
also the quality of communication and chance of success in their respective
academic context in an international forum.
 ‫التحليل الن عي لملخص رس ا بح ث م جستير اللغ اانجليزي للطا الس دانيين في‬
‫الدراس العلي على المست ى الج معي‬
‫أحمد خضر أحمد عثم ن‬
‫دكت راه في ( اللغ اإنجليزي )‬
‫قسم اللغا اانجليزي‬
‫كلي التربي الحصاح صا‬
‫جامع الجزير‬

‫مستخلص البحث‬
‫بح ث م جست ر ال غ‬ ‫تن ل هذا البحث تح ل تسع ثاث ن مستخ ص ً من م خص‬
‫اانج ز‬ ‫ال غ‬ ‫شع‬ ‫ف‬ ‫الع‬ ‫الت بع ن ل دراس‬ ‫الس دان‬ ‫الج مع‬ ‫لطا‬ ‫اإنج ز‬
‫المتع‬ ‫النظر‬ ‫الج ن‬ ‫خ‬ ‫هذا البحث الض ء ع‬ ‫المست ى الج مع ‪ .‬ل د أل‬ ‫ع‬
‫البح ث‪ .‬ل د ك ن ال دف من تح ل هذا البحث إل أ مدى‬ ‫ب لتح ل الن ع الخ ص بم خص‬
‫هذه البح ث مع نم ذج‬ ‫م خص‬ ‫ف‬ ‫المتمث‬ ‫حرك ت‬ ‫النم زج الباغ‬ ‫ال ال‬ ‫تتط ب‬
‫تح ل اأفع ل‬ ‫البح ث‪ .‬كم هدف أ ض ً هذا البحث ع‬ ‫(ب شي ) الخ ص بتح ل م خص‬
‫ال ص‬ ‫هذه الدراس اأس‬ ‫الب حث ف‬ ‫هذه الم خص ‪ .‬ل د تبن‬ ‫المتضمن ف‬ ‫النح‬
‫عش ائ ً من‬ ‫هذه الع ن‬ ‫‪ .‬تك ن مجتمع هذا البحث من تسع ثاث ن م خص ً‪ ،‬أخذ‬ ‫التح‬
‫النظ اإحص ئ (‪ )SPSS‬ف تح ل م خص‬ ‫س دان ‪ .‬استند هذا البحث ع‬ ‫أربع ج مع‬
‫هذه البح ث مع‬ ‫قص راً عد تتط ب ف م خص‬ ‫نت ئج البحث بأن هن‬ ‫البح ث‪.‬ل د أع ن‬
‫نسب كب رة من‬ ‫االتزا بنم ذج ب شي الخ ص بتح ل النص ص‪ ،‬أ ض ك ن هن‬ ‫عد‬
‫الت ‪ .‬خت م ً‬ ‫استخدا ال عل المض رع المبن ل مج ل مع ال ل من استخدا ال عل الم ض‬
‫ف استخدا نم ذج‬ ‫تشج ع الطا‬ ‫البحث تعمل ع‬ ‫مكن ال ل بأن النت ئج الت أش ر إل‬
‫طا‬ ‫بأن تدر‬ ‫هذه الت ص‬ ‫‪ .‬أخ را ق م‬ ‫هذه ااسترات ج‬ ‫تطب‬ ‫(ب ش ) ف‬
‫إت ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫نم ذج ب ش‬ ‫تطب‬ ‫التبن‬ ‫ع‬ ‫الع‬ ‫الدراس‬ ‫خ ص طا‬ ‫الج مع‬
‫ق بل ل تعد ل متضمن ً ف‬ ‫ق لب ً نم ذج‬ ‫البح ث أن ك ن هن‬ ‫كت ب م خص‬ ‫إسترات ج‬
‫البح ث‪ ،‬مم س عد أبض ف نشر بح ث‬ ‫ف كت ب م خص‬ ‫المن هج عمل لمس عدة الطا‬
‫أخرى تخص هذا البحث‬ ‫ت ص‬ ‫المست ى الع لم ‪ .‬كم أ ص هذا البحث بأن هن‬ ‫ع‬
‫ج العمل ب بع ن ااعتب ر‪.‬‬
 LIST OF TABLES

Tables
Table (2.1) Situational characteristics of registers
Table ( 2.2) Linguistic features investigated in a register analysis.
Table ( .3) Dos Santos‘ Pattern for research article abstracts
Table ( 3.4 ) The Corpus of MA English Language Abstracts
Table ( 4.5) The Percentage of Moves
Table ( 4.6) The percentage of steps and functions in Move 1
Table ( 4.7) The percentage of steps and functions in Move 2
Table ( 4.8) The percentage of steps and functions in Move 3
Table ( 4.9) The percentage of steps and functions in Move 4
Table (4.10) The percentage of Abstracts' Move Patterns
Table ( 4.1 ) The percentage of Verb Tenses
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure P
Fig (2.1) Components in a register analysis
Fig (2.2) continuum of discourses in academic and professional fields
Fig (2.3) The RA and other Research-Process Genres
Fig (2.4) Part of Model of Genre
Fig (2.5) Process Cycle of Genre Use over Time
Fig (2.6) CARS Model for Article Introductions (Swales, 1990)
Fig ( 2.7) Bhatia Model Abstract
Fig (4.8) The percentage of moves
Fig ( 4.9) The percentage of steps and functions within Move 1
Fig ( 4.10) The percentage of steps and functions within move 2
Fig ( 4.11) The percentage of steps and functions Move3
Fig ( 4.12) The percentage of Steps and functions in move 4
Fig(4.13) The percentage of abstracts' move patterns
Fig ( 4.14) The Percentage of verbs tenses

1
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTENT Page

Dedication i

Acknowledgement ii

Abstract iii

‫مستخلص البحث‬ iv

Table of contents v

List of tables vii

List of figures viii

Chapter One: Introduction

1.0 Background
1.1 Statement of the Problem
1.2 Objectives of the Study
1.3 Significance of the Study
. Questions of the Study
1.5 Limitations of the Study
1.6 The Structure of the Study
1.7 Definitions of Terms
1.8 List of Abbreviations
1.9 Conclusion
Chapter Two: Literature Review
2.0 Introduction
2.1 Etymology of Discourse
2.1.1 Definitions of Discourse Analysis
 . . Features of Discourse
2.1.3 Difference Between Written and Spoken Discourse
2.1.4 Types of Discourse Analysis
2.1.5 Origin and Development of Discourse Analysis
2.1.6 Written Texts Analysis
2.1.7 links Within Discourse
.2. Tex-linguistic
2. .1 The Notion 'Text'
2. .2 Halliday and Hasan‘s Approach to Text
2. .3 The Notion 'Context'
2. .4 Text Context of Situation
2. .5 Text context of culture
2. The Seven Standards of Textuality
2.3.1 Cohesion
2.3.2 Coherence
2.3.3 Intentionality
2.3.4 Acceptability
2.3.5 Informativity
2.3.6 Situationality
2.3.7 Intertextuality
2.4 The Concept of Register Analysis
2.4.1 The Situational Characteristics of Registers
2.4.2 General and Specialized Registers
2.4.3 The Situational Characteristics of A register
2.4.3.1 Experience and Observation
2.4.3.2 Expert Informants
2.4.3.2 Previous Research
2.4.4 Analysis of Texts from the Register
2.4.5 Register as A linguistic Universal
2.4.6 The Framework for Analyzing Situational Characteristics
2.4.6.1 Participants
2.4.6.2 Relations among Participants
2.4.6.3 Channel
2.4.6.4. Production Circumstances
2.4.6.5. Communicative Purpose
2.4.6.6. Topic
2.4.7 The Methods of Analyzing Register
2.4.7.1 The Need for A comparative Approach
2.4.7.2 The Need for Quantitative Analysis
2. 4.7.3 The Need for A representative Sample
2.4.8 Conducting Quantitative Analyses
2.4.9 Corpus Linguistics
2.4.10 Specialized Discourse
2.4.11 Academic Discourse
2.4.12 Professional Discourse
2.5. Genre
2.5.1 Etymology of Genre
2.5.2 What is Genre?
2.5.3 A working Definition of Genre
2.5.4 A comprehensive Definition of Genre.
5.5.5 Concept of Genre
2.5.6 Discourse Community
2.5.7 Concepts of Genres in Discourse Communities
2.5.8. Communicative Purpose
2.5.9 Development of Genres of Communicative Purposes
2. . 1The Purpose of the Communicative Purpose
2.6 Genre Constellations
2.6.1 Genre Hierarchies
2.6.2 Genre Chains
2.6.3 Genre Sets
2.6.4 Genre Network
2.6.5 Subgenres
2.7 Genre in Applied Linguistics
2.7.1 Genre in Folklore Studies
2.7.2 Genre in Literary Studies
2.7.3 Genre in Linguistics
 2.7.4 Genre in Rhetoric
2.7.5 Characteristics of Genre
2.8 Genre Analysis
2.8.1 Definitions of Genre Analysis
2.8.2 Genre as Conventionalized Social Action
2.83 Genre Analysis as Social Reality
2.8.4 Purpose of Genre Analysis
2.8.5 Aspects Considered in Genre Analysis
2.8.6 The Definition of Move
2.8.7 Move Analysis Theories
2.8.8Analyzing Unfamiliar Genre
2.8.8.1 Placing the Genre Text in a Situational Context
2.8.8.2 Surveying Exiting Literature
2.8.8.3 Refining the Situational and Contextual Analysis
2.8.8.4 Selecting Corpus
2.8.8.5 Studying the Institutional Context
2.8.8.6 Levels of Linguistic Analysis
2.8.8.7 Specialist Information
2.9 Research Article Abstracts
2.9.1 Abstracts as a Genre
2.9.2 Definition of Abstract
2.10 Previous Relevant Studies
2.11 Conclusion
 Chapter Three: Methodology
3.0 Introduction
3.1.The Corpus
3.2 Justification of Sample
3.3 Discourse Community
3.4 Communicative Purposes
3.5 Sample of the Study
3.6 Procedures
3.7 Instrumentation
3.8 The Statistical Treatment
3.9 Conclusion
Chapter Four: Results and Discussion
4.0 Introduction
4.1 Analysis of the Abstracts' Moves, Bhatia(1993)
4.2 Analysis of Steps and their Discourse Function
4.3 Move Sequence and Cyclical Patterning
4.4 Percentage of Analyzed Verb Tenses Within Abstracts
4.5 Results and discussion
4.5.1 Results of Moves
4.5.1.1 Purpose Move
4.5.1.2 Methodology Move
4.5.1.3 Results Move
4.5.1.4 Conclusion Move
4.5.2 Move patterns
4.5.2.1 Samples of Applicable Abstracts to Genre Analysis
4.5.2.2 Sample Non-applicable Abstracts to Genre Analysis
4.5.3 Verb Tenses Used by Abstracts' Writers
4.6 Suggested Abstract Model
4.7 Conclusion
Chapter Five : Conclusion, Findings and Recommendations
5.0 Introduction
5.1 Conclusion
5.2 Findings of the Study
5.3 Recommendations
5.4 Suggestions for Further Studies
 CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Background
Academically, English is increasingly used in advanced education
communication, whether in writing or speaking. Among all academic writing
types, abstracts are one of the pivotal means of communication among scholars
from multiple academic disciplines. Given the inherent characteristics of
abstracts of precision and conciseness, and their role in determining the
acceptance or rejection for publication or conference presentation, scholars find
the task of writing abstracts rather daunting and challenging. For non-English
speaking scholars, the abstract writing task is much more intimidating. In
addition to the disciplinary content to be presented in the abstract, non-English
speaking scholars particularly need to possess two additional bodies of
knowledge in writing successful abstracts in English: structural organization
and linguistic features. Primarily, they need to know the overall organization
commonly followed in their respective academic disciplines. Then, they need
to be able to choose appropriate words and grammatical features to make their
abstracts accessible and understandable by their target discourse community
members.
According to McKenna (1997), successful abstract writing can be attributed to
a number of factors. One of the factors listed is organization. Given the fact
that abstracts are crucial, contributing to the growth and prosperity of scholars
in all disciplines, possessing the knowledge of the structural organization of
English abstracts is advantageous. A number of research studies focus on
describing overall organization of abstracts in specific disciplines.
The researcher as an English language teacher at some of English language
faculties in Sudan, he notices that the majority of EFL students have structural
problems in writing their research abstracts. Moreover, he advises that a genre-
approach is highly recommended to be used in the teaching of as it aims to help
students in mastering the conventional structure of the different sections in
abstract writing. Using genre as a basis for an investigation of language
discourses would be able to reveal how the research abstracts writing are
structured. The genre-based approach is not meant only to get students
interested in specific tasks but also to take them through the dynamics
reporting on a range of language activities, processes and products. Analysis of
the Move Structure in the genre of research abstracts writing can conform to
standard practices with boundaries of the genre. It means that genre analysis is
useful as a means of studying written discourse such as abstracts writing in
language studies.

1.1 Statement of the Problem

This study attempts to investigate and analyze the MA research article
abstracts that are written by EFL Sudanese students in English language
departments at university level. Abstracts are very important in English
language domain as they become main genre in reporting and communicating
information among members of English language community. Unfortunately, a
poor writing skill among our students has become a major concern at English
language departments.

The researcher as an English language teacher observes that some of Sudanese

students at English language departments are encountered by some difficulties
in English proficiency and self-confidence. As a result, they unable to produce
good writing for their career if they ignore the importance of research abstract
writing.
Therefore, it is crucial for the students to exploit the conventions and
procedures of research abstract writing as it is highly conventionalized. Since
the demand of writing research abstract is increasing, the trends in teaching
abstract writing today have also focused on the information structure, discourse
analysis and genre analysis.

1.2 Objectives of the Study

This study uses a generic analysis approach to investigate and analyze the M A
research abstracts that are written by Sudanese students in English language
departments at Sudanese universities. Therefore, its main objectives are the
following:
a. To analyze the rhetorical patterns (moves structure) of MA research
article of English language abstracts that are written by post-graduate
students at university level.
b. To analyze the linguistic features (lexco-grammitical) are typically
found in research article of English language abstracts.
c. To find out whether the structural components of moves patterns
compatible to Genre analysis models.

1.3 Significance of the Study

This study attempts to investigate and analyze the MA Dissertation abstracts
that are written by EFL Sudanese students in English language departments at
university level. Abstracts are commonly identified by the economy and
precision of language. This type of text has as its main function to help readers
learn about the most important aspects of a research study. In this sense, the
abstract becomes a powerful tool to keep the language communities up-to-date.
Yet, when a research abstract is sent to a conference to be evaluated, or when it
is published in the book of abstracts for any event, it acquires an additional
function: to persuade the reader about the importance of the study, in order to
both have the paper accepted by the selecting committee and to lure the
1
audience into attending the presentation. In this case, the abstract is not only
the means to inform about the content of a research study, but also a vehicle for
arousing the curiosity and interest of the reader. Therefore, the significance of
the study is seen in the folowing:
a. Findings are hoped to be as a reference for EFL students in
understanding the organization and Moves Structure in writing
research abstracts.
b. Findings are hoped to be helpful for syllabus designers in
developing suitable materials for academic writing courses in
English language studies.
c. Findings are hoped to be helpful in identifying the EFL students'
needs in understanding research abstract's writing.

1.4 Questions of the Study

This study will attempt to seek answers to the following questions:
a. What are the rhetorical patterns (moves structure) of MA research article
English language abstracts that are written by post-graduate students at
university level?
b. What linguistic features (lexco-grammitical) are typically found in a
research article abstracts?
c. What structural components of moves that are compatible with genre
analysis models?

1.5 The Scope of the Study

This study adopted descriptive and analytical method that focuses on the genre
analysis of the MA research abstracts that were written by EFL Sudanese
students in English language departments at university level.

This study is only confined to a small sample of population that were chosen
from different Sudanese universities English departments.
Throughout this research, the genre of research English language abstracts was
analyzed through the Move Structure Analysis .This research identifies the
Move Structure involved in MA abstracts writing and also to find out the
conventions and patterns used in the selected sample of the abstracts. The
reliability of the findings is subject to the sincerity and truthiness at the time
responded to the research instruments. Therefore, this study was limited by the
following factors:
a. This study is an attempt to investigate and analyze the MA Dissertation
abstracts that are written by EFL Sudanese students in English language
departments at university level.
b. The study population and sampling is including post-graduate Sudanese
universities students who are majoring in English language and they
represent the sample of this study.
c. The abstracts are selected and based on their relevance to the topic.
Since the study is to investigate and analyze the patterns of organization
of moves and the linguistic features of RAA. The analysis will be done
according to genre‘s models.
d. This study based on the models of genre Analysis including the
following categories moves and lexco-grammatical features Present
simple , Past simple , Passive and active voice ) ( Swales, 1990, Bhatia,
2004. Nwogu's 1997) models.

6. The Structure of the Study

Chapter One includes the introduction and the basis on which this study is
conducted as well as setting the scene for the focus of the study. Chapter
Two is devoted to the presentation of theoretical framework of the study; it
defines the field of the study and literature review on genre analysis and
issues in research article abstracts that pertain to this study. Chapter Three
reports the methods adopted in collecting data besides, it shows how the
problem of the research is tackled; moreover, it presents the analytical
 framework and research procedures. Chapter Four deals with analysis of the
data and their interpretation. The summary, conclusion, recommendations
and suggestions for further studies are stated in Chapter Five.

1.7 Definitions of Terms

Academic writing. An academic writing is a piece of writing composed
for an academic purpose, for the study and distribution of knowledge of a
particular subject, or field. Beside research articles, other academic
writings include student essays, abstracts, laboratory reports, theses and
dissertations.
Abstract- Abstract is a recognizable genre and has emerged as a result of
well-defined and mutually-understood communicative purpose that most
abstracts fulfill, irrespective of the subject-discipline they serve.
A research article is a published article that aims to report a study
conducted by the writer(s) and to disseminate the knowledge gained from
the study.
Communicative purpose- Purpose as defined in relation to a discourse
community‘s shared communicative goals. Communicative purpose often
serves as a starting point for English for Specific Purposes (ESP) genre
analyses.
Corpus linguistics—A linguistic research methodology that draws on
large scale electronic text databases (or corpora) to allow researchers to
conduct systematic searches for linguistic features, patterns, and
variations in spoken and written texts.
Discourse. Discourse is a general term for examples of language use, i.e.
language which has been produced as an act of communication. Whereas
grammar refers to the rules of a language used to form grammatical units
such as clause, phrase and sentence, discourse refers to a larger unit of
language such as paragraphs, conversations and interviews (Richards,
Platt & Platt, 1992).
Discourse community—A way of conceptualizing context as defined by
and emerging from a particular community. Discourse communities are
characterized by common goals, specific genres, shared terminology,
material mechanisms (e.g., meeting rooms and newsletters) for
communication, and a critical mass of members to pass along community
goals and communicative purposes to new members (Swales, Genre
Analysis 24-27). Genre, when defined in relation to discourse community,
is understood as a relatively stable class of linguistic and rhetorical events
that members of a discourse community have typified in order to respond
to and achieve shared communicative goals.
Genre. Genre refers to a particular type of a written discourse made
distinctive by its purpose and the discourse community for which it is
intended. Examples of genres are; abstracts, grant proposals, laboratory
reports, poems, letters, editorials and novels.
Linguistic features. Linguistic features are forms and structures used by
a writer to achieve a particular communicative and rhetorical purpose.
Move. A move in genre analysis is a unit of language made by the writer
and is realized by its function or the purpose for which it is used in the
discourse. A move may be as short as a clause or it may be as long as
several paragraphs.
Move analysis. Move analysis is a study of how language made by the
writer forms a meaningful unit by identifying its forms and functions in
the discourse.
Research article introduction. A research article introduction is an
introductory section of a research article. It takes the form of an extended
preface in which the nature of the study to be undertaken is explained.

from an abstract, a research article introduction is the beginning of an

article and is typically followed by method, result, discussion and
conclusion sections.
 Rhetorical pattern. A rhetorical pattern or a rhetorical characteristic
refers to the underlying structure of a discourse that accounts for the
organization of the discourse (Richards, Platt & Platt, 1992).
1.8 List of Abbreviations
EAP: English for Academic Purpose
EFL : English as a foreign language
CARS : Create a Research Space
G.Z: University of Gezira
DA: Discourse Analysis
M: Move
MA: Master
PD: Professional Discourse
PPT: Present Perfect Tense
PV: Passive Voice
O.I.U: Omdurman Islamic University
RAIs: Research article introductions
RAA : Research Article Abstracts
U.K :University of Khartoum
PT: Present Tense
SPT: Simple Present Tense
SP: Specialized discourse
S: Step Z.A.U: University of Zaeam Alzhari

1.9 Conclusion
This chapter serves as a guideline of this study where the background of the
study, statement of the problem, research questions, objectives, significance,
method and limitations of the study are presented.
 CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction
This chapter will be confined to discussing and defining in details the
respective studies of discourse, discourse analysis, genre, genre analysis and
writing research article abstracts, in a way that will be needed by the
requirements' of this study. In addition, there are terms that are always related
to genre analysis that should be pinned down since they be used in this study.
A link between all terms and ideas argued is set up as a framework of
theoretical part of this study.

2.1 Etymology of Discourse

Since its production to modern science the term 'discourse' has taken various,
sometimes very broad meanings. Originally the word 'discourse' comes from
Latin 'discursus' which denoted 'conversation, speech'. Thus understood,
however, discourse refers to too wide an area of human life, therefore, only
discourse from vantage point of linguistics, and specially applied linguistics.
There is no agreement in the use of the term discourse among linguists,
some use it in reference to texts, while others claim it denotes speech which for
instance illustrated by the following definition: "Discourse: a continuous
stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often
constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke, or narrative"
(Crystal 1992:25).

2.1.1 Definitions of Discourse Analysis

It is almost impossible to have an agreed definition to DA and other
fundamental issues of terminology. The definition offered by The Cambridge
Encyclopedia of Language (Crystal, 1992) says: "discourse analysis is the
study of how sentences in spoken and written language form larger meaningful
units such as paragraphs, conversations, interviews,… etc."
a- how the choices of articles, pronouns, and tenses affect the structures of the
discourse.
b- the relationship between utterances in a discourse.
c- the moves made by writer to introduce a new topic, change the topic, or
insert a higher role relationship to the other participants.
Analysis of spoken discourse is sometimes called conversational analysis
(CA). Some linguists use the term text linguistics for the study of written
discourse.
The definition is comparatively thorough and authoritative. Like other
definitions, DA is delimited as the analysis of language beyond sentence level.
This contrasts with typical studies of modern linguistics, which are chiefly
concerned with the study of the structure of language, such as sound segments
(phonetics and phonology), parts of words (morphology), meaning (semantics),
and the order of words in sentences (syntax). Discourse analysts study the
larger chunks of language as they flow together.
2.1.2 Features of Discourse
According to McCarthy (1991), Ferdinand de Saussure divided the broad
meaning of language into langue, which is understood as a system that enables
people to speak as they do, and parole - a particular set of produced statements.
Following this division discourse relates more to parole, for it always occurs in
time and is internally characterized by successively developing expressions in
which the meaning of the latter is influenced by the former, while langue is
abstract. To list some additional traits: discourse is always produced by
somebody whose identity, as well as the identity of the interpreter, is
significant for the proper understanding of the message. On the other hand,
langue is impersonal that is to say more universal, due to society. Furthermore,
discourse always happens in either physical, or linguistic context and within a
meaningful fixed time, whereas langue does not refer to anything.
Consequently, only discourse may convey messages .
2.1.3 Difference Between Written and Spoken Discourse
Apart from obvious differences between speech and writing like the fact
that writing includes some medium which keeps record of the conveyed
message while speech involves only air, there are certain dissimilarities that are
less apparent. Speech develops in time in that the speaker says with speed that
is suitable for him, even if it may not be appropriate for the listener and though
a request for repetition is possible, it is difficult to imagine a conversation in
which every sentence is to be rephrased. Moreover, talking might be
spontaneous which results in mistakes, repetition, sometimes less coherent
sentences where even grunts, stutters or pauses might be meaningful. The
speaker usually knows the listener, or listeners, or he is at least aware of the
fact that he is being listened to, which enables him to adjust the register. As
interlocutors are most often in face-to-face encounters (unless using a phone)
they take advantage of extralinguistic signals as grimaces, gesticulation,
expressions such as 'here', 'now', or 'this' are used. Employment of nonsense
vocabulary, slang and contracted forms (we're, you've) is another feature of
oral discourse. Among other significant features of speech there are rhythm,
intonation, speed of uttering and, what is more important, inability to conceal
mistakes made while speaking (Crystal 1995:291, Dakowska 2001:7).
In contrast, writing develops in space , that is, it needs a means to carry
the information. The author of the text does not often know who is going to
read the text, as a result he cannot adjust to readers' specific expectations. The
writer is frequently able to consider the content of his work for almost
unlimited period of time which makes it more coherent, having complex
syntax. What is more, the reader might not instantly respond to the text, ask for
clarification, hence neat message organization, division to paragraphs, layout
are of vital importance to make comprehension easier. Additionally, owing to
the lack of context expressions such as 'now' or 'here' are omitted, since they
would be ambiguous as texts might be read at different times and places. One
other feature typical of writing, but never of oral discourse, is the organization
of tables, formulas, or charts which can be portrayed only in written form
Crystal (1995).

2.1.4. Types of Discourse Analysis

The difference in construction and reception of language was the basis of

its conventional distinction into speaking and writing. Nevertheless, when the
structure of discourse is taken into consideration more essential division into
formal and informal communicative products gains importance. Formal
discourse is more strict, it requires the use of passive voice, lack of contracted
forms together with impersonality, complex sentence structure and, in the case
of the English language, vocabulary derived from Latin. That is why formal
spoken language has many features very similar to written texts, particularly
absence of vernacular vocabulary and slang, as well as the employment of
rhetorical devices to make literary-like impact on the listener.

Informal discourse, on the other hand, makes use of active voice mainly,
with personal pronouns and verbs which show feelings such as 'I think', 'we
believe'. In addition, contractions are frequent in informal discourse, no matter
if it is written or spoken. Consequently it may be said that informal
communicative products are casual and loose, while formal ones are more
solemn and governed by strict rules as they are meant to be used in official and
serious circumstances.

The relation of the producer of the message and its receiver, the amount of
addressees and factors such as public or private occasion are the most
important features influencing selecting either formal or informal language.
Therefore, it is not unreasonable to assume that the contemporary learner, who
may easily travel and use his linguistic skills outside class, will encounter

mainly informal discourse, which due to its flexibility and unpredictability

might be the most difficult to comprehend. Accordingly, it seems rational to
teach all varieties of language relying on authentic oral and written texts Cook
(1993:50)

2.1.5. Origin and Development of Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis is a primarily linguistic study examining the use

of language by its native population whose major concern is investigating
language functions along with its forms, produced both orally and in writing.
Moreover, identification of linguistic qualities of various genres, vital for their
recognition and interpretation, together with cultural and social aspects which
support its comprehension, is the domain of discourse analysis. Moreover, it is
a branch of applied linguistics dealing with the examination of discourse
attempts to find patterns in communicative products as well as and their
correlation with the circumstances in which they occur, which are not
explainable at the grammatical level Carter (1993:23).

The first modern linguist who commenced the study of relation of

sentences and coined the name 'discourse analysis', which afterwards denoted a
branch of applied linguistics, was Zellig Harris. Cook (1993:13). Originally,
however, it was not to be treated as a separate branch of study - Harris
proposed extension of grammatical examination which reminded syntactic
investigations

The emergence of this study is a result of not only linguistic research,

but also of researchers engaged in other fields of inquiry, particularly
sociology, psychology, anthropology and psychotherapy Trappes-Lomax
(2004:133). In 1960s and 1970s other scholars, that is philosophers of language
or those dealing with pragmatics enormously influenced the development of
1
this study as well. Among other contributors to this field the Prague School of
Linguists, whose focusing on organization of information in communicative
products indicated the connection of grammar and discourse, along with text
grammarians are worth mentioning McCarthy (1991:6).

A significant contribution to the evolution of discourse analysis has

been made by British and American scholars. In Britain the examination of
discourse turned towards the study of the social functions of language.
Research conveyed at the University of Birmingham fruited in creating a
thorough account of communication in various situations such as debates,
interviews, doctor-patient relations, paying close attention to the intonation of
people participating in talks as well as manners particular to circumstances.
Analysis of the factors essential for succession of decently made
communication products on the grounds of structural-linguistic criteria was
another concern of British scholars. Americans, on the other hand, focused on
examining small communities of people and their discourse in genuine
circumstances. Apart from that, they concentrated on conversation analysis
inspecting narratives in addition to talks and the behavior of speakers as well as
patterns repeating in given situations. Division and specification of types of
discourse along with social limitations of politeness and thorough description
of face saving acts in speech is also American scholars' contribution McCarthy
(1991:6).

2.1.6. Written Texts Analysis

Since the examination of written language is easier to conduct than the

scrutiny of oral texts, in that more data is available in different genres,
produced by people from different backgrounds as well as with disparate
purposes, it is more developed and of interest not only to linguists but also
language teachers and literary scholars. Each of them, however, approaches
this study in a different way, reaching diverse conclusions, therefore only
notions that are mutual for them and especially those significant for language
methodology are accounted for here. What is worth mentioning is the fact that
in that type of analysis scholars do not evaluate the content in terms of literary
qualities, or grammatical appropriateness, but how readers can infer the
message that the author intended to convey (Trappes-Lomax 2004:133). Apart
from differences between written and spoken language described beforehand it
is obviously possible to find various types and classes of discourse depending
on their purpose. Written texts differ from one another not only in genre and
function, but also in their structure and form, which is of primary importance to
language teachers, as the knowledge of arrangement and variety of writing
influences readers' understanding, memory of messages included in the
discourse, as well as the speed of perception. Moreover, written texts analysis
provides teachers with systematic knowledge of the ways of describing texts,
thanks to which they can make their students aware of characteristic features of
discourse to which the learners should pay particularly close attention, such as
cohesion and coherence. In addition, understanding these concepts should also
improve learners' writing skills as they would become aware of traits essential
for a good written text.

One of the major concerns of written discourse analysts is the relation of

neighboring sentences and, in particular, factors attesting to the fact that a
given text is more than only the sum of its components. It is only with written
language analysis that certain features of communicative products started to be
satisfactorily described, despite the fact that they were present also in speech,
like for instance the use of 'that' to refer to a previous phrase, or clause
(McCarthy 1991:37). As mentioned before written language is more integrated
than the spoken one which is achieved by more frequent use of some cohesive
devices which apart from linking clauses or sentences are also used to
emphasize notions that are of particular importance to the author and enable the
reader to process the chosen information at the same time omitting needless
sections Salkie (1995).

2.1.7. links Within Discourse

Links in discourse studies are divided into two groups: formal - which
refer to facts that are present in the analyzed text, and contextual - referring to
the outside world, the background knowledge (or schemata) which is not
included in the communicative product itself (Cook 1997:14). Since it is
difficult to describe the processing of contextual links without referring to
particular psychological inquiries, therefore, this section is devoted to
representation of formal links. By and large five types of cohesive devices are
distinguished, some of which might be subdivided:

a. Substitution: in order to avoid repeating the same word several times in

one paragraph it is replaced, most often by one, do or so. So and do in its
all forms might also substitute whole phrases or clauses (e.g. "Tom has
created the best web directory. I told you so long time ago".)
b. Ellipsis: it is very similar to substitution, however, it replaces a phrase by
a gap. In other words, it is omission of noun, verb, or a clause on the
assumption that it is understood from the linguistic context.
c. Reference: the use of words which do not have meanings of their own,
such as pronouns and articles. To infer their meaning the reader has to
refer them to something else that appears in the text (Tom: "How do you
like my new Mercedes Vito?" - Marry: "It is a nice van, which I'm also
thinking of buying".).
d. Conjunction: specifies the relationship between clauses, or sentences.
Most frequent relations of sentences are: addition ( and, moreover e.g.
"Moreover, the chocolate fountains are not just regular fountains, they
more like rivers full of chocolate and sweets."), temporality ( afterwards,
 next e.g. "He bought her perfume at a local perfume shop and afterwards
moved toward a jewelry store.") and causality ( because, since).
e. Lexical cohesion: denotes links between words which carry meaning:
verbs, nouns, adjectives. Two types of lexical cohesion are differentiated,
namely: reiteration and collocation. Reiteration adopts various forms,
particularly synonymy, repetition, hyponymy or antonymy . Collocation
is the way in which certain words occur together, which is why it is easy
to make out what will follow the first item.
f. It is clear from the analysis of written language that when people
produce discourse they focus not only on the correctness of a single
sentence, but also on the general outcome of their production. (Cook
1993, McCarthy 1991, Salkie 1995).

2.2 Tex-linguistic

2.2.1 The Notion 'Text'

A lot of emphasis has been placed on the sentence as a self-
contained unit, thus neglecting the ways a sentence may be used in
connected stretches of language; hence the presentation of language as sets
of sentences. Nevertheless, many examples of text linguistics demonstrate
awareness of the shortcomings, and recognition of the text as an obvious
tool of communication has developed.

The notion ‗text‘ has helped to extend the system of linguistic levels put
forward by modern linguistic theories that are based on the sentence. This extension
has facilitated the understanding and explication of a number of textual issues such as
cohesion and coherence and their relevance to such problems as text typology. It has
also made it possible to shed better light on a number of problems that have suffered
certain shortcomings in treatment when based on analyses at the sentence level.
These problems include issues related to foreign language learning and teaching, etc.
Text is one of the main elements that play a significant role in communication.
People communicating in language do not do so simply by means of individual words
or fragments of sentences, but by means of texts. We speak text, we read text, we
listen to text, we write text, and we even translate text. Text is the basis for any
discipline such as law, religion, medicine, science, politics, etc. Each of these is
manifested in its own language, i.e. it has its special terminologies. A text is above all
a multidimensional unit and as such is not liable to a simple unifying definition. The
sum of parameters used to define text differs from linguist to linguist so that the list
of definitions could be very long. Bearing this in mind, the following selected
definitions shall be considered: Texts are used as tools and, at the same time, they
reveal the tool-user. They communicate something and about someone.
2.2.2 Halliday and Hasan’s Approach to Text
A very comprehensive study of text is displayed in Halliday and Hasan‘s (1978)
treatment of features of English texts, and Halliday, in Halliday and Hasan (1985). In
their work 'Cohesion in English' define the notion ‗text‘ by saying:
"Text is used in linguistics to refer to any passage, spoken
or written, of whatever length, that does form a unified
whole […]. A text is a unit of language in use. It is not a
grammatical unit, like a clause or a sentence; and it is not
defined by its size. A text is sometimes envisaged to be
some kind of super-sentence, a grammatical unit that is
larger than a sentence but is related to a sentence in the
same way that a sentence is related to a clause, a clause to
a group and so on […]. A text is best regarded as a
SEMANTIC unit; a unit not of form but of meaning'.
Halliday and Hasan (1985:10) define text as:
language that is functional. […] Language that is doing
some job in some context, as opposed to isolated words or
sentences […]. So any instance of living language that is
playing some part in a context of situation, we shall call it
a text. It may be either spoken or written, or indeed in any
other medium of expression that we like to think of.
 For Halliday and Hasan, a text is a semantic unit. Halliday stresses the
importance of language as an instrument of social interaction among the members of
any speech community. He views language as a living entity for the achievement of
communication among fellow-communicants in a context of situation. He believes
that text cannot be approached without its situational context in which it is
embedded. Hence, text is a continued stretch of connected sentences and not an ad
hoc accumulation of isolated structures in a non-situational vacuum. The inter-
connectedness that exists along a stretch of sentences of utterances constituting a text
bestows upon it a unique and distinctive character.
Halliday argues that although text is made of words and sentences, when being
written down, ―it is really made of meanings‖ because meanings have to be expressed
or coded in words and structures in order to be communicated; ―but as a thing in
itself, a text is essentially a semantic unit […]. It is not something that can be defined
as being just another kind of sentence, only bigger‖(Halliday, 1985:10). Halliday
believes that because text is basically a semantic unit a componential analysis of the
text must be approached from a semantic perspective. The phonological, lexical, and
syntactic structures should be analytically studied as being functionally contributing
to the explication of the text‘s semantic significance. In this context, Halliday brings
in yet another notion, that is, text is both ―a product and a process‖. A text is a
product in the sense that it is an output, a palpable manifestation of a mental image
that can be studied and recorded, having a certain construction that can be
represented in systematic terms. It is a process, on the other hand, in the sense that it
is a continuous movement through the network of meaning potential which involves
a lot of choices and decision-making.
Halliday believes that text is not only a semantic unit but also an instance of
social interaction. In its social-semantic perspective, text is an object of social
exchange of meanings. Halliday merges semiotic with both sociology and linguistics.
Accordingly, text is a sign representation of a socio-cultural event embedded in a
context of situation. Context of situation is the semio-socio-cultural environment in

which the text unfolds. Text and context are so intimately related that neither
concept can be comprehended in the absence of the other.
2.2.3 The Notion 'Context'
According to the Dictionary of Language teaching &Applied Linguistics (3rd
Edition ,2002), the term ‗context‘, in its simple form, refers to what comes before and
after a word, phrase, statement, etc., helping to fix the meaning; or circumstances in
which an event occurs. We may sometimes be able to make inferences about the
context of situation from certain words in texts. These texts, short or long, spoken or
written, will carry with them indications of their contexts. We need to hear or read
only a section of them to know where they come from. Given the text, we should be
able to place it into the context that is appropriate to it. In other words we construct
the situation. Hence, when discussing text, one should initially bear in mind two
important points: context of situation and context of culture. These are highlighted in
the following sections.
2.2.4 Text Context of Situation
According to Halliday and Hasan (1985: 12), texts cannot be approached
without reference to the situation as the context ―in which texts unfold and in which
they are to be interpreted‖. They distinguish three situational parameters that help
communicants make predictions about the kinds of meaning that are being
exchanged. These are: field, tenor and mode of discourse.
a. Field of Discourse
Field of discourse refers to ―what is happening, to the nature of the social
action that is taking place: what is it that the participants are engaged in, in which the
language figures as some essential component?‖
Field of discourse plays a vital role in the context of text. It is one of the three
basic elements in the textual internal world and external world. Fields of discourse
can be non-technical, as is the case with the general topics that we deal with in the
course of our daily life. Or they can be technical or specialist as in linguistics, law,
engineering, physics, computer science and many other fields.

In specialist fields lexical mutuality of text, specific structures and certain

grammatical patterns belonging to the field of discourse are employed in an
appropriate way, for example, terms like plasmodium, anthelmintics, antimalarials
and prophylactics in medicine; terms like hydrogen, neutron and molecule in physics;
terms like generic, diachronic, phylogentetic and archiphoneme in linguistics.
b. Tenor of Discourse
According to Halliday and Hasan, tenor of discourse refers to ―who is taking
part, to the nature of the participants, their statuses and roles: what kinds of role
relationship obtain among the participants, including permanent and temporary
relationships of one kind or another, both the types of speech role that they are taking
on in the dialogue and the whole cluster of socially significant relationships in which
they are involved?‖ (Halliday and Hasan, 1985: 12)
Tenor of discourse indicates the relationship between discourse participants
(e.g. speaker/writer and hearer/reader) as manifested in language use. Participants‘
relationship varies from one group to another. It may be that of a patient and a doctor,
a mother and her child, a teacher and a student, etc.
As far as addresser and addressee are different in terms of categories, one
would always expect the language used between them to vary from one set or group
to another. Language which is used between husband and wife is usually expected to
be informal whatever the subject matter, whereas the language which is employed by
a politician making a speech in a conference is nearly formal.
c.. Mode of Discourse
Mode of discourse is a term that refers to ―what part the language is playing,
what it is that the participants are expecting the language to do for them in that
situation: the symbolic organisation of the text, the status that it has, and its function
in the context, including the channel (is it spoken or written or some combination of
the two?) and also the rhetorical mode, what is being achieved by the text in terms of
such categories as persuasive, expository, didactic, and the like‖ (Halliday and
Hasan, 1985: 12).

Mode of discourse is the third basic strand of register. It is the formal strand in
which language is used, or to put it in Halliday‘s terms, it refers to what part the
language is playing. Mode can take spoken as well as written forms, each of which
divide into different sub-divisions.
As far as writing is concerned, there are various categories such as material
written to be read aloud as in political speeches, material written to be spoken (e.g. in
acting), and material written to be read which covers a wide range of writings
includes newspapers, books of various sorts, journals, magazines, etc.
2.2.5 Text context of culture
Like context of situation, context of culture is an important element through
which one can comprehend texts. Halliday and Hasan (1985: 46) point out that:
'The context of situation, however, is only the immediate
environment. There is also a broader background against
which the text has to be interpreted: its context of culture.
Any actual context of situation, the particular
configuration of field, tenor, and mode that has brought a
text into being, is not just a random jumble of features but
a totality- a package, so to speak, of things that typically
go together in the culture. People do these things on these
occasions and attach these meanings and values to them;
this is what culture is".
2.3 The Seven Standards of Textuality
Text has been defined as a communicative occurrence/event which
meets seven standards of textuality (cohesion, coherence, intentionality,
acceptability, informativity, situationality, and intertextuality). Linguists
confirm that if any of these standards of textuality is not to have been satisfied,
the text will not be communicative.
2.3.1 Cohesion
The first standard of textuality is called cohesion. Cohesion is the
network of lexical, grammatical, and other relations that provide links
between various parts of a text. These relations or ties organize a text by
requiring the reader to interpret words and expressions by reference to other
words and expressions in the surrounding sentences and paragraphs.
Moreover, cohesion is seen as a non-structural semantic relation, as for
example, between a pronoun and its antecedent in a preceding sentence,
expressing at each stage in the discourse the point of context with what has
gone before. A cohesive device is the interpretative link between, for
example, a pronoun and its antecedent, or two lexically linked NPs, and a
series of such ties (having the same referent) is referred to as a ‗cohesive
chain‘. Halliday and Hasan (1976) establish five cohesion categories:
reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunctions, and lexical cohesion. In
clarifying the notion of ‗cohesion‘ and ‗cohesive device‘, Halliday and
Hasan (1976: 1) present the following examples:
a. Wash and core six cooking apples. Put them into
a fireproof dish.
b. My axe is blunt. I have to get a sharper one.
c. Did you see John? - Yes Ø.
d. They fought a battle. Afterwards, it snowed.
Here, the two sentences, in each example, are linked to each other by a
cohesive link; in each instance a different cohesive item is implemented. In
example (a), the two sentences are linked by the pronoun ‗them‘, in the
second sentence, which refers anaphorically to the noun phrase ‗six
cooking apples‘, in the first sentence. In (b) this relation is established by

1
 the presence of the substitute ‗one‘ in the second sentence, which is a
counter of the noun ‗axe‘ in the first sentence of the same example; in (c)

the cohesive relation is achieved by the omission of some element in the

second sentence that presupposes the first sentence. In example (d) none of
the above relations exist; the conjunction or conjunctive adjunct
‗afterwards‘ is not an anaphoric relation like the previous ones; it does not
instruct the reader to search for the meaning of the element to interpret it as
in reference, or the replacement of some linguistic element by a counter or
by a blank, as are substitution and ellipsis, ―but a specification of the way
in which what is to follow is systematically connected to what has gone
before‖ (Halliday and Hasan, 1976)

As for the main cohesion category called lexical cohesion, Halliday and
Hasan present the following examples:

―There is a boy climbing the tree‖

a. The boy‘s going to fall if he does not take care.
b. The lad‘s going to fall if he does not take care.
c. The child‘s going to fall if he does not take care.
d. The idiot‘s going to fall if he does not take care.
In example (a), there is a repetition of the same lexical item: ‗boy‘, in
(b), the reiteration takes the form of a synonym or nearsynonym ‗lad‘; in (c),
of the superordinate the term ‗child‘; and in (d), of a general word ‗idiot‘.
All these instances have in common the fact that one lexical item
refers back to another, to which it is related by having a common referent.
2.3.2 Coherence
Like cohesion, coherence is a network of relations which organize and
create a text: cohesion is the network of surface relations which link words
and expressions to other words and expressions in a text, and coherence is
the network of conceptual relations which underlie the surface text. Both
concern the way stretches of language are connected to each other. In the
case of cohesion, stretches of language are connected to each other by virtue
of lexical and grammatical dependencies. In the case of coherence, they are
connected by virtue of conceptual or meaning dependencies as perceived by
language users. Hoey (1991: 12) sums up the difference between cohesion
and coherence as follows:
"We will assume that cohesion is a property of
the text and that coherence is a facet [i.e. side] of
the reader's evaluation of a text. In other words,
cohesion is objective, capable in principle of
automatic recognition, while coherence is
subjective and judgments concerning it may vary
from reader to reader."
We could say that cohesion is the surface expression of coherence
relations, that it is a device for making conceptual relations explicit. For
example, a conjunction such as 'therefore' may express a conceptual notion
of 'reason' or 'consequence'. However, if the reader cannot perceive an
underlying semantic relation of 'reason' or 'consequence' between the
propositions connected by 'therefore', he will not be able to make sense of
the text in question; in other words, the text will not 'cohere' for this
particular reader. Generally speaking, the mere presence of cohesive markers
cannot create a coherent text; cohesive markers have to reflect conceptual
relations which make sense. Enkvist (1978) gives an example of a highly
cohesive text which is nevertheless incoherent:
I bought a Ford. The car in which President Wilson rode down the
Champs Elysees was black. Black English has been widely discussed. The
discussions between the presidents ended last week. A week has seven days.
Every day I feed my cat. Cats have four legs.
The fact that we cannot make sense of stretches of language like the
one quoted above, in spite of the presence of a number of cohesive markers,
suggests that what actually gives texture to a stretch of language is not the
presence of cohesive markers but our ability to recognize underlying
semantic relations which establish continuity of sense. The main value of
cohesive markers seems to be that they can be used to facilitate and possibly
control the interpretation of underlying semantic relations.

The coherence of a text is a result of the interaction between

knowledge presented in the text and the reader's own knowledge and
experience of the world, the latter being influenced by a variety of factors
such as age, sex, race, nationality, education, occupation, and political and
religious affiliations. Even a simple cohesive relation of
co-reference cannot be recognized, and therefore cannot be said to
contribute to the coherence of a text.
Coherence can be illustrated by causality, as in: (A) Jack fell down
and (B) he broke his crown. Here, (A) is the cause of (B).
Coherence can be illustrated by enablement or reason, as in: Jack (A)
spent two days working on the problem and he (B) found the solution. (A)
enabled (B) or (A) is the reason that led to (B).
2.3.3 Intentionality
While cohesion and coherence are to a large extent text-centered,
intentionality is user-centered. A text-producer normally seeks to achieve a
purpose or goal (e.g. persuasion, instruction, request, information, etc.) based
on a given plan. Obviously, cohesion and coherence are taken into
consideration while planning and executing one's plan. Speakers or writers
vary in the degree of success in planning and achieving their purposes.
2.3.4 Acceptability
The receiver's attitude is that a text is cohesive and coherent. The reader
usually supplies information that is missing or unstated. Acceptability is very
much sensitive to the social activity the text is fulfilling. A legal contract does
not leave much room for inference. It contains what, otherwise, is called
redundancies. Poetic language will be viewed as such because it calls on for
inferences.
 Acceptability is very much affected by the reader's social and cultural
background. The joke of the priest who, on shaving his beard in the morning
cut his chin because he was thinking of the sermon he was about to give, and
the advice his fellow priest gave him, "Cut your sermon and concentrate on
your beard", was not very much appreciated by some students belonging to
different culture.
2.3.5 Informativity
A text has to contain some new information. A text is informative if it
transfers new information, or information that was unknown before.
Informativity should be seen as a gradable phenomenon. The degree of
informativity varies from participant to participant in the communicative event.
Situationality contributes to the informativity of the text. A book written in
1950 has an informativity that was high appropriate then.
2.3.6 Situationality
A text is relevant to a particular social or pragmatic context.
Situationality is related to real time and place. Communicative partners as well
as their attitudinal state are important for the text's meaning, purpose and
intended effect. Scientific texts share a common situationality, while
ideological texts have different situations across languages and cultures.
2.3.7 Intertextuality
The seventh standard of textuality is called intertextuality. A text is
related to other texts. Intertextuality refers "to the relationship between a given
text and other relevant texts encountered in prior experience." (Neubert and
Shreve,(1992:117). These include textual conventions and textual expectations.
Some text features have become more and more international, e.g. medical
texts. They exhibit many features that are English-like, even they are written in
Arabic. There is a fine line between plagiarism and intertextuality
2.4 The Concept of Register Analysis
The concept of register comes under the larger concept of language
variation in applied linguistics. According to some applied linguists there are
two main types of variation in language, i.e. variation based on the user of
language, and variation based on the use of language Gregory& Caroll (1978).
Dialects, idiolects, sociolects, and genderlects are examples of the first type,
while the language of science and technology, legal English, the language of
buying and selling, and the language of classroom interaction belong to the
second type. The term 'register' has been used to refer to variation according to
the use of language, i.e. functional varieties. According to de Beaugrande (in
Ghadessy 1993) we can find some rough equivalents of 'register' in
foundational linguistic works. However, it was Halliday (1978) who eventually
gave currency to the term 'register'. Halliday defines register in the following
way:
'Types of linguistic situation differ from one another, broadly speaking, in
three respects: first, as regards what actually is taking place; secondly, as
regards what part the language is playing; and thirdly, as regards who is
taking part. These three variables, taken together, determine the range within
which meanings are selected and the forms which are used for their
expression. In other words, they determine the 'register'. (Halliday 1978:31)'
The above three dimensions of register have been referred to by Halliday
and others as the field, the mode, and the tenor of discourse. Thus, the
fundamental purpose of register analysis is to uncover the general principles
which govern the range of variation, i.e. to find out 'what situational factors
determine what linguistic features' (Halliday 1978).
As mentioned above, a register is a variety associated with a particular
situation of use (including particular communicative purposes). The description
of a register covers three major components: the situational context, the
linguistic features, and the functional relationships between the first two
components Fig ( 2.1). Registers are described for their typical lexical and
grammatical characteristics: their linguistic features. But registers are also
described for their situational contexts, for example whether they are produced
in speech or writing, whether they are interactive, and what their primary
communicative purposes are. Linguistic features are always functional when
considered from a register perspective. That is, linguistic features tend to occur
in a register because they are particularly well suited to the purposes and
situational context of the register. Thus, the third component of any register
description is the functional analysis. Registers can be identified and described
based on analysis of either complete texts or a collection of text excerpts. This
is because the linguistic component of a register analysis requires identification
of the pervasive linguistic features in the variety: linguistic characteristics that
might occur in any variety but are much more common in the target register. It
is these pervasive linguistic features that are clearly functional, as exemplified
below.
The Situational Context of use Linguistic analysis of the words and
(including communicative purposes) structures that commonly occur
Function
Fig (2.1) Components in a register analysis
2.4.1 The Situational Characteristics of Registers
A register is defined as a language variety associated with both a
particular situation of use and with pervasive linguistic features that serve
important functions within that situation of use. That is, on how to describe
characteristics related to the situation of use, or what we call situational
characteristics. These characteristics include the physical context, such as the
actual time and place, but also many other considerations. For example, the
situational characteristics of face-to-face conversation include the fact that
there are two or more participants producing language in the spoken mode and
interacting directly with one another in a shared place and time. The situational
characteristics of newspaper articles are very different, with a single author
producing language in the written mode for a large number of readers scattered
across different places and times. An analysis of situational
characteristics is important for the register perspective. Biber and Conrad
(2009)
2.4.2 General and Specialized Registers
 Register can be generalized or specialized. For example,
conversation is a very general register, with relatively few specifying
characteristics: two or more participants, interacting directly with one another
in the spoken mode. Telephone conversation is more specified, because the
participants must be communicating via an electronic channel and do not
actually share the same physical place. Family dinner-table conversation is
even more specified, with a particular setting, a particular set of participants,
and particular topics that are typically discussed. Speeches (or public speaking)
is another example of a very general spoken register, with many more
specialized registers (such as sermons, political speeches, academic lectures,
etc.). It is similarly possible to distinguish among general and specialized
registers within writing. For example, academic prose is a very general register,
characterized as written language that has been carefully produced and edited,
addressed to a large number of readers who are separated in time and space
from the author, and with the primary communicative purpose of presenting
information about some topic.
There are many more specialized written academic registers. The
distinction between textbooks and academic research books involves the
intended audience (students versus other professionals) and the more specific
communicative purposes (e.g., introducing and surveying an academic field
versus presenting the results of a new research project). Similar to academic
research books, research articles in an academic journal are also written for
other professionals but focused on the results of a specific study. There are also
important register differences among academic disciplines. For example, a
psychology research article is different from a chemistry research article, and
both are different from history research articles.
2.4.3 The Situational Characteristics of A register
There are a number of sources of information that can help you
describe the situational characteristics of a register. The importance of each of
the sources below will differ depending on how involved you are with the
cultural group that recognizes the register, and how much experience you have
with the register yourself. Furthermore, some characteristics will be easy to
analyze based on your own experience, while others will require more
research. For example, it is no problem to tell from your own observation
whether a register is spoken or written even if you have no previous experience
with it, but determining the communicative purposes of a register may require
more primary research.
2.4.3.1 Experience and Observation

If you are part of the cultural group that uses a register and have personal
experience producing the register effectively, your own knowledge can be one
major source of information that you use for the situational analysis However,
even in this case, it will require some thinking and discussion with other
members of the cultural group to be confident about your interpretation. For
example, since you have had many experiences engaging in conversation with
friends, you could list the situational characteristics of that register without
consulting any other sources. Having also read many textbooks, you could
probably describe their situational characteristics, including some of the
variability in their purposes (such as how entertaining versus purely
informative they are). However, observers or novices in a professional domain
generally cannot fully describe the registers identified by practitioners in that
domain. For example, academic professionals make many fine distinctions
among the various kinds of published articles, including research articles,
review articles, book reviews, and ―commentaries.‖ Academic professionals
also distinguish among the various venues for a published article, including
refereed research journals, non-refereed journals, newsletters, and a chapter in
an edited book. To casual observers and novices, all these registers are simply
―published articles.‖ Thus, many analyses require additional information than
what you can obtain from your own experience and observation.

2.4.3.2. Expert Informants

 When you do not have a great deal of experience with a register, asking
expert informants about it can help you identify its situational characteristics.
To continue with the academic example above, if you were describing
academic article registers, interviewing your professors about the
characteristics of the registers would be invaluable. Of course, individuals vary
in their perceptions, so it is always helpful to speak with several informants.
The expert informant is even more important if you are describing registers
used in a culture that is not your own native culture because it is unlikely that
an outside observer will fully understand the cultural significance of
communication events. It is natural to interpret such events relative to the
register distinctions that you recognize from your own native culture. In this
case, the expert native informant is essential to help you recognize the register
distinctions found in the target culture Biber and Conrad ( 2009)
2.4.3.3. Previous Research

Previous research that has covered the kinds of registers that you
are interested in is also a good potential source of information about
situational characteristics. Studies from a rhetorical perspective can help
you understand how a register is used within its cultural context. For
example, if you were studying scientific research articles, published case
studies of professional writers in science could help you understand the
purposes and audiences of the register (Bazerman 1988, and Latour and
Woolgar 1986).
2.4.4 Analysis of Texts from the Register
Many descriptions of a register – based on your experience, or
others‘ expertise, or sometimes even published work – represent beliefs
or perceptions, rather than the results of an empirical investigation. Such
descriptions are not necessarily accurate. For example, it is often the
case that there will be some situational characteristics that are not
consciously recognized by users of a register. For this reason, it is
 always useful to obtain additional information about situational
characteristics by looking at the texts themselves.

Texts can aid in determining situational characteristics in one of two

ways. First, it can be useful to look at texts during your initial situational
analysis, in order to identify their typical communicative purposes. For
example, Neither of us used text messages or really understood why
other people used them. So besides looking at some previous studies of
text messages and asking texters themselves why they texted, we looked
at a large collection of messages to analyze the types of purposes that
were apparent in the texts themselves.
Second, situational analyses of texts can be useful after the linguistic
features are analyzed. That is, when you have completed your linguistic
analysis, you might discover unanticipated linguistic patterns and realize
that those patterns must correspond to situational characteristics that you
were unaware of previously. For example, a group of researchers were
unable to predict some situational characteristics that became obvious
after the linguistic features had been studied. Even though the
researchers had all been producing classroom discourse for years, a
fuller, explicit understanding of the situational characteristics came only
when the linguistic features were connected to their functions. Thus, the
process of doing a register analysis often includes refining the analysis
of the situational characteristics after the linguistic analysis.
Despite the sometimes cyclic nature of the linguistic and situational
analyses, the normal way to start a register analysis is by identifying and
describing the situational characteristics that define the registers.
2.4.5. Register as A linguistic Universal
All cultures use language for different communicative purposes in
different situations. Register variation focuses on the pervasive patterns of

1
linguistic variation across such situations, in association with the functions
served by linguistic features;. register variation is a fundamental aspect of
human language. All cultures and languages have an array of registers, and all
humans control a range of registers. The universal nature of register variation
has been noted by many previous scholars. For example:
"register variation, in which language structure varies in accordance with the
occasions of use, is all-pervasive in human language" Ferguson (1983: 154)
"no human being talks the same way all the time . . . At the very least, a variety
of registers and styles is used and encountered" Hymes (1984: 44)
each language community has its own system of registers . . . corresponding to
the range of activities in which its members normally engage" Ure (1982: 5)

Given the ubiquity of register variation, an understanding of how linguistic

features are used in patterned ways across text varieties is of central importance
for both the description of particular languages and the development of cross-
linguistic theories of language use. Hymes argues that the analysis of register
variation – ―verbal repertoire‖ in his terms – should become the major focus of
research within linguistics:
[the] sociolinguistic perspective . . . has the possibility of taking the lead in
transforming the study of language, through developing and consolidating the
systematic study of verbal repertoire . . . The abilities of individuals and the
composite abilities of communities cannot be understood except by making
“verbal repertoire,” not “language,” the central scientific notion. Hymes
(1984:44)
Although all societies and languages have a number of registers, they do
not necessarily have equivalent sets. For example, some languages/societies
have only spoken registers; in such cases, there might be individual speakers
who are capable of producing language in all registers of the language. In
contrast, modern literate societies incorporate a much larger set of spoken and
written text varieties. As a result, no individual speaker/writer can control the
full set of text varieties found in the culture. Previous studies have documented
these differences, noting that historical change in the system of text varieties in
a language is fundamentally important. For example:
 The register range of a language is one of the most immediate ways in
which it responds to social change. The difference between developed and
undeveloped languages (Ferguson, 1983) is fundamentally one of register
range, and language contact, which contributes to language development . . . is
mediated by particular registers ...This issue is concerned with both the
pressures that make for change and the way in which these changes are realized
linguistically. Ure (1982:7)
[one of the two main tasks requiring attention within sociolinguistics at present
is] the description and analysis of the organization and change of verbal
repertoires in relation to the main processes of societal evolution of our time
Hymes (1984: 44–45)
Register variation is universal because all cultures use language in
different situations for different communicative purposes. We have noted in
several places above that we regard the register perspective as the most
important: because linguistic features are functional, they are used to greater
and lesser extents in different situations, and thus any text sample of any type
can be described from the register perspective. This functional association
between linguistic forms and situations of use results in the systematic patterns
of register variation.
2.4.6 The Framework for Analyzing Situational Characteristics
Since text varieties can be compared with respect to so many different
situational characteristics, it is useful to have a general framework to apply in
any analysis for register perspective. Some characteristics will not be relevant
for some comparisons, but applying the framework can help you think through
the full set of situational characteristics that need to be considered. Table (2.2)
lists the major situational characteristics that are relevant for describing
registers. These characteristics were compiled from a survey of previous
theoretical frameworks that have been developed for the study of register.
(Biber 1988, 1998; Crystal and Davy 1969; Halliday 1978; Hymes 1984; Basso
1974).
 Table (2.1) Situational characteristics of registers
I. Participants A. Addressor(s) (i.e. speaker or author) 1. single / plural /
institutional / unidentified 2. social characteristics: age, education, profession,
etc.
B. Addressees 1. single / plural / un-enumerated 2. self / other
C. Are there on-lookers?
II. Relations among participants A. Interactiveness B. Social roles: relative
status or power C. Personal relationship: e.g., friends, colleagues, strangers D.
Shared knowledge: personal and specialist
III. Channel A. Mode: speech / writing / signing B. Specific Medium:
Permanent: taped / transcribed / printed / handwritten / e-mail / etc. Transient
speech: face-to-face / telephone / radio / TV / etc.
IV. Production circumstances: real time / planned / scripted / revised and edited
V. Setting A. Is the time and place of communication shared by participants?
B. Place of communication 1. Private / public 2. Specific setting
C. Time: contemporary, historical time period
VI. Communicative purposes A. General purposes: narrate / report, describe,
exposit / -inform / explain, persuade, how-to / procedural, entertain, edify,
reveal self
B. Specific purposes: e.g., summarize information from numerous sources,
describe methods, present new research findings, teach moral through personal
story
C. Factuality: factual, opinion, speculative, imaginative D. Expression of
stance: epistemic, attitudinal, no overt stance
VII. Topic A. General topical ―domain‖: e.g., domestic, daily activities,
business / workplace, science, education / academic, government / legal /
politics, religion, sports, art / entertainment, etc.
B. Specific topic C. Social status of person being referred to

2.4.6.1 Participants
We begin with the participants: the person producing the text, and the
person to whom the text is addressed. Every text is produced by someone: the
addressor. Most spoken registers are produced by individuals who are readily
identifiable. However, the addressor can be less apparent in written registers.
Other written texts are not attributed to any individual. Some of these texts
have an ―institutional‖ addressor: they can be attributed to some institution, but
there is no indication of who actually wrote the text. For example, newspaper
editorials present the official point of view of a newspaper, but no author is
identified. Similarly, a university catalog presents an official description of
services and requirements with no indication of who produced the text. At the
far extreme, there are anonymous written texts that are not even attributed to an
institution, such as certain kinds of signs or advertisements.
The social characteristics of the addressor(s) have a major influence on
the language produced in the text. For example, characteristics like the
speaker‘s age, sex, level of education, occupation, and social class can all be
important determinants of linguistic variation. Such characteristics are
described under the rubric of social dialect variation.
In addition to the addressor, communication requires an addressee:
the intended listener or reader. In many cases, the addressee can be an
individual, as in a face-to-face conversation with a friend. Personal letters and
e-mail messages are also often addressed to an individual. However, most of
these texts can also be addressed to multiple individuals. For example, a
dinner-table conversation can involve a group of individuals all discussing the
same topic; everyone except the speaker can be the addressee of an utterance.
University classroom teaching is addressed to a larger group of listeners, while
a major conference lecture might be addressed to a group of several thousand
listeners. In these cases, although the group of addressees may be very large, it
is possible to identify who they are. There are some registers, however, that
have an un-enumerated set of addressees. For example, it is not possible to
specify (except in a very general sense) the set of individuals who listen to a
radio broadcast or watch a television show. Published written registers provide
even clearer examples of registers with an un-enumerated set of addressees.
For example, a novel can exist physically for decades or even centuries, and
there is no obvious way to identify who the set of readers will be over that
time.
Finally, the situational context for some registers includes a group of on-
lookers. These are participants who observe but are not the direct addressees of
the register. For example, actors in a dramatic play are conversing, addressing
one another on the stage, but that entire conversational interaction is observed
by the audience of on-lookers. Similarly, participants in a debate or during
court- room testimony directly address one another, but they are also aware of
the audience of on-lookers. In fact, the role of the on-lookers might have more
practical importance than the addressee. For example, during court testimony, a
witness is directly addressing an examining attorney, but the major purpose of
communication is to persuade a group of on-lookers: the jury. In cases like
these, the distinction between addressee and on-looker is somewhat fuzzy. The
most important point for register analysis is that you recognize the influence of
both. Biber (1998 )
2.4.6.2 Relations among Participants
Once you have identified the participants, the next step is to describe how
they relate to one another. The most important consideration here is inter-
activeness: to what extent do the participants directly interact with one
another? At one extreme, there are registers like conversation, where all
participants are present and able to directly respond to one another. At the
opposite extreme are registers like university catalogs: since it is very difficult
to even identify the exact authors of this text, it is virtually impossible to have
a dialogue with them. Most registers are intermediate in their degree of
interactiveness. For example, participants in an e-mail interchange directly
respond to one another, but that interaction can be spread over days and weeks.
A university class session will normally be interactive, but not equally for all
participants; rather, the instructor will typically produce most of the language
and control the extent to which students can participate. A newspaper article is
even less interactive, because the author is not easily accessible to address a
response to. However, readers can write a ―letter to the editor,‖ allowing for In
addition to the extent of interactiveness, it is important to consider the social
roles and personal relationships among participants. In many cases, participants
can be socially equal, as in the case of two classmates having a conversation.
But in other cases, there can be important social differences among
participants. For example, power differences can influence language choices;
even in a casual conversation, if you are talking to your teacher or boss you
probably produce different language than when you talk to your best friend.
Participants can also have different degrees of shared background knowledge.
For example, imagine how you would describe your activities this past
weekend when talking to your roommate (who knows most of your friends and
the places where you like to go), in comparison to how you would describe
those activities to a stranger. Speakers can also share ―specialist background
knowledge.‖ Imagine discussing a limited kind of interaction.
In addition to the extent of interactiveness, it is important to consider
the social roles and personal relationships among participants. In many cases,
participants can be socially equal, as in the case of two classmates having a
conversation. But in other cases, there can be important social differences
among participants. For example, power differences can influence language
choices; even in a casual conversation, if you are talking to your teacher or
boss you probably produce different language than when you talk to your best
friend. Participants can also have different degrees of shared background
knowledge. For example, imagine how you would describe your activities this
past weekend when talking to your roommate (who knows most of your friends
and the places where you like to go), in comparison to how you would describe
those activities to a stranger. Speakers can also share ―specialist background
knowledge.‖ Imagine discussing a linguistic analysis with one of your
classmates, contrasted with how you would describe the same analysis to your
parents. Written texts can also differ depending on specialist shared
knowledge; for example, an academic research journal has articles addressed to
other specialists in the field, while introductory textbooks are addressed to
novices in the field.
2.4.6.3 Channel
One of the most obvious differences among registers is the physical
channel or mode: speech versus writing. It turns out that the difference between
speech and writing is intertwined with other situational characteristics. For
example, registers produced in the spoken mode almost always have a specific
addressor, and typically have specific addressees; in contrast, written registers
can have an institutional addressor and un-enumerated addressees. Spoken
registers are often interactive; written registers are rarely interactive. Spoken
and written registers also differ in their typical production circumstances and
even their typical communicative purposes. For all these reasons, the
distinction between spoken and written registers is one of the most important
situational parameters for the linguistic description of registers
Of course, not all registers are spoken or written. There are other
specialized modes of communication. Signing in particular is a fully developed
mode of communication, while there are also much more restricted modes like
drum talk or smoke signals. However, in the present. It is also possible to
distinguish among specific mediums of communication within speech or
writing, such as telephone or radio for speech, and hand-writing, electronic
(e.g., e-mail), and printed for writing. These more specific means of expressing
language can also have an influence on the linguistic forms that speakers
employ.

2.4.6.4 Production Circumstances

The choice of the spoken or written mode directly influences the
production circumstances. Consider a normal conversation: The speaker is
producing language at the same time that he is thinking about what he wants to
say. The speaker usually does not have time to carefully plan what he will say
next; if he takes too long thinking, his conversational partner might begin to
talk, or the conversation might end in miscommunication. And if he says
something unintended, he must completely start over again; a speaker cannot
edit or erase language once it has been spoken. Written registers typically
differ in all of these respects: The writer has as much time as needed to plan
exactly what she wants to write, and if she writes something unintended, she
can revise/edit/delete/add language until she ends up with language that
conveys exactly the intended meaning. Thus, the final written text that a reader
sees may bear little resemblance to the initial words that the author wrote, and
readers usually have no indication of the extent to which the author has revised
the original text. (Spoken language can also be edited to some extent, as in the
case of a taped radio interview. But in this case, the editing is restricted to
removing unwanted language; it is not possible to change what had been said.)
The addressee similarly has different circumstances for comprehension in the
spoken versus written mode. In speech, a listener has no choice but to hear and
understand language at the same time that the speaker produces it; there is no
opportunity to control the speed or sequence of information (apart from telling
the speaker to slow down!). In contrast, a reader has complete control over the
text. The reader can carefully read one word at a time, or she can quickly skim
a text. She can even jump around in a written text, for example reading the
conclusion before the introduction. (Of course, particular readers of a written
text will engage in very different comprehension processes, depending on their
prior background knowledge and purposes for reading ( Crystal & Davy 1969).

2.4.6.5 Communicative Purpose

All of the situational characteristics considered above have been
tangible aspects of the context: who is participating, where they are, what
physical mode of communication is being used, and what the production
circumstances are. However, it is equally important to consider the ―why‖ of
communication: the communicative purpose. Communicative purpose can be
described on several different levels. It is usually possible to identify the
general purposes of a register, such as narrating or reporting past events,
describing some state of affairs, explaining or interpreting information, arguing
or persuading, providing procedural information about how to perform certain
activities, entertaining the addressee, and revealing personal feelings or
attitudes.
Many registers combine several communicative purposes. For example,
text-books usually combine descriptive and explanatory purposes. Textbooks
in engineering disciplines will also include procedural information, while text-
books in the humanities will often include persuasive discussion and some
narratives.
Further, it is possible to switch purpose in the middle of a communicative
event. For example, you might be having a conversation with a friend where
you are discussing political candidates, describing specific policies that a
candidate endorses, and trying to persuade your friend that a particular
candidate is the most qualified. In this case, you would be describing the
current state of affairs, but also revealing your own attitudes, and also trying to
persuade the listener about the correctness of your point of view. But then it
would be very easy to switch purposes, for example telling a story about the
last time that you went to vote, and how long you had to wait in line, and how
someone else in line was behaving. This switch in purpose can be regarded as a
shift in sub register, from one kind of conversation to another. We will show in

the following chapters that it is possible to identify linguistic characteristics

that hold for conversation generally, regardless of the particular purposes, but
also that it is possible to identify linguistic characteristics for particular kinds
of conversation, associated with particular communicative purposes.
Such shifts in communicative purpose can occur in writing .In some
cases, this shift is overtly marked in the text and allows the analyst to identify
distinct specific purposes that distinguish between very specific sub registers.
For example, a typical scientific research article will be composed of four
distinct sections that are explicitly labeled: Introduction, Methods, Results,
Discussion. These sections can be regarded as sub registers, differing mostly in
their communicative purpose. Introductions describe the current state of
knowledge in the field, and might include some narration of past events or
some explanation of concepts or previous research findings. Then the Methods
section will switch to a procedural communicative purpose, describing how the
study was conducted. Results sections are usually descriptive, stating what was
found in the study, while the Discussion section is usually more interpretive,
explanatory, and persuasive. All of these article sections have the same
physical context: the same author, same readers, same production
circumstances, and so on. But there are important linguistic differences across
article sections, associated with the shifts in communicative purpose.
2.4.6.6 Topic
Finally, topic is an open-ended category that can be described at many
different levels It is possible to distinguish among very general topical
domains, such as science, religion, politics, and sports, but any text will have
its own specific topics. Topic is the most important situational factor

1
 influencing vocabulary choice; the words used in a text are to a large extent
determined by the topic of the text. This is true both at the level of general
topical domains (e.g., science writing versus business news) and very specific
topical domains (e.g., research writing on biogenetics). In languages like
Japanese, there is a special aspect of topic that directly influences linguistic
choice: the social status of any person that is being talked about. In this case,
specific honorific particles must be used that indicate social status. In general,
though, topical differences are not influential for determining grammatical
differences. Rather, the pervasive grammatical characteristics of a register are
mostly determined by the physical situational context and the communicative
purposes. There are some grammatical differences that might at first seem to be
related to topic. For example, passive verbs are much more common in science
and engineering textbooks than in humanities textbooks. However, these
differences are influenced mostly by the differing communicative purposes of
these disciplines rather than simply by differences in topic.
2.4.7 The Methods of Analyzing Register
The goal of the linguistic analysis is to identify the language features that
are typical or characteristic of the target register. A basic concern, therefore, is
how to determine whether a linguistic feature is ―typical‖ in a given register.
Determining what is typical in a register is associated with three major
methodological considerations in a register analysis Biber,(1999)
2.4.7.1 The Need for A comparative Approach
An empirical comparative approach is crucial for providing an adequate
basis for answering questions. That is, to identify the distinctive characteristics
of the target register, it is necessary to empirically compare the language in
one register to the language in other registers
2.4.7.2 The Need for Quantitative Analysis
If all registers had register markers, identification of registers would be
an easy task; you would simply look for those distinctive markers.
Unfortunately, register markers are rare. Most registers cannot be identified by
the occurrence of a distinctive register marker. Instead, analysts must rely on
register features: features that are pervasive and frequent in a register. Analysis
of register features requires consideration of the extent to which a linguistic
structure is used. Register features can be structures at any linguistic level:
words, vocabulary distributions, grammatical classes, syntactic constructions,
and so on. The key point about register features is that the focus is on the
extent to which the structure is used. That is, the linguistic feature in question
might occur to some extent in most (maybe all) registers, but it will be notably
frequent in only some registers and comparatively rare in other register.
2. 4.7.3 The Need for A representative Sample
Finally, to identify the ―typical‖ linguistic characteristics of a register, it is
necessary to have a representative sample of texts.
A representative sample of texts will capture the range of linguistic variation
that exists in the register, with a majority of the texts having the linguistic
characteristics that are typical of the register
2.4.8 Conducting Quantitative Analyses
In essence, quantitative register analysis requires simply that the
analyst count how many times a linguistic feature occurs in a text. However,
the major difficulty has nothing to do with numbers. Rather, the difficult part is
the prerequisite to counting: categorizing all the linguistic features consistently.
That is, before counting, it is essential to consistently and accurately identify
every occurrence of the linguistic feature in question. In order to conduct a
quantitative analysis there are some steps should be taken carefully, such as
a. Classifying linguistic features in principled and consistent way.
b. Computing rates of occurrence (frequency counts).
c. Deciding on the linguistic features to investigate.
e. Functional Interpretation
2.4.9 Corpus Linguistics
According to (Biber, Conrad, and Reppen (1998: 4), the essential
characteristics of corpus-based analysis are:
a. it is empirical, analyzing the actual patterns of use in natural texts;
b. it utilizes a large and principled collection of natural texts, known as a
―corpus,‖ as the basis for analysis; analyzing linguistic features and their
functions.

c. it makes extensive use of computers for analysis, using both automatic and
interactive techniques;
d. it depends on both quantitative and qualitative analytical techniques.
Table ( 2.2) Linguistic features that might be investigated in a register
analysis.
1.Vocabulary features ( specialized and general words)

2. Content word classes( nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs)

3. Function word classes ( e.g. determiners, pronouns, modals..etc)
4. Derived words( nominalization, derived verbs, derived adverbs..etc)
5. Verb features( copular, tense, aspect, voice, phrasal verbs..etc)
6. Pronoun features(person, pronoun, demonstrative pronoun..etc)
7. Reduced forms( contractions, complementizer..etc)
8. Prepositional phrases( of- phrases, functional as adverbial..etc)
9. Coordination( independent clause coordination)
10. Main clause type( declarative, imperative, interrogative..etc)
11. Noun phrases( determiner semantic category, gender…etc)
12. Adverbials(syntactic position and syntactic realization..etc)
13. Complement clauses( that- clause and syntactic role..etc)
14. Word order choices( exraposition, particle placement ..etc)
2.4.10 Specialized Discourse
Academic discourse (AD) and professional discourse (PD) are analyzed
as part of SD. The use of the term ―specialized discourse‖ is currently widely
accepted by the majority of language researchers. However, from its initial use,
it has been employed to express a variety of meanings. Hence, SD includes a
varied set of discourse genres, but each with certain prototypical features. It is
precisely this idea of heterogeneity of texts and genres within a scale of
gradation that Parodi (2005) applies when approaching the notion of SD.
According to this notion, SD must necessarily be understood as a continuum in
which texts and the corresponding genres are aligned along a diversified
gradient that runs from a high degree to a low degree of specialization. Thus,
SD could be conceived of as a super category of AD and PD.
Parodi (2005) defines SD by using a series of characterizing co-occurring
linguistic features. Many researchers also agree that there are a set of lexico-
grammatical co-occurring features that identify SD and many of them consider
that specialized lexicon is highly important Cabré and Gomez (2006).
Academic and professional genres are made operational through a set of texts
that can be organized along a continuum in which the texts are linked together,
from general school discourse to university academic discourse, and to
professional discourse in a workplace environment. This is presented
graphically in Fig.(7.2) illustrates a conception of discourse in academic and
professional fields along a continuum that follows a process of permanent
updating and multiple interactions. SD, in part, comes from AD and, in turn, is
linked to and interacts with PD. This distribution of specialized knowledge
organization is mainly proposed from a student‘s perspective, i.e., one in which
the discourse continuum is traced from a learner who faces the process of
instruction. In other words, this is not a researcher‘s or university professor‘s
point of view because interactions would be different. For example, if research
articles are considered, it is clear they overlap in academic and professional
life, given they are discourse genres employed in both fields.
Fig (2.2): continuum of discourses in academic and professional fields

General School Scientific Discourse

Discourse

Technical Academic
Professional University
High Discourse Discourse
 Professional
Discourse

2.4.11 Academic Discourse

There is no doubt that any newcomer to the study of AD will find a
diversity of approaches, terminologies, and perspectives that makes an initial
understanding of the field difficult. As Flowerdew (2002) suggests, there has
been little systematic research into exactly what AD is. When one undertakes
the study of this kind of discourse the following questions need to be
addressed:
(a) Are there any existing criteria that accurately define AD? If so,
(b) what type of criteria are they? Below, three approaches to AD will be
considered:
(1) a functional communicative approach,
(2) a contextual approach, and
(3) a textual approach.
First, in functional communicative terms, AD is characterized by the
predominance of one communicative macro purpose over another; in some
varieties, more persuasive or didactic objectives are emphasized .
Furthermore, AD carries with it credibility and prestige because of the writer‘s
authority on a subject matter. Second, from the contextual criteria, AD is that
which is used in academic contexts (2002) ; Dudley-Evans & St. John, (2006).
However, it is evident that academic settings are varied and not always easy to
determine, which makes the criteria rather complex. This is due to the fact that
AD does not have clear limits and may be confused or assimilated into other
environments or nearby fields, such as technical-scientific, professional,
pedagogic, or institutional ones. Flowerdew (2004).
 Hyland (2000) argues that identifying the contexts and the
participants involved in the interactions is indispensable. In other words,
analyzing the texts as social practices is critical. This approach includes an
analysis of the mediums in which these texts circulate and are used. So, AD is
considered a manifestation of a specific community (Valle, 1997). Third, since
AD is oriented towards the transmission of knowledge, generally through
definitions, classifications, and explanations, writers of AD use linguistic
features that ensure clarity and conciseness. This manifests itself in an
economy of words, an absence of empty adjectives, and the elimination of
redundancy and repetition. It also has a more rigid and controlled syntax, and a
higher proportion of nominalizations, than does non-academic discourse.
2.4.12 Professional Discourse
Without a doubt, the problem that faces AD in its search for a strict
characterization is similar to what occurs in the study of professional discourse
(PD). This happens because in some cases these two terms tend to overlap, e.g.,
when the term PD is used in a general sense that includes AD, and vice versa.
The current investigation will clearly separate these two discourses based on
the environment in which the texts are collected. That is to say, PD will be that
which is collected in contexts of professional use and circulation, while AD
will be that which is collected in contexts of academic activities normally faced
by university students.
Bazerman and Paradis (1991) have their own perspective on the notion of PD,
that is, These authors suggest that the structure of PD is founded on a textual
dynamics that gives form to a profession and they review a series of related
articles describing the way in which professional communities organize
themselves based on their own relevant texts. PD, in this sense, is formed by
those texts which bring together specific knowledge of the world,
which, in turn, constitutes the purposes of the professional community.
Macrostructure and the superstructure have not been extensively
examined by any analysis of PD. However, studies can be found that apply
these categories to administrative language. (López (2002) applies some
rhetorical microstructures to the analysis of a text about economic policy, but
there are no systematic studies with respect to how these rhetorical
microstructures are distributed in each professional field. With regard to
linguistic traits, the lexical level is the area that has received the greatest
attention in academic studies, especially terminological analyses associated
with particular professions.
2.5 Genre
2.5.1 Etymology of Genre
Over the past thirty years, researchers working across a range of
disciplines and contexts have revolutionized the way we think of genre,
challenging the idea that genres are simple categorizations of text types and
offering instead an understanding of genre that connects kinds of texts to kinds
of social actions. As a result, genres have become increasingly defined as ways
of recognizing, responding to, acting meaningfully and consequentially within,
and helping to reproduce recurrent situations.
Despite the wealth of genre scholarship over the last thirty years, the term
genre itself remains fraught with confusion, competing with popular theories of
genre as text type and as an artificial system of classification. Part of the
confusion has to do with whether genres merely sort and classify the
experiences, events, and actions they represent (and are therefore conceived of
as labels or containers for meaning), or whether genres reflect, help shape, and
even generate what they represent in culturally defined ways (and therefore
play a critical role in meaning-making). Interestingly, these competing views of
genre are reflected in the etymology of the word genre, which is borrowed
from French. On the one hand, genre can be traced, through its related word
gender, to the Latin word genus, which refers to ―kind‖ or ―a class of things.‖
On the other hand, genre, again through its related word gender, can be traced
to the Latin cognate gener, meaning to generate. The range of ways genre has
been defined and used throughout its history reflects its etymology. At various
times and in various areas of study, genre has been defined and used mainly as
a classificatory tool, a way of sorting and organizing kinds of texts and other
cultural objects. But more recently and, again, across various areas of study,
genre has come to be defined less as a means of organizing kinds of texts and
more as a powerful, ideologically active, and historically changing shaper of
texts, meanings, and social actions. From this perspective, genres are
understood as forms of cultural knowledge that conceptually frame and
mediate how we understand and typically act within various situations. This
view recognizes genres as both organizing and generating kinds of texts and
social actions, in complex, dynamic relation to one another.( Bawarshi and
Reiff 2010)
2.5.2 What is Genre?
Swales, (1990 ) the accepted leader in genre and move analysis in the field
of ESP, defined a genre as a class of communicative events commonly used by
the members of a given community who share some set of communicative
purposes. Based on Swales‘ definition, there are particular rules for
communication, and these rules are settled based on communicative purpose.
For example, the rules for writing social letters are different from rules which
are essential for writing novels or theses. Bloor and Bloor (1993) defined genre
as a specific product of a social practice which can be described and taught
because of its formal characteristics. Moreover, he defined genre as a property
of a text which defines it as a sequence of moves or segments where each move
accomplishes some part of the overall communicative purpose of the text.
Martin (2003) argued that all genres had essential rules, and that these rules
control a set of communicative purposes in specific social situations. For Miller
(1984), genre was a kind of social action which took place in a specific
discourse concept and its scope can be defined. According to Hyon ,the
development of genre owed much to three research schools:
1. North American New Rhetoric (NANR) studies: Researchers were
interested in the social and ideological significance of genres. The
 concentration on form was less than the focus on the social context.
Most participants in these research studies were Native English Students
at university.

2. Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics: Researchers investigated the

broad genres of teaching and learning. In systemic functional linguistics, social
context and function were as important as text and form. Most subjects for
these studies were adult immigrants.
3. English for Specific Purposes (ESP): Researchers were interested in
theoretical and pedagogical aspects of language which made genres. Both
written and spoken discourses were important for ESP researchers. Learners
who had been chosen for genre studies were non-native students of English in
university settings community. Along the same lines, Hyland (2004) believed
that the genre approach has an important effect on teaching writing.
Bruce (2008) classified genre in two groups: (a) social genre, and (b)
cognitive genre. In social genre, texts were classified according their social
purposes, but in cognitive genre, the criterion for the classification of texts was
the internal organization of writing. Personal letters, novels, and
academic articles were examples of social genre. Sequence of events and argue
points of view were kinds of rhetorical purposes which were related to
cognitive genres.
The differences between social genre and cognitive genre were made more
clear in Bruce‘s own statements:
"Social genre refers to socially recognized constructs according to which
whole texts are classified in terms of their overall social purpose. Purpose here
is taken to mean the intention to consciously communicate a body of knowledge
related to a certain context to a certain target audience . . . . Cognitive genre
refers to the overall cognitive orientation and internal organization of a
segment of writing that realizes a single, more general rhetorical purpose to
represent one type of information within discourse. Examples of types of
general rhetorical purpose relating to cognitive genres are: to recount
sequenced events, to explain a process, to argue a point of view, each of which
will employ a different cognitive genre"

According Hyland (1999) genre studies had two significant motivations:

a. finding the relationship between language and the context where
language was used.
b. helping students to produce authentic text by introducing to them the
accepted moves in writing. In other words, the second purpose was
improving literacy education in societies.
As such, genre refers to the totality of the accepted linguistic conventions,
practice, style, and restrictions in a given communicative event (i.e., the
schematic structure of the discourse in a given community of professionals or
otherwise). Therefore, any discussion of genre requires attention to several
technical terms. These include genre constellations, genre sets, genre chains,
genre networks, genre systems, and subgenres
2.5.3 A working Definition of Genre
Swales (1990) has developed an extensive study on genre in which he
pursues the concept critically in diverse areas such as folklore, literature,
linguistics and rhetoric. He rounds up his discussion with the following
working definition of genre:
"A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which
share some set of communicative purposes. These purposes are recognized by
the expert members of the parent discourse community, and thereby constitute
the rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the
discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style" (Swales,
1990: 58).
Working in the area of research on reading in ESL, Devitt (1991) expresses
a similar viewpoint. He emphasizes that genres are social events not only in

1
terms of the social roles and purposes of those who create them as speakers or
writers but because the communicative function of the resulting spoken or
written text is recognizable to a particular community of listeners or readers.

There are two points made by Swales, one in his working definition and the
other elsewhere in his text. The notion that the communicative aims shared and
recognized by members of a discourse community shape the schematic
structure of discourse as well as dictate choices of content and style and the
idea that today‘s existence of transnational discourse communities is likely to
lead to universalist tendencies in genres might back up a comparison of
languages at the discoursal level which could otherwise be difficult.
Moreover, our interest here lies with written, not spoken, text and so we
will confine ourselves to the consideration of what genre means in relation to
written text. We will perceive ‗genre‘ to be concerned with texts that are
complete rhetorical entities, and we will expect genre analysis to reveal
something about the beginnings, middles and ends of texts. ‗Genre‘ is a
socially constructed concept to describe a set of texts that are perceived to
perform similar functions. Texts belonging to a genre are conventionalized, to
differing degrees, in terms of sequencing, of layout, of phraseology, and there
are expectations of, and constraints on, the structure and linguistic expression
of such texts. These expectations can vary from one disciplinary community to
another. The forms that the texts take can also vary, depending on the range
and diversity of purposes that exponents of the genre are asked to serve.
The analysis of genre aims:
a. to identify the regularities of form, of rhetorical organization and of
linguistic features within the genre
b. to relate these regularities of form, of rhetorical organization and of
linguistic features to communicative purpose
c. to establish which features are obligatory and which are optional, within
given discourse communities
d. to understand why and how the genre has developed into its present form,
and what functions the genre plays within the community

2.5.4 A comprehensive Definition of Genre.

Bhatia (2004) Genre essentially refers to language use in a
conventionalized communicative setting in order to give expression to a
specific set of communicative goals of a disciplinary or social institution,
which give rise to stable structural forms by imposing constraints on the use of
lexico-grammatical as well as discoursal resources. (P.23)
2.5.5 Concept of Genre
Generally, people in any discourse communities perceive genres as
communicative actions that can be commonly understood by them. It should
not be surprising then that the most profound function of genres is that they are
created to be communicative devices that can transfer information to other
people, both peripheral and inside members.
There is no clear definition of genre as "genre remains a fuzzy concept,
a somewhat loose tm of art" (Swales, 1990, p.33). A basic definition of genre
may be defined as 'a text or discourse type which is recognized as such by its
users through its characteristic features of style or form' (Linguistics
Encyclopedia, 1995). But according to Swales genre seems to imply much
more than 'text type' (p.25).
Swales (1990) defines genre as:
"A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which
share some set of communicative purposes. These purposes are recognized by
the expert members of the parent discourse community, and thereby constitute
the rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the
discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style'. (p.58)
Apart from that, Bhatia defines professional and academic genre as:
 "A recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of
communicative purpose(s) identified and mutually understood by the members
of the professional or academic community in which it regularly occurs. Most
often it is highly structured and conventionalized with constraints on allowable

contributions in terms of their intent, positioning, form and functional value.

These constraints, however, are often exploited by the expert members of the
discourse community to achieve private intentions within the framework of
socially recognized purpose. (Bhatia, (1993)
―Genre networks‖ is in fact the overall frame that can also capture other
concepts within a genre constellation: genre chains, genre hierarchies and
genre sets (Swales, 2004). Genre networks are critical in justifying the claimed
dynamism of the new perception of genre.
Todorov (cited in Swales 1990, 15), sets the fundamental arguments behind the
concept of genre networks.

Todorov remarks:
"Where do genres come from? Quite simply from other genres. A new
genre is always the transformation of an earlier one, or of several: by
inversion by displacement, by combination".(1990, 15) (cited in Swales, 2004: 21)

Fig (2.3) : The RA and other Research-Process Genres (Swales, 1990: 177)
 Abstracts Presentations

Research articles
Grant proposals

Theses and dissertations Books and monographs

Swales (2004) argues that in the research world, genres form intertextual
relationships with other genres. He points out that presentations can lead to
research articles, but just as likely, research articles can lead to presentations.
Moreover, published articles can both precede and follow theses, and further,
articles can be combined into theses (2004, 22). Swales (2004) calls these
processes within the genre network ―recontextualization‖ a term defined by
Linell as follows:
Recontextualization involves the extrication of some part or aspect from a
text or discourse, or from a genre of texts or discourses, and the fitting of this
part or aspect into another context, i.e. another text or discourse (or discourse
genre) and its use and environment.(cited in Swales, 1998:145)
2.5.6 Discourse Community
Swales (1990) defines discourse communities as ―sociorhetorical networks
that form in order to work towards sets of common goals‖. These common
goals become the basis for shared communicative purposes, with genres
enabling discourse community members to achieve these communicative
purposes, Swales proposes six defining characteristics of discourse
communities. First, ―a discourse community has a broadly agreed set of
common public goals‖ which can either be explicitly stated or tacitly
understood . Second, in order to achieve and further its goals, a discourse
community must have ―mechanisms of intercommunication among its
members‖ such as meeting rooms or telecommunications technologies or
newsletters, etc. Third, membership within a discourse community depends on
individuals using these mechanisms to participate in the life of the discourse
community Fourth, ―a discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one
or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims‖. These genres
must be recognizable to and defined by members of a discourse community.
Five, ―in addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some
specific lexis‖ which can take the form of ―increasingly shared and specialized

terminology‖ such as abbreviations and acronyms Finally, ―a discourse

community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant
content and discoursal expertise‖ who can pass on knowledge of shared goals
and communicative purposes to new members.
Based on the definitions of genre above, it is obvious that communicative
purpose or goal is the factor that controls both Swales' (1990) and Bhatia's
(1993) definitions. The communicative purpose determines the shape or
structure of the text that is produced. Different purposes of writing will result
in different genres which are distinguished by particular text structures and
linguistic features.
On the other hand, Martin (1985) states that genres comprise a system
for accomplishing social purposes by verbal means and this recognition leads
to an analysis of discourse structure. Genres have beginnings, middles and ends
of various kinds. Verbal strategies as he mentioned "can be thought of in terms
of states through which one moves in order to realize a genre" (p.251).
2.5.7 Concepts of Genres in Discourse Communities
According to Latapy, Lopisteguy, and Dagorret (2004), today‘s genres
have to be tools that can make interaction within the communities and have to
be socially accepted. Latapy et al (2004) also offers a figure presenting the
model genres that are produced and operated to serve specific purposes of
some professional areas.
Fig (2.4) Part of Model of Genre

Source: Latapy, Lopisteguy, and Dagorret, (2004)

As can be seen, it may be a little confusion to fully understand the figure
4. However, at least, what should be solidly focused on are potentialities of
genres that must be rationally connected to the recognized types of specific
contexts used in activities performed by both the transmitters and receivers
within communicative organizations. On the other hand, genres are not only
readable texts or authentic materials, but genres have to be meaningfully
comprehended as any forms of interactive communicative artifacts.
Significantly, in addition, genres must contain situational structures of the
communication that are linked to the specific communicative meanings that
help the members to acquire goals of activities.
2.5.8. Communicative Purpose
 'A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which
share some set of communicative purposes.‘ (Swales 1990: 58). A clear
justification for this criterion is given in Swales (ibid) and Bex (1996): two
texts (one, for example, a critical article and the other, a parody of a critical
article, such as the famous spoof article by Allan Sokal that was published in
the journal Social Text), cannot be distinguished by presentation or language
alone, but they can be distinguished by their communicative purposes, which

will normally be recognized by expert members of the community (though not

by the unwitting editors of Social Text, who failed to spot the parody!). The
research article introduces, justifies and reports research, whereas the parody
imitates the research article to achieve some comic effect. In addition, the
research article has a more prescribed set of conventional forms, while the
nature of the parody genre is that it inhabits the forms of other genres, like a
hermit crab. Following this, Swales argues that letters, in general, do not form
a genre, as they may have similarity in form, but they do not have a
communicative purpose in common. Letters of complaint, on the other hand,
form a genre as they have the purpose of complaining in common. However,
Askerhave and Swales (2001) have recently challenged the notion that
communicative purpose can be granted a privileged status in the identification
of text genres. They problematize the notion of communicative purpose by
arguing that communicative purposes in any given communicative event are
often complex, and it is dangerously reductive to simplify purpose to a single
aim. Furthermore, they argue that communicative purpose in many texts is not
easily determined, although the text type itself may be recognizable. They
therefore propose that communicative purpose may be provisionally ascribed
in the early stages of analyzing a genre, but that the purposes of the texts must
be identified through ‗extensive text-in-context enquiry‘ (Askerhave and
Swales 2001: 209), after prolonged fieldwork.
2.5.9 Development of Genres of Communicative Purposes
 According to Yoshioka et al. (1999), genres have been constantly
evolved, both social and linguistic elements, due to the fact that situations and
structures of communities change as newly developed and created
technological devices pave the way for emergence of new means of
transporting communicative genres to members. When our world intelligently
evolves as time goes by, it is sure that some genres may be replaced another
genres, may be developed or be deleted as can be seen in figure 2 presented
below.
Fig (2.5) Process Cycle of Genre Use over Time

As can be seen, creating the most suitable genres for any discourse
communities mainly concern about how well the selected genres will
effectively and productively serve the specific purposes of discourse
communities and how chosen genres can be adjusted in order for them to
systematically synchronize with the change of communities‘ events.
2.5.01 The Purpose of the Communicative Purpose
The communicative purpose plays an important role in Bhatia‘s definition of
genre. Bhatia elaborates on the genre definition of John Swales (1981, 1986
and 1990) in the following way:
"Genre is a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of
communicative purpose(s) identified and mutually understood by the members
of the professional or academic community in which it regularly occurs. Most
often it is highly structured and conventionalized with constraints on allowable
contributions in terms of their intent, positioning, form and functional value.
These constraints, however, are often exploited by the expert members of the
discourse community to achieve private intentions within the framework of
socially re- cognized
Purposes Bhatia ( 1993)
And he goes on saying that:
"the genre is primarily characterized by the communicative purpose(s) that it is
intended to fulfill. This shared set of communicative purpose(s) shapes the
genre and gives it an internal structure. Any major change in the
communicative purpose(s) is likely to give us a different genre; however minor
changes or modifications help us distinguish sub-genres" (Ibid.).
In other words, a genre is defined by its conventionalized communicative
purposes shared by the discourse community of a given genre. Through these
conventions the discourse community influences the text-patterning.
Compared to other models of text analysis Bhatia has made an interesting
contribution to genre analysis by creating (with Swales) a model that goes far
beyond a lexico-grammatical description of language use in a given genre by
incorporating the text-external context, i.e. institutional and situational aspects,
according to the thick description concept.
Another interesting aspect in his approach to genre analysis is the status of
the communicative purposes. They have a socially communicative status which
means that it is socially recognized conventions rather than private intentions
that are structuring a given text-genre. So it is not the psychological and
personal views of people (writers) that are the determining factors. There might
be private intentions at work for the members of the discourse community, but
within the framework of the socially recognized purpose(s)
2.6 Genre Constellations
In an attempt to clearly define what genre should be taken to mean,
Swales (2004) used the term ‗genre constellations‘ as a cover term to include a
number of technical terms. As such, the term genre constellations works like a
box that contains an enormous range of technical genre-related terms. The most
common terms that are found in this box are genre hierarchies, genre sets,
genre chains, genre networks/systems, and subgenre.

2.6.1 Genre Hierarchies

The first technical term within genre constellations that Swales (2004)
defined is genre hierarchies. In each filed of science (e.g., chemistry, biology.)
there are many different forms of genre that junior and professional members
of those fields commonly use. In applied linguistics, for instance, such genres
as lectures, conference papers, poster presentations, journal articles, book
chapters and so on are the most common kinds of genre. In biology, on the
other hand, written genres often boil down into forms of writing that are called
monograph, flora, or treatment (Swales, 2004).
It is important to note that different fields of science (or professional
communities) do not give the same degree of importance to the same form of
genre. For example, applied linguists may consider a journal paper as the most
prestigious form of genre while biologists may assume that monographs are the
most important form of genre. These differences result in different
classifications for genres in terms of importance. This is what swales (2004)
refers to as genre hierarchies. Therefore the hierarchy (i.e., ordering of genres
in terms of importance) of genres in biology is quite different from that of
applied linguistics.
2.6.2 Genre Chains
In any field there are different communicative events. For example, one
communicative event in applied linguistics may be ‗giving a lecture in a
conference‘. From the start of this communicative event until when it comes to

1
an end, individuals involved in the event may have to use many different forms
of genre. For instance, these genres may include:
• Call for papers
• Submission of abstracts
• Evaluation of abstracts
• Submission of the full paper

• Converting the paper into a power point presentation • Presenting the slides •
Question-answering • Publishing the paper in conference proceedings
Each step requires its own genre and these genres go together to
accomplish the communicative event. Each one functions as a ring in a chain;
hence, the term ‗genre chains‘ (Swales, 2004). The concept of genre chains,
therefore, refers to how spoken and written texts cluster together in a given
social/communicative context. Fairclough (1992) believed that genre chains are
different genres which are regularly linked together and involve systematic
transformations from genre to genre. Genre chains link together social events
in different social practices, different countries, and different times.
2.6.3 Genre Sets
The totality of the different genres that one individual or members of a
given community (of professionals) engages in is referred to as genre sets.
Applied linguists, for example, may write books, publish paper, give lectures,
present posters, chair conferences, supervise theses, and so forth. Each one of
these activities is a genre in its own way, and may consist of its own genre
chains. Collectively, however, these genres are called genre sets (Swales,
2004). Swales also argues that in set, genres never stand in isolation. A genre
set is what a particular individual engages in, either or both receptively and
productively, as part of his or her normal occupational or institutional pract
2.6.4 Genre Network
 Genre networks is the technical term that describes the source(s) from
which each genre originates. For example, a book is not the brain child of its
author. Rather, the author uses many sources of information to compile his
book. Pieces of information from other genres go together in the form of
citations, quotations, plagiarism and so on to create a new genre (Swales,
2004). For example, a power point presentation, which is a genre consisting of
several slides, does not come out of the blue sky. It comes from the content of
another genre—paper, thesis, etc. Such a practice is very often referred to as
intertextuality (Bakhtin, 1986). Intertextuality refers to the kind of genre
creation where ―each utterance is filled with various kinds of responsive
reactions to other utterances of the given sphere of speech communication‖
(Bakhtin, 1986, p. 91). Fairclough (1992) distinguishes between two types of
intertextuality:
a. Manifest, where the source is overtly mentioned.
b. Constitutive, where the source is kept hidden.
The latter type is also called plagiarism or generic intertextuality Devitt,
(1991). According to Todorov (2000), genres often quite simply come ―. . .
from other genres. A new genre is always the transformation of an earlier one,
or of several: by inversion, by displacemt, by combination‖ (p. 15). Another
term used interchangeably by some scholars to refer to genre networks is
‗genre systems‘ (Todorov, 2000).
2.6.5 Subgenres
Within the same genre, there may be different sections. Each section is
called a subgenre. In a book, for example, there are three distinct section: the
front matter, the body, and the back matter. The front matter itself consists of
such pages as cataloguing, title page, preface, etc. The body, in turn, consists of
chapters which contain sections in their own right. The back matter, too,
consists of references, index, etc. Each of these sections is called a subgenre.
2.7 Genre in Applied Linguistics
Swales (1990) says that genre "is quite easily used to refer to a distinctive
category of discourse of any type, spoken or written, with or without literary
aspirations" (p.33). Hence, genre has been studied for applied purposes such as
in folklore studies, literary studies, linguistics and rhetoric.
2.7.1 Genre in Folklore Studies

The concept of genre has maintained a central position since the pioneering
work in the early nineteenth century on German myths, legends and folktales
by the Brothers Grimm. Ben-Amos (1976) considers genre as a classificatory
category whereby a story may be classified as a myth, legend or tale (p.34).

The value of classification is seen to lie in its use as a research tool for
categorizing and filing individual texts as an effective storage and retrieval
system. According to Swales (1990) genre is also seen as forms by another
major group of approaches where "one established tradition taking these forms
as permanent (p.34). Thus, legends and proverbs have not changed their
character over recorded history. The folklorists say that the classifying of
genres in academic English is seen as having some limited use "but as an
archival or typological convenience rather than as a discovery procedure, a
community whether social or discoursal will often view genre as means to ends
and a community's perceptions of how a text is generically interpreted is of
considerable importance to the analyst" (Swales, 1990, p.35-36).
2.7.2 Genre in Literary Studies

Genre in literary studies is important because an appreciation of genre is

necessary for an appreciation of literature. Genre is necessary because it
provides an interpretive and evaluative frame for a work of art. Furthermore
that frame is as much textual as it is cultural, historical, socioeconomic or
political. The value of genre to the writer in the contemporary study of literary
genres is stressed by Fowler (1982) as:
"Far from inhibiting the author, genres are a positive support. They offer
room, one might say, for him to write in - a habitation of mediated definiteness;
a proportional neutral space; a literary matrix by which to order his experience
during composition.. . Instead of a daunting void, they extend a provocatively
definite invitation. The writer is invited to match experience and form in a
specific yet undetermined way. Accepting the invitation does not solve his
problems of expression.. . But it gives him access to formal ideas as to how a
variety of constituents might suitably be combined. Genre also offers a
challenge by provoking a free spirit to transcend the limitations of previous
examples. (p. 32). In addition, Hawkes (1977) states that "a world without a
theory of genre is unthinkable, and untrue to experience" (p. 101). Therefore,
knowledge of genre in literary studies is crucial as it provides a communication
system for the writers and readers to critic in reading and interpreting.
2.7.3 Genre in Linguistics

In linguistics, genre deals with aspects of language below the level of

texts. Saville-Troike (1982) uses genre to refer to the type of communicative
event and offers jokes, stories, lectures, greetings and conversations as
examples (p.34). In addition, she adds that it is interesting to discover in a
community in which communications are generically typed and labels used as
these will reveal elements of verbal behavior which the community considers
sociolinguistically salient. According to Martin (1985), genres are realized
through registers and registers in turn are realized through language. He
mentions genres as:
"Genres are how things get done, when language is used to accomplish them.
They range from literary to far from literary forms: poems, narratives,
expositions, lectures, seminars, recipes, manuals, appointment making, service
encounters, news broadcasts and so on. The term genre is used here to embrace
each of the linguistically realized activity types which comprise so much of our
culture".(Martin, 1985:250)
 Couture (1986) provides a clarification of the use of register and genre
within systemic linguistics. He says that in linguistics, registers impose
constraints at the linguistics levels of vocabulary and syntax whereas genre
constraints operate at the level of discourse structure and "can only be realized
in completed texts or texts that can be projected as complete, for a genre does
more than specify kinds of codes extant in a group of related texts; it specifies
conditions for beginning, continuing and ending a text" (p.82). Thus, it can be
said that in linguistics, genres are emphasized as types of goal-directed
communicative events, having schematic structures and disassociated from
registers or styles.

2.7.4 Genre in Rhetoric

Genre in rhetoric is based on Kinneavy's Theory of Discourse: The Aims of

Discourse (1971). Kinneavy classifies discourse into four main types that are
expressive, persuasive, literary and referential. A discourse will be classified
into a particular type according to which component in the communication
process receives the primary focus. If the focus is on the sender, the discourse
is expressive whereas if on the receiver then it is persuasive. If the focus is on
the linguistic form or code, it will be literary and if the aim is to represent the
realities of the world, it will be referential. Swales (1990) states that genre
analysts among the rhetoricians have made a substantial contribution to an
evolving concept of genre suitable for the applied purposes and he further
added that "they provide a valuable historical context for the study of genre
movements and they finally destroy the myth that genre analysis necessarily
has something to do with constructing a classification of genres" (p.44).
From the explanations above, it is clear that genre is used vastly in applied
linguistics in order to achieve the communicative purposes in the respective
field of studies as Bhatia (1993) believes that "communicative purpose is the
most important factor in genre identification" (p.43).
2.7.5 Characteristics of Genre
Swales in his famous book of genre studies entitled 'Genre Analysis:
English in Academic and Research Settings' (1990) mentions the
characteristics of genre:
I. A genre is a class of communicative events.
ii. The principal criteria1 feature that turns a collection of communication
events into a genre is some shared set of communicative purposes.
iii. Exemplars or instances of genres vary in their prototypicality.
iv. The rationale behind a genre establishes constraints on allowable
contributions in terms of their content, positioning and form.

v. A discourse community's nomenclature for genres is an important source of

insight. (Swales, 1990).
2.8 Genre Analysis
Genres consist of the demands to which their users rhetorically respond
so that the genre function does not simply precede independently of us but is
rather something we reproduce as we function within it'. ( Bawarshi, 2010) '
Academic genres have regular repeatable patterns of organization and
language' Dudly- Evans ( 1998) informs. Corpus linguistics not only provides
opportunities to investigate the stylistic and linguistic preferences of individual
but also helps in exploring the ways in which genres favor some words,
structure and patterns over others. ' Strong linguistics associations in others
register,' Biber ( 1988) points out. Whereas purposes pf genres are recognized
by the expert members of the parent discourse community, and thereby
constitute the rationale for the genre' Lewin,( 2001).
2.8.1 Definitions of Genre Analysis
 Swales (1981) defines genre analysis as "a system of analysis that can
reveal a system of organizing a genre" (p.1). On the other hand, Dudley-Evans
(1994) provides a good introduction to genre analysis. He suggests that English
for Academic Purposes (EAP) needs a system of linguistics analysis that
demonstrates differences between texts and text types. Dudley-Evans (1994)
also states "genre analysis may be used as a classificatory system, revealing the
essential differences between both the genre studied and other genres and also
between the various sub-genres.
Besides that, Robinson (1991) defines genre analysis as an approach that
looks at the operation of language within a complete text, seeing the text as a
system of features and choices (p.25). The selection is made according to the
communicative purpose of the text. In addition, Bhatia (1993) emphasizes the
communicative purpose of a particular genre as vital in genre analysis (p.43).
He says that genre analysis is used to determine whether communicative
purposes recognized by the members of a particular community are the
motivating factor in shaping the structure of a text enabling us to recognize
texts with similar communicative purpose as belonging to a particular class.
Genre analysis is also related to discourse analysis as it gives an explanation
for the convention of genre construction and interpretation.
2.8.2 Genre as Conventionalized Social Action
A fundamental element of the current conceptualization of genre is that it is
about social action; genres are ‗how things get done, when language is used to
accomplish them‘ (Martin 1985:250). A genre, following Miller (1994),
develops from the repeated performance of similar communicative events. As
the events are repeated, conventions become established. This
conventionalization serves at least two purposes:
1. to regulate social interaction, and
2. to simplify the communicative event by setting up expectations of how the
event will proceed, and by providing the actors with ready-made forms.
 In the case of activities such as the advancement of new knowledge claims
within the physical sciences the conventionalization of the communication of
these claims assists in the speed at which knowledge can be manufactured, as
Bazerman (1984) has observed. 'Genres are dynamic rhetorical forms that are
developed from actors‘ responses to recurrent situations and that serve to
stabilize experience and give it coherence and meaning.‘ (Berkenkotter and
Huckin 1993:) The conventions of a genre are not fixed, but change over time,
and they also have varying degrees of rigidity. Bhatia‘s (1993) study of Indian
and British law texts revealed that, while the latter showed some signs of
evolution, the former was rigidly conventionalized and had changed little over
the decades. On the other hand, Dudley-Evans and Henderson‘s (1990)
historical study of Economics research articles over the last 90 years, and
Bazerman‘s (1984) study of spectroscopy articles, also over a period of 90
years, revealed that these genres have altered considerably over the years as the
readership, the research practices, and the uses of the knowledge changed.
Genres are thus based in the societies that develop them and need to be
learned by individuals who aspire to be accepted into the society, or at least to
the extent that they can engage with the community. Furthermore, for different
genres there are different degrees of tolerance of variation within the genre. For
the novice, learning a new genre involves learning what it is acceptable to say,
and which rhetorical options it is possible to consider in the circumstances.
Freadman (1994) uses the metaphor of the rules of etiquette to describe the
rules of a genre, implying that the rules are not immutable, and that they
depend on social norms.
2.8.3 Genre Analysis as Social Reality
Genre is a social action ( Miller,1984). A text does not possess meaning
on its own. Geertz ( 1973) admits genre as a social reality, including the
linguistic behavior of any speech community, academic or professional. Bhatia
( 1993) regards it as 'on going process of negation in the context of issues like
social role, group purposes, professional and organizational preferences and
prerequisites and even cultural constrains'. Similarly Kress ( 1993) emphasizes
that the characteristic features and structure of social occasions / situations and
purpose and goals of the participants made a great effect on the form of texts.
Eggins (1994) claim that different genres are different ways of using language.
The purpose is to achieve different culturally established tasks.
Text of different genres are the sites to achieve these different purposes in the
text. Wennerstrom ( 2003) supports this view by explaining, 'Each genre has
certain conventional linguistic and rhetorical features that reflect the social
motivations and cultural ideologies of the community that produce them'.
Although she acknowledge the preservative social function of the genres, she
admits incorporate new values, social studies and linguistic analysis both help
in the interpretation of the use of the language in professional and academic
contexts.

2.8.4 Purpose of Genre Analysis

According to Bhatia (1993), genre analysis "is a very powerful system of
analysis that allows a far thicker description of functional varieties of written
and spoken language than that offered by any other system of analysis in
existing literature" (p.39). Thick description according to Geertz (1983) is a
result of an ethnographic studies which in the field of anthropology. Using
thick description, as postulated by Geertz (1983) would expand the scope of
genre analysis to include the description as well as the explanation of the
discourse in which genre has its root (Bhatia, 1993, p. 16). This means that
genre analysis is an insight and detailed description that can be used to give
an explanation for the convention of genre construction and interpretation
Apart from that, genre analysis aims to provide a means of classifying a
particular genre or sub-genre (Dudley-Evans,1990, ). For instance, a technical
report genre can be classified into several subgenres such as research report,
progress report, laboratory report, feasibility report, recommendations report
and site report. If one can master the conventions of a genre properly, thus, one
could be able to write an acceptable report about almost any research
project that may be carried out.
2.8.5 Aspects Considered in Genre Analysis
There are a few aspects that need to be considered in genre analysis.
Bhatia (1 993) in his study on professional and academic writing has linked
genre analysis with three aspects that are linguistics, sociology and psychology
(p. 17). The linguistics aspect refers to texts analysis "with any above average
incidence or even a lack of certain linguistics features" (Bhatia, 1993, p. 17).
On the other hand, the sociological aspect allows the analyst to understand how
a particular genre defines, organizes and communicates with social context.
The psychological aspect then emphasizes the tactical choices or strategies that

are adopted by writers in order to make their writing more effective and
successful.
Meanwhile, Swales emphasizes only on linguistics and sociological aspects
in genre analysis and underplays the psychological aspects. As mentioned
earlier, Bhatia (1993) considers the psychological aspect important as it offers
an explanation for the tactics or strategies used in genre construction (p.16).
2.8.6 The Definition of 'Move'
Swales (2004, p. 29) defines ‗Move‘ in genre analysis as ―a discoursal or
rhetorical unit that performs a coherent communicative function in a written or
spoken discourse‖. According to him (2004, p. 20), ―a 'Move', at one extreme,
can be realized by a clause; at the other by several sentences. It is a functional
not a formal unit‖. Utilizing Swales‘ (1990) ideas and of Connor (1996),
Ding‘s definition of 'Move' (2007, pp. 369-370) in EAP writing genres can be
interpreted as ‗a functional unit in a text, being related to the overall task,
which is used to identify the textual regularities in certain genres of writing‘.
According to him, moves vary in length ranging from several paragraphs to at
1
least one proposition. Nwogu, on the other hand, defines Move as ―a text
segment made up of a bundle of linguistic features (lexical meaning,
propositional meanings, illocutionary forces, etc.) which give the segment a
uniform orientation and signal the content of discourse in it‖ (1997, p.
122).These definitions indicate that the unit of move has the advantage of
capturing the function of a particular part of the text under examination. In
other words, it enables the categorization of chunks of text in terms of their
particular communicative intentions (Ruiying & Allison, 2003).
2.8.7 Move Analysis Theories
There are several scholars have investigated textual organization and
specific genre like Swales (1990), Salager-Meyer (1992), Bhatia (1993, 1996),
Kaplan (1994) and dos Santos (1996). Amongst these scholars, Swales made
an important contribution to genre theory by suggesting that genres are located
within their discourse communities. According to Swales discourse
communities develop, use, and modify written genres in response to the
recurrent rhetorical situations they face. These groups communicate their
norms and values and conduct their affairs through the appropriation and use of
particular forms of discourse. Each genre, according to Swales, is structured
into moves. A move is evidence of a peculiarity in a precise part of the text.
Swales (1990), in his Create a Research Space – CARS – model for article
introduction, points out three main moves that can be sketched out as (Adapted
from Swales 1990: 141)
Fig (2.6) CARS Model for Article Introductions (Swales, 1990)

Move 1 Establishing a territory

Step1 Claiming Centrality

and / or
Step2 Making topic generalization(s)
and / or

Step3 Reviewing items of previous research

Move 2 Establishing a niche

Step 1A Counter-claiming
or
Besides, he investigates the textual structure of research articles and comes up
with the Introduction, Method, Research and Discussion ─ IMRD ─ structure.
He claims that all the research papers are organized to this well-defined
scheme. Unfortunately, theory is often quite distant from reality. Another
scholar, dos Santos, has focused his interested on a niche of the academic
genre: the researcher paper abstract. In particular he states that members of any
discourse community communicate their contribution to the field by publishing
relevant research papers. He claims that (1996: 483): ―abstracts are an
important site for the visibility of scientific endeavor in so far as it makes the
research widely known, more discussed, and more influential‖.
Dos Santos, in his research paper, has investigated the structure of 94 research
article abstracts from linguistics starting his analysis by skimming each abstract
focusing on the overall organization and trying to relate each sentence to
Swales‘ IMRD structure. The move has been chosen as the unit of analysis ―a
move has to be considered as a genre stage which has a particular, minor
communicative purpose to fulfill, which in turn serves the major
communicative purpose of the genre‖. (Dos Santos 1996: 485). Dos Santos, in
his analysis, came up with five moves:
• Move 1– situating the research;
• Move 2 – presenting the research;
• Move 3 – describing the methodology;
• Move 4 – summarizing the results;
• Move 5 – discussing the results.
Move 1 ─ Situating the research Submove
l A - Stating current knowledge
and/or
Submove 1 B - Citing previous research
and/or
Submove 1 C - Extended previous research
and/or
Submove 2- Stating a problem
Move 2 ─ Presenting the research
Submove l A - Indicating main features
and/or
Submove 1 B - Indicating main purpose
and/or
Submove 2- Hypothesis raising
Move 3 ─ Describing the methodology
Move 4 ─ Summarizing the results
Move 5─ Discussing the research
Submove 1 - Drawing conclusions and/or
Submove 2 - Giving recommendations
Table 2.3 Dos Santos’ pattern for research article abstracts
The initial move – situating the research – locates the research in terms
of research field and topic. It provides orientation to the reader. The obligatory
element in move 1 is submove 1A – stating current knowledge – because
authors need to identify a precise field by stating a given topic. Sometimes, a
recurrent device is to refer to previous researches in that field, this is the
purpose of the submove 1B – citing previous research. In a similar way,
submove 1C – extending previous research – highlights the authors‘ choice to
proceed his/her research with current research trend. On the other hand, a more
challenging aspect is carried on in submove 2 – stating a problem – where
current knowledge is evaluated and usually it is shown that previous research
studies in a precise field have not been successful yet or are still incomplete.
This submove typically indicates a new direction for research, raising the
concept of newsworthiness.
The second move – presenting the research – in a certain way, justifies the
paper itself, providing its basic features and its main purpose. The second move
can take a descriptive or a purposive form. In detail, submove 1 A – indicating
main features – predictably enough, explains the structure of the article. It is
worth mentioning that in this submove, the research article abstract may be
considered as an integral part of the research paper according to the recurrent
expression this paper or this article but on the other hand, it may be considered
as standing apart, according to the other pattern the paper or the study.
Submove 1B – indicating main purpose – explains the purpose of the paper. In
submove 2 – hypothesis raising authors highlight their research hypotheses or
questions. Due to the grammatical nature of the term HYPOTHESIS, in this
category, use of modals is quite frequent.
In move 3 – describing the methodology, dos Santos (1996: 491) suggests that
―when the abstract writer has completed the introduction of his/her research
s/he then needs to offer some description of how the research was actually
carried out.‖ This move indicates materials, subjects, instruments, all those
elements necessary to perform a different type of experimentation. Very often,
move 3 merges with move 2 either partially or totally according to the
phenomenon of move embedding. Thus, moves 2 and 3 may occur within the
same sentence boundary, but on the other hand, the order is reversed and move
3 may occur before move 2.
A possible explanation for such embedding and the reversed syntactical
sequence of the initial moves may be that the author feels s/he has to compete
for the attention of a busy readership, and that if s/he can not attract the interest
of his/her reader in the first statement(s), that his/her case may be lost. (Dos
Santos 1996: 492).
Move 4 – summarizing results – quite predictably, summarizes briefly the
main findings of the research paper. It is worth mentioning that evaluation is
very likely to appear in this category mostly because the author feels the
urgency to highlight that his research was entirely worth reading. Besides,
results are conveyed in a discoursal way very often rather than in a numerical
more ‗statistical way‘, in order to avoid turning-off a less statistically-
proficient readership.
The last move is move 5 ─ discussing the research. This move is strictly
related to the reported findings and generally has two submoves. Submove 1 –
drawing conclusion, answers the question ‗what do the findings mean?‘
Usually, this submove presents verbs like suggest, interpret or provide. On the
other hand, the submove 2 - giving recommendations briefly outlines
suggestions for further studies or investigations. Besides, dos Santos highlights
that sometimes the author may leave the reader guessing instead of providing
him with hard facts.
In the end, dos Santos‘ five-move scheme is a more articulated structure
wherein moves 2 and 3, the research and the methodology, are essentially
obligatory. In particular, he highlights how different moves serve to generate
different purposes and require different linguistic resources. It is worth
mentioning that the analysis carried by dos Santos raises several issues. First,
apparently there is a mismatch between recommendation of technical writing
and actual practice. Secondly, he claims (1996: 497):
[...] by providing research writers with a pattern that will help them to concisely organize
and present their study, the proposed framework may force them to be more selective and
straightforward in their thinking and writing, thus helping such scholars enter the
mainstream of research debate.
 A third issue concerns the genre-specific conventions in abstracts. In
particular, move balance, move embedding and move reversal. Move balance
is related to the apparent need of relevance that the writer has towards the
length of each move; it works according to this equation: the longer the move
is the more visible it will be. Move embedding as well as move reversal can be
explained in terms of the author's need to give cohesion to the text. ―By
embedding moves within one another [...] authors avoid the creation of a text
whose sentences read like checklists‖. (dos Santos 1996: 497).
After careful evaluation of the framework presented by these two
authors, a combined approach of the two has been taken into account and these
are the moves used for the investigation in the present study:
1. Introducing topic;
2. Stating a gap in knowledge;
3. Stating the purpose of the study;
4. Introducing methods;

5. Claiming findings;
6.Concluding remarks.
In the methodology section these categories will be explained further and
applied to the investigated files of the corpus.
In sum, in this thesis, the characteristics of a very narrow genre, that of
scientific abstracts, are explored on four different levels: textual, lexical,
syntactic and discourse. In particular since lexis and grammar are closely
related it is better to narrow down these aspects to three. Then, crucial aspects
are: textual (move analysis), lexical (collocational analysis) and discourse (the
phenomenon of evaluation). The hypothesis to test is whether is possible to
find patterns, which could be used at a later stage to find similarities in the
distribution of evaluation across the text in different moves.
2.8.8 Analyzing Unfamiliar Genre
 Genres offer a systematic way of looking at the linguistic structure of
various types of communication, provide a window for understanding
and critiquing the cultural values of community that produced them and
show specific goals can be appropriately achieved within that
community' Wennerstrom describes. In order to take a comprehensive
investigation of any genre, Bhatia (1993:22) recommends the following
steps:
2.8.8.1 Placing the Given Genre Text in a Situational Context.
This can be done by placing the genre – text intuitively in a situational
context, getting the textual clues and by the encyclopedic knowledge of
world one has.
2.8.8.2 Surveying Exiting Literature. This includes:
a. linguistic analysis of the genre or similar genres.
b. Tools, methods, or theories of linguistic/ discourse/ genre analysis.
c. Practitioner advice, relevant guide book and manuals etc.
d. Discussions of social structure, interactions, history, beliefs, goals etc. of
professional or academic community which uses the genre in questions.
2.8.8.3 Refining the Situational / Contextual Analysis
The situational/ contextual framework can be refined by:
a. Defining the speakers / writer of the text, the audience, their relationship
and their goals.
b. Defining the historical, socio-cultural, philosophical and/ or occupational
placement of the community in which the discourse take place.
c. Identifying the topic/subject extra-textual reality which the text is trying
to represent.
After refining the situational/ contextual analysis according to the above
principles, the next step is the selection of corpus.
2.8.8.4 Selecting Corpus
One should have a reasonable criterion for the adequate selection of corpus
such as:
 a. A long single text.
b. A few randomly chosen sample with easily identical indicators.
2.8.8.5 Studying the Institutional Context
The institutional context involves the system and/ or methodology in which the
genre is used and the rules and conventions ( linguistic, social, cultural,
academic, professional) that govern the use of language in this setting. This
becomes more important if data is collected from a particular organization
having organizational constraints and requirements for genre construction.
2.8.8.6 Levels of Linguistic Analysis
‖ is divided into three sub-levels, the explanatory force of which increase with
each sub-level.
a. ―Analysis of lexico-grammatical features‖ is basically a statistical analysis
of frequency of syntactic properties that provides empirical evidence to
confirm or disprove intuitive statements that one makes. However, it only
describes how genres are written, it does not explain why they are written the
way they are.

b. ―Analysis of text-patterning or textualization‖ deals with the tactical aspect

of genre by focusing on how certain linguistic features are used in different
genres in order to achieve different things.

c. ―Structural interpretation of the text- genre‖ deals with the cognitive aspect
and aims at the identification of the genre-text‘s cognitive move-structure
(Swales,1990): each move serves a typical communicative intention which is
always subservient to the overall communicative purpose of the genre.

2.8.8.7 Specialist Information

Selinker ( 1979) is very realistic that admitted the problem and raised the
question: 'What are we to do as ESL teachers in the normal situation where we
ourselves just do not understand the English language scientific textbooks and
professional articles our students are required to grapple with?' He presents the
solution in the form of consultation with a specific informant, which was
extensively used by Bhatia(1993) who later listed three characteristic of a good
specialist informant:
a. Be a competent and trained specialist member of the disciplinary culture
in which the genre under study is routinely used.
b. Should be open about use of specialist language and various aspects of
genre under study.
c. Should be able to explain how expert member of the disciplinary culture
exploit language in order to accomplish their goals.
2.9 Research Article Abstracts
In the academic discourse community, researchers feel the urgency to
communicate new knowledge to the other members of their community. This
communication can take place through various channels; usually these are:
presentation of papers at conferences, participation in seminars and publishing
in international journals of certain relevance. The last is undoubtedly the major
channel of communication/visibility for the researcher, thus publishing a
research article (RA) is an important step and has an enormous impact on
academic communication. Swales (1990:7), whose work is the most fully
developed notion of discourse community as a construct which provides insight
into the ‗socio-rhetorical‘ activities of groups, claims that: ―publication can be
seen as documentary evidence that the writer qualifies for membership in the
target discourse community‖.
The Research Article abstract (RAA) is a particular genre which has always
aroused great interest due to the important role it fulfils for the scientific
community. As regards its function, Bhatia (1993: 78) defines RAA as ―a
description or factual summary of the much longer report, and is meant to give
the reader an exact and concise knowledge of the full article‖.
On the other hand, Salager-Meyer (1992) and dos Santos (1996), among others,
regard RAAs as independent genres with the explicit function of providing
peculiar information about the content of the associated paper, thus indicating
clearly to readers whether or not the full text merits their further attention.
These authors put more emphasis on the evaluative aspects of the genre itself.
Other authors (e.g. Kaplan et al. 1994) still put their emphasis on the
summarizing function of abstracts. Kaplan claims that (1994: 125):
"The abstract is characterized by the use of the past tense, the third person,
passive, and the non-use of negatives [….] It is written in tightly worded
sentences, which avoid repetition, meaningless expressions, superlatives,
adjectives, illustrations, preliminaries, descriptive details, examples, footnotes.
In short it eliminates the redundancy which the skilled reader counts on finding
in written language and which usually facilitates comprehension".
It is interesting to notice that at a superficial glance this is not entirely true
and this aspect will be explained further in the ‗Discussion‘ section. The
crucial aspect to bear in mind is as Martin-Martin (2004: 5) suggests that:
In the process of publishing the results of research, abstracts constitute, after
the paper's title, the readers' first encounter with the text, and it is here that
writers have to show they have mastered the conventions (the textual
organization and other rhetorical practices) that are favored by the members of
a specific disciplinary group.
Similarly, Hyland (2000: 63) states the case strongly ―[abstracts can be seen
as] a rich source of interactional features that allow us to see how individuals
work to position themselves within their communities‖. Research article
abstracts or research paper abstracts or simply abstracts play various roles: first
they help the reader to ascertain the paper‘s purpose, then they provide the
reader with a preliminary overview of the research and, in some cases, if the
reader has already read the paper, the abstract helps to remember the basic
content. Therefore as dos Santos (1996: 483) suggests: ―abstract are an
important site for the visibility of scientific endeavor in so far as it makes the
research widely known, more discussed, and more influential‖.
Two main types of abstracts can be differentiated, on the basis of their
function and structure, these are: indicative and informative abstracts. The
former contain descriptive information on purpose, scope, or methodology, but
no details of results or conclusions. On the other hand, the latter not only
11
contain information on purpose, scope and methodology, but also results and
conclusions crucial for the value of the entire research. Furthermore, a clear
distinction can also be drawn between conference abstracts and research paper
abstracts, as they differ in terms of both function and audience.
Other studies such as those by Myers (1990) have shown that before a
research paper is published a great deal of negotiation on the precise version of
the work to be published goes on between authors, editors and referees. As a
matter of fact, researchers must argue their case in front of the bar of the
scientific community before their works can be taken up and accepted.
Myers (1990) argues that tension inherent in the publication of any scientific
article makes negotiation between the writer and the potential audience
essential. On the one hand, the researcher tries to show that s/he deserves credit
for something new, while, on the other, the editors try to relate the claim to the
body of knowledge produced by the community. Thus the focus may shift from
the individual researcher to the entire research community. However, the claim
must be both new and significant to be worth publishing; the writer cannot
please the audience just by being self-effacing. Abstracts have been also
discussed and analyzed in that literature aimed at helping authors with writing
technical papers.
As already mentioned, Swales (1990) considers the process of writing an
abstract to be an obligatory step for gaining entry into the scientific community
via a demonstration of increasing mastery of the academic jargon.
Sometimes scientists revise and modify their manuscripts considerably to
get them published. The urgency to get published leads the author in the choice
of writing the abstract and subsequently the revising process.
Writing an abstract is not a trivial task at all, given that it does not allow
redundancies and forces the writers to use a lot of compound words.
However, the conventions of the genre (RAA) are strong enough to
override whatever differences there might be in the general discourse
conventions of the language concerned. It is the genre that leads language
choices. As we have already mentioned in the previous section, in RAA the
1
pattern follows some sort of variation of the Introduction- Methods-Results-
Discussion structure, whether these headings are explicitly given or not.
2.9.1 Abstracts as a Genre
Abstracts play an important role in scientific discourse. They represent a
condensed version of the paper they report on, and serve the purpose of rapidly
describing the aims, the methods and the results of the study they summarize.
The importance of scientific abstracts in research reporting can be explained by
the enormous amount of scientific literature being published daily. Abstracts
have the key function of helping the reader to decide on the relevance of the
paper for his/her interests, so that it can be deemed worth reading, scanning or
discarding. At other times, when the original work is unaccessible, abstracts
may constitute the only source of reliable and accurate information. Abstracts
can be used with different functions; it is thus possible to talk about subgenres
of abstracts. It has become common practice for journals to require an abstract
preceding the body text of the paper. In this case, authors have to comply with
certain rules, for example with regard to the number of words, lines or other
stylistic features of the abstract. More rarely, abstracts precede papers
published in volumes. The abstracts preceding journal and volume papers may
be used in electronic abstracting journals, which are probably scientists‘ easiest
way of accessing information regarding what is published in their field of
interest. Electronic abstracting journals often have their own procedures for
abstracting scientific papers and books, which may differ from the practices
used by the authors. Abstracts are also often submitted in response to a ‗call for
papers‘ for a conference or an invited volume. Finally, they can be written for
scientific reviews in specific sections of journals
Abstracts can vary in length, largely depending on the purpose for
which they were written. For example, abstracts written in response to a call
for papers are generally more lengthy and detailed than abstracts preceding a
paper reporting on a study. It is also not uncommon for authors to be requested

1
two different versions of the same abstract, a longer one to be placed in a
booklet of abstracts for congress participants and a shorter one to
precede the text of the paper, or vice versa
2.9.2 Definition of Abstract
Abstract is a recognizable genre and has emerged as a result of well-
defined and mutually-understood communicative purpose that most abstracts
fulfill, irrespective of the subject-discipline they serve. This evident from the
advice that various research institutions, organizations, or publishing houses
give to the writers of abstracts. The American National Standards Institute
(ANSI ) (cited in Swales 1990) defines abstract as follows:
An abstract is an abbreviate, accurate representation of the contents of a
document, preferably prepared by its author(s)f for publication with it ( ANSI,
1979)
An abstract, as commonly understood, is a description or factual summary of
the much longer report, and is meant to give the reader an exact and concise
knowledge of the full article. It contains information on the following aspects
of the research that it describes:
1. What the author did.
2. How the author did it
3. What the author found
4. What the author concluded
In order to find out how information on all these four aspects research is put
together in a concise manner let us consider a typical example of following
abstract.
Fig ( 2.7) Bhatia Model Abstract

This paper sets out to examine two findings reported in the literature: one that
during the one- word stage a child's word productions are highly phonetically
variable, and two, that the one word stage is qualitatively distinct from
subsequent phonological development.(1)The complete set of word forms
produced by a child at the one-word stage were collected and analyzed both
cross-sectionally (month by month) and longitudinally looking for change over
time).(2) It Was found that the data showed very little variability, and that
1
phonological development during the period studied was qualitatively
continuous with subsequent development.(3)It is suggested that the
phonologically principled development of this child's first words is related to his
 Figure ( 7.2 ) Atypical example of an abstract ( Bhatia, 1993)
This example seems to answer the four questions but using the following

Introducing Purpose: This move gives a precise indication of the author's

intention, thesis or hypothesis which forms the basis of the research being
reported. It may also include the goals or objectives of research or the problem
that the author wishes to tackle.
1. Describing Methodology: In this move the author gives a good
indication of the experimental design, including information on the data,
procedures or method(s) used and, if necessary, the scope of research
being reported.
2. Summarizing results: This is an important aspect of abstracts where the
author mentions his observations and findings and also suggests
solutions to the problem, if any, posed in the first move.
3. Presenting Conclusions: This move is meant to interpret results and
draw inference. It typically includes some indication and application of
the present findings

2.10 Relevant Previous Studies

Many studies have been carried out to deal with genre analysis on
research article abstracts.
Hassan(2010) has tackle study on "Application of Genre Analysis To
developing Reading materials for ESP". The aim of this study is device a
genre-approach to develop ESP reading materials. The study states a general
claim that a genre approach is best to produce such material. The potentials of
this approach outlined in the study was its socio-cultural orientation. Because
in analyzing texts, this approach relies on established elements which are the
discourse community and communicative purposes. This would lead to

1
spotting socio-cultural meanings in texts in addition to identifying their schema
in a way related to this meaning. This would fit with reality that ESP texts are
constrained in their meaning by socio-cultural context in which they produced.
ESP learners who are new to the texts' genres are likely miss the
communicative purpose of the texts which is genre-bound. So, using genres as
a method of language analysis would yield a reliable mechanism for spotting
genre-bound meaning because it means to closely relate patterns of language
analysis for learners' purposes for learning. Beside, a genre- based approach
for ESP learners will lead to prepare access to information in subject specific
texts and will constitute a good basis for relevant reading texts. The study
proceeds on to give a detailed description for the procedure of devising tasks
with intention of helping readers by enabling them to process and acquire
genre- bound meaning in texts. All the tasks have been based on meaning areas
spotted in authentic texts analyzed by genre.
This study came to some main findings the most important of which is:

1. the consistency and efficiency of the genre approach in devising the

tasks, in addition,
2. the genre approach produces on objective orientation at the part of the
material designer instead of relying on intuition and personal
speculations in devising ESP material.
Lakic (2010) has analyzed atopic on :"Research Article Introductions in
Economic". This paper deals with genre analysis of research article (RA)
introductions in economics. The starting point for the analysis was Swales‘
model from 1999. The analysis shows that, despite similarities with Swales‘
model, there are differences in economics RA introductions arising from the
characteristics of the discipline. One of the crucial features of the analyzed
introductions is the division into four moves, rather than three proposed by
Swales. There is a need to introduce a separate move ‘Summarizing previous
research‗ as an indispensable move in this type of text in economics. In
1
addition, ‘Summary review‗ is seen as a third possibility in referring to
previous research. Other moves seem to contain more steps than those in
Swales‘ model. However, the analysis has shown that Swales‘ model is an
important tool in analyzing RA introductions, but that additional research is
necessary to reveal their specific characteristics in different disciplines
Ren & Li ( 2010) "Comparison Study on the Rhetorical Moves of Abstracts
in Published Research Articles and Master‘s Foreign-language Theses"
This study compares the practices of student writers and expert writers in
fulfilling the rhetorical goal of abstracts to shed light on the degree to which
students appropriate to the practices of their own discipline and to provide
relevant ESP materials for both teachers and student writers of applied
linguistics, especially those who write in English as a foreign language.
Ren and Li have tackled the topic by comparing the rhetorical moves in
the abstracts of Chinese Master‘s English theses and published RAs in applied
linguistics. This study examines the different practices of student writers and
expert writers in fulfilling the rhetorical goal of their abstracts in this
discipline. Though all the five basic rhetorical moves in developing abstracts
are commonly found in the abstracts written by both experts and student
writers, experts tend to be more selective in their use of the moves to best
promote their papers, while student writers tend to include all the moves to be
more informative of the content and structure of their theses. Some students
writers even include ―limitation‖ in their abstracts without mentioning the
strength, which might undermine the value of their work. This is in contrast to
expert writers‘ effort in promoting their paper in their abstract by including the
―conclusion‖ move more often. Students‘ lengthy ―introduction‖ move and
over brief ―product‖ move, in contrast to expert writers‘ balanced use of these
two moves, reveals their insecurity as novice writers. Students‘ repetition in
their abstracts indicates their unawareness of the value of space in academic
writing. Though these differences might be partly due to the genre difference
between RA abstracts and thesis abstracts, they can still reflect students‘
incomplete appropriation to disciplinary practices.
1
This Study has important Findings
1. teachers should help the students to construct an impression of a writer
who has a legitimate place in the discourse community, by raising students‘
awareness of the different practices between student writers and expert writers.
2. Teachers should guide the students to select the most appropriate rhetorical
moves to fulfill their rhetorical goals.
Due to the limited data of this study, the findings in the study need to be
tested in larger scale studies.
Jalilifar (2010) "Research Articles Introductions: Sub-disciplinary Variations
in Applied Linguistics"
The present study aimed to investigate the generic organization of
research article introductions in local Iranian and international journals in
English for Specific Purposes, English for General Purposes, and Discourse
Analysis. Overall, 120 published articles were selected from the established
journals representing the above subdisciplines. Each subdiscipline was
represented by 20 local and 20 international articles. Following Swales‘ (2004)
new Create A Research Space (CARS) model, the researcher analyzed the
articles for their specific generic patterns. Findings demonstrated that:
1. despite some consistency in the international corpus, there emerged marked
differences in utilizing second and third moves in international articles. Also,
intra-subdisciplinary analysis revealed divergent generic organization in EGP
and DA in local and international data.
2. Results suggested insufficient awareness of some Iranian RA writers
regarding the generic structure of introduction.
The findings of the study have implications for RA writers to improve
their RA introductions.The findings of present study have pointed to the
existence of variations across the introductions of articles in ESP, DA, and
EGP published internationally; it also yields new insights into the phenomenon
of intra-subdisciplinary variation in the structural organization of RA
introductions. This study has implications not just for genre theory but also for
pedagogy.
1
 Mingwei &Yajun (2010) tackled atopic on Acknowledgements as a genre
is widely used in academic discourse to express gratitude toward help from and
contribution of an individual or an institution, thus establishing a favorable
academic and social reputation. With reference to the pioneering studies of
Hyland‘s (2004)and Hyland & Tse (2004) on dissertation acknowledgements,
this paper investigates the English-language acknowledgements accompanying
20 MA and PhD dissertations composed by student writers in Chinese
mainland, with the aim to reveal their generic structure and lexico-grammatical
patterns used to realize the moves and steps. The results show that the Chinese
writers largely follow the ―three tier structure‖ and their sub-divided steps, as
discovered by Hyland and his colleague. However, divergences have also been
found and might be explained by the difference in the academic practice
between mainland and Hong Kong researchers.

Rezaee & Sayfouri ( 2010) "Iranian ISI and Non-ISI Medical Research
Articles in English: A Comparative ESP/EAP Move Analysis"
The present study seeks the probable differences existing between the
two groups of 32 research articles (RAs) randomly selected from among
Iranian ISI and non-ISI medical journals in English, published between January
2008 and February 2009, through analyzing the Introduction and Discussion
sections of these articles based on the model presented by Nwogu (1997). The
results of Mann- Whittney U and correlational tests revealed that Moves and
Sub-moves have been exploited with quite similar frequencies in the two sets
of the articles. The frequent use of Moves/Sub- moves in the
sections not commonly stated in the literature, use of meta-discourse markers
in the corpus, some marked implications of the findings of ESP genre analysis
of RAs as well as some other findings have also been discussed.

1
 The findings of this study and other similar ones can be exploited for
pedagogical purposes of how to present information in the Introduction and the
Discussion sections of medical RAs. In an RA writing classroom, it is crucially
important to illustrate the flexibility that a creative writer may need to apply in
the type of information presented in the RA sections whenever the subject
matter demands without causing any impairment to the overall fluency, unity,
and coherence of the article. On the other hand, the valuable findings of the
plethora of studies conducted in ESP genre analysis in general, and move
analysis in particular, including those of ours, can potentially be beneficial
during different processes of article evaluation and journal selection/
evaluation.
Kanoksilapatham(2009) conducted study on "Writing Research Article
Abstracts in Engineering: Linguistic perspective" This study has the objectives
of: 1) identifying the rhetorical organization commonly followed in civil
engineering abstracts, and 2) identifying a set of linguistic features commonly
associated with a particular type of information presented in the abstracts. To
accomplish these objectives, a data set of 60 English abstracts belonging to
civil research articles, which were systematically selected from the top journals
in civil engineering (based onthe impact factors), was compiled and analyzed.
The examination of the corpus reveals a pattern of information presented in the
abstracts which seems to be structurally organized. Furthermore, each
information type can be linguistically characterized by a cluster of features that
frequently co-occurs.
This paper presents an empirical study of abstracts in civil engineering
from a linguistic perspective. This study has the objectives to characterize
their overall organization and prominent linguistic features. The findings
reveal that, despite their requirements of precision and conciseness, abstracts in
civil engineering are not randomly organized.
Overall, the analysis shows the internal organization of abstracts that are
identified as moves. With the presence of all of the five moves, a move
structure of B-P-M-R-D seems to be common. Nevertheless, given the
1
dynamic and flexible nature of abstracts, variations in the presence/absence of
moves are expected.
This study elucidates what constitutes appropriate academic style of
writing in civil engineering abstracts, enabling us to better understand the
structure of this kind of writing. It also helps form a pedagogical template
viable and useful for civil engineering scholars to develop coping strategies in
response to the rigorous writing demands of academia encountered. A better
understanding of how research articles are constructed can enhance not only
their writing skills to conform to the expectations of the target discourse
community, but also the quality of communication and chance of success in
their respective academic context in an international forum
Fangsa(2009) "Rhetorical Moves of PhD Dissertation Abstracts in
Educational Administration"
The purpose of this paper was to analyze at a macro and micro level a
corpus of 100 PhD dissertation abstracts (DA)in the field of educational
administration, selected from Thailis-edata base sources, published from 1997-
2007.

At a macro analysis level, this paper analyzed a rhetorical move pattern

to discover whether its rhetorical organization followed the model pattern. A
move analysis of the textual organizations was based on Santos‘s five-move
pattern: Move 1 situates the research; Move 2 presents the research, either by
describing the main features of the research or presenting its purposes; Move 3
describes the methodology; Move 4 summarizes the results; and Move 5 draws
conclusions or suggests for practical applications. The rhetorical move pattern
was compared to the model and it was discovered that the structure followed
Santos' model for applied linguistics. The occurrences of moves were
distributed in a manner similar to the original model. The pattern is Presenting
the research/Stating the purpose-Describing the methodology-Presenting the
results-Concludings.

1
 At a microanalysis level, lexical features in presenting the research
section were examined. Particular lexis items were found in various forms in
descriptive and purposive statements. Their frequencies were calculated using
Ant Conc. The findings revealed that examine was highly used at a rate of
42%; the examined and examines forms were used at a rate of 32%, while the
to examine form was used at a rate of 10%. Moreover, the least frequently used
lexical items were used up at the rate of 1%: report, delineate, demonstrate,
present, which were used in the descriptive sub-move.
Amirian & Tavakoli (2008) " Genre Analysis: An Investigation of the
Discussion Sections of Applied Linguistics Research Articles"
This study analyzes the discussion sections of applied linguistics
research articles (RAs) from the perspective of genre. For this purpose, first the
discussion sections of English RAs published in international English journals
of the field are compared with a parallel corpus of Persian RAs published in
professional Persian journals of the same field in order to find the
differentiating factors between published English and Persian research articles
at the level of move schemata. Then, a corpus of English RAs written in

English by Persian EFL writers rejected by international journals of applied

linguistics are studied in terms of their move schemata. The results of this
study reveal considerable differences across the three corpora regarding the
generic features under investigation. The results are useful particularly to
native and nonnative writers, allowing them to better understand published
research articles and facilitating the process of writing research articles for
publication.
The findings revealed that although there is a kind of universality in moves
across English and Persian texts, there are some discrepancies in the frequency
and sequence of these moves. Some culture specific factors may give rise to
these differences.
This study does have some limitations. In this study, the articles written by
EFL practitioners/writers on applied linguistic issues were selected and
analyzed. The results would change if the articles were not written by
practitioners/writers of EFL. Therefore, other studies should be conducted
following the same procedure to identify the generic structure of research
articles written by practitioners/writers from other fields. Several studies can
also be conducted in which other academic genres or other sections of RAs
across different languages are studied.
Elvan Eda (2008) "A corpus-based Analysis of Genre-Specific Discourse of
Research: The PhD Thesis and The Research Article in ELT"
The aim of this study was to conduct a contrastive analysis of the genre-
specific features of introductions in a corpus of theses written in PhD programs
in ELT offered by Turkish universities and in a corpus of published research
articles in ELT written by expert authors of different nationalities, in order to
specify the similarities and differences in the authors‘ use of lexico-
grammatical, discoursal and rhetorical features in the two corpora. The
analyses included both a hand-tagged and a computerized analysis of the two
corpora. Specifically, the vocabulary profiles, the readability statistics, the use

of verb tenses and citations, the move-step structures and the author presence
markers of the two corpora were subject to contrastive analyses.
The analyses revealed that the language of the RA introductions was
structurally more academic, lexically dense, and thus, more difficult to read
compared to the PhDT introductions. Moreover, although the CARS
Model(Swales, 2005), to a large extent described the move-step structure of the
RA introductions, it could not account for the move-step structure of the PhDT
introductions. With respect to these variations, proposals were made to increase
the effectiveness of the target PhD programs in empowering the novice
researchers in their access to the discourse community of ELT.
Suryani (2007)"Genre Analysis of the Translated English Abstracts"
This study has two purposes. The first is to find out the schematic structure
displayed in the translated English thesis abstracts. The second is to describe
the linguistic features that characterize the translated English thesis abstracts in
terms of tenses, personal pronoun, and hedges.The method used in this study
was qualitative method with genre analysis approach. To analyze the schematic
structure, the unit of analysis in this research is move. Meanwhile, the units of
analysis for the linguistic features are mood and hedges. The number of data in
this study were 16 translated English thesis abstracts which were taken from 16
master theses coming from eight different disciplinary areas other than English
where two abstracts were taken from each discipline. The data of the study
were then analyzed using the genre analysis approach.
The study reveals that the schematic structure displayed by the translated
English thesis abstracts consisted of five Moves: Situating the Research,
Purpose, Methods, Results, and Conclusion. The linguistic features analyzed in
this study are tenses, personal pronoun, and hedges. The tenses used varied
where the uses of past tense and present tense did not follow certain pattern.
Both tenses were found in all kinds of Moves. The personal pronouns found in
the translated English thesis abstracts were singular third person pronoun and
plural first person pronoun. The hedges in the translated English thesis
abstracts used four expressions that were found in moves Situating the
Research, Results, and Conclusion.
It is suggested that in writing translated English thesis abstracts, university
students need to consider the genre of English thesis abstracts revealed through
its schematic structure and linguistic features. For further research, English
thesis abstracts written by students from English department are not analyzed
yet. The analysis can include other linguistic features not yet analyzed in this
study.
Ding(2007) "Genre analysis of personal statements: Analysis of moves in
application essays to medical and dental schools"
The author conducted a multi-level discourse analysis on a corpus of 30
medical/dental school application letters, using both a hand-tagged move
analysis and a computerized analysis of lexical features of texts. Five recurrent
moves were identified, namely, explaining the reason to pursue the proposed
study, establishing credentials related to the fields of medicine/dentistry,
discussing relevant life experience, stating future career goals, and describing
personality.
This study examined and described the features of graduate application
letters to medical/dental programs. Five functional moves were identified:
Explaining the reason to pursue the proposed study, Establishing credentials,
Describing relevant life experience, Stating career goals, and Describing
personality. However, there are some limitations in the design of this study due
to practical constraints. Because of the difficulty to get access to private
documents such as the personal statement, the author could only use personal
statements available on public websites. The first drawback is the limited size
of the corpus, for the study of 30 personal statements can only lead to tentative
conclusions instead of applicable generalizations. The second limitation is the
lack of cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural comparison of such genre in this
study due to limited sources. Future research should examine personal
statements written in different disciplinary and cultural settings and make
comparison to find out possible disciplinary and cultural influence on personal
statement writing. To conclude, this descriptive study seeks not to confirm or
reject hypotheses but rather to generate hypotheses and stimulate further
research for the study of the personal statement as a genre. Therefore, all the
findings about personal statements for medical/dental schools should be tested
by future research and compared with the move structure in personal
statements for other graduate programs.
Mohammed(2006) "Genre Analysis Used in Hillary Clinton's Interview"
This research investigates the types of genre and the organization of
conversation used in Hillary Clinton's interview. The purposes of the research
are to find out the types of genre and the organization of conversation and
reasons in using them to communicate with interviewers. The descriptive
qualitative method is used to conduct this research. This research describes and
explains the types of genre and the organization of conversation used in Hillary
Clinton's interview. To obtain the manageable and systematic data, the
researcher himself becomes the main instrument by browsing the internet,
reading and classifying the data. Then the data are presented and analyzed by
using the types of genre theory proposed by Jean Berko Gleason and Nan
Bernstein Ratner and the organization of conversation proposed by Edward
Finegan. Based on the finding of the research, genre analysis which is used in
Hillary Clinton's interview can be divided into two categories. First is about
types of genre, she mostly uses expository/explanatory, narrative and humor
respectively. It means that she explains and narrates something more than
making humor though this program is classified as informal program. Second
is about the organization of conversation. During the conversation, she always
pays attention to the organization of conversation. It means that she knows
tacitly when she should take turn and pause her answering the interviewers'
questions. In addition, the ways of her responses the interviewers' question are
preferred and dispreffered responses. She uses preferred responses when the
interviewers ask about her condition and request something to explore. She
also uses dispreferred responses when interviewers ask about her personal
experiences.

Based on the findings above, it is suggested to all of the politicians to

consider the Hillary Clinton's genre as model of their organization of
conversation in order they can reach what they want and also their
communication runs smoothly. In addition, it is also suggested that the
ordinary people should consider the types of genre and the organization of
conversation in order they do not offend somebody else.
ARULANDU(2006) "Genre Analysis of Masters and Doctoral Dissertations
introductions in Science and Social Sciences"
This study presents an analysis of 30 Masters and Doctoral DIs from the
Science and Social Science disciplines written in English by Malaysian
University postgraduates. The study uses a descriptive, non-experimental
research that involves a purposive random sampling of 15 Masters and 15
Doctoral theses from public universities. The rhetorical characteristics and
linguistic features of fifteen Masters and fifteen Doctoral theses are examined
using Bunton‘s (2002) Modified Version of Create A Research Space (CARS)
model. The results show that the pattern of the studied DIs generally supports
Bunton‘s macro framework but the specific steps in the introduction are less
consistent with the model. Some steps were totally absent from the DIs.
Different from Bunton‘s samples, none of the Malaysian postgraduates set their
research parameters early in the introduction and none evaluated their research
products. Findings highlight the feasibility and need for merging some steps
and demarcating other steps. Analyses also show that utilization of Move 1
Step 4, that is, reviewing previous research, appears in all the three moves and
is its use was not limited only to Move 1. The functions of Move 1 Step 4 vary
according to its placement in a text, that is, it functions differently in different
situations according to the writer‘s communicative purposes and needs.
Comparison of DIs in the Masters and Doctorate degrees revealed the use
of similar rhetorical and linguistic strategies and similar registers were evident.
However, a comparison of DIs in the Science and Social Sciences revealed that
choices of steps and linguistic features are discipline dependent where by

variances such as choice of move, steps and vocabulary are attributed to

disciplinary influences, conventional structure of institutional conventions,
communicative needs of particular discourse communities, and discipline-
dependency of Introductions.
A separate model for analysing Science DIs and Social Science DIs is therefore
suggested. The results gained from this study can be used to design tasks and
materials for teaching writing that focus not only on grammar but also on
rhetorical structures and various genres of Introductions.
Pezzini (2006)"Genre Analysis and Translation: An investigation of Abstracts
of Research Articles in Two Languages"
This study presents an analysis of abstracts from research articles found
in Linguistics and Translation Studies journals. It first presents some
theoretical background on discourse community and genre analysis, then it
shows the analysis carried out on 18 abstracts, 6 written in English, 6 in
Portuguese and 6 being their translations into English. The analysis aims at
verifying whether the rhetorical patterns of organizations and the moves found
in abstracts coincide with those proposed by Swales (1993) in his study of
research articles and introductions. Besides, it intends to identify the verb
tenses and voice preferably used in this kind of text as well as mechanisms
used to indicate presence or absence of the writer in the text. The analysis
reveals that the rhetorical patterns and some moves proposed by Swales are
found in abstracts, though not in the same order. It also shows a high
occurrence of present simple tense and active voice in all moves and passive
voice only occasionally. It argues that the absence of the writer is a distinctive
feature of scientific discourse and it is obtained by means of passive voice and
typical statements used as resources to avoid the use of personal pronou ns.
Woodward-Kron (2005) ‗The role of genre and embedded genres in
tertiary students‘ writing"
This paper investigates the ways in which undergraduate education
students‘ written assignments contribute to the students‘ learning of
disciplinary knowledge. The texts for discussion are 44 undergraduate
education students‘ assignments collected as part of a three-year longitudinal
study at a regional Australian university. The theoretical framework is genre
theory as developed within systemic functional linguistics. The findings show
that the students wrote primarily expositions and discussions; however, they
also embedded a range of other genres in these macro-genre structures. The
embedding of more descriptive genres such as exemplum allowed the students
to review, exemplify, and build up knowledge within an expository structure.
The findings from this discourse analytical study have implications for the
ways in which English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and language support
lecturers predict discourse structure from assignment questions and advise
students on discourse organization. The findings also provide insights into the
ways in which successful writers embed genres to support not only their
written arguments but to review and build up their developing disciplinary
knowledge.
RAUS (2005)"Genre Analysis of Technical Report Writing in Engineering
Studies"
This study was a descriptive form of research design to identify the Move
Structure involved in technical report writing and to find out the conventions
used in the selected technical report writing textbooks.
30 questionnaires have been distributed to students of Diploma in
Manufacturing Engineering at Kolej Universiti Teknikal Kebangsaan Malaysia
(KUTKM), Ayer Keroh, Melaka and five students' writing samples of technical
report were analyzed by using the Genre Analysis approach for technical report
writing (Cheung & Lai, 1997) to identify the Move Structure involved in
technical report writing. In addition, five Technical writing textbooks have also
been selected in this study to find out the conventions used in writing technical
reports.
The findings indicated that five Move Structure were involved in technical
report writing, namely, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and
Conclusion. Besides that, a typical convention of report writing has been
identified in the technical report textbooks.
This study has recommended the ESP practitioners to use the genre-based
approach in teaching technical report writing to the students as it allows the
students to have better understanding o n how the technical reports were
structured and organized.
García-Calvo (2002) "Use of Metadiscourse in A research Abstracts for
Scientific Events"
The purpose of this study was to investigate the cultural and disciplinary
variations in the use of metadiscourse in research abstracts for scientific events,
written in Spanish and English. The corpus consists of 80 abstracts, from
different national and international conferences, in the areas of Linguistics and
Bioscience. The analysis of the texts was based on the classification of
metadiscourse proposed by Crismore et al. (1993), and took into account the
use of the following types of interpersonal metadiscourse: hedges, certainty
markers, attributors, attitudinal markers, and commentary. The results indicate
that the most common types of interpersonal metadiscourse used in the corpus
were hedges, certainty markers and attitudinal markers. However, there appears
to be a relationship between the language of the abstract and the use of
metadiscourse, and between the area of research and the use of metadiscursive
categories.
The results of this study have several pedagogical implications. In the
first place, it can be proposed that researchers would benefit from training in
writing strategies that includes the use of metadiscourse. This recommendation
would be particularly aimed at Hispanic researchers who wish to express
themselves in written English.
This study represents a first step towards understanding the effects of
culture and research area on the use of metadiscourse in abstracts for scientific
events. Additional studies should include the analysis of metadiscourse in other
persuasive texts and in different communicative situations, as well as the
comparison of the use of metadiscourse by amateur and professional writers.

Jogthong (2001) "Research Article Introductions in Thai: Genre Analysis of

Academic Writing "
This study presents an analysis of research article introductions (RAIs)
written in Thai by Thai academic writers. The analysis is based on 40 Thai
RAIs taken from Thai journals in educational and medical fields. The
rhetorical characteristics and linguistic features of the RAIs are examined using
the CARS model proposed by Swales (1990). The results show that the pattern
of studied RAIs supports the general framework presented by Swales but the
specific steps in the introductions are less consistent with the model. The Thai
writers avoided criticizing and evaluating the works of others. They adopted
different strategies in establishing a niche, including the 'identifying-potential-
problem strategy.' Different from English writers, the Thai writers did not
reveal the findings of their research and the research structure in the
introduction section. In addition to announcing their present research and
outlining purposes of their study, the Thai writers ended their research article
introduction by indicating implications of their research. Linguistic features in
the Thai RAIs were found different from those found in English RAIs studied
by Swales. While the English writers employed various types of verbs in
presenting previous research, the Thai writers used only a few reporting verbs.
The topic-prominent aspect of Thai language and the limited use of passive
voice in Thai also marked the differences in sentence constructions between
Thai and English. The differences between Thai and English RAIs are due to
socio-cultural aspects, cultural linguistics and research environments.
Comparisons of RAIs in the fields of medical and educational research
revealed the use of similar strategies, except that the Thai writers in medical
fields used a greater number of English code-mixing with Thai. The results
gained from this study can be used to design tasks and materials for teaching
writing that focus not only on grammar but also on rhetorical structures and
various genres of writing.

Perez (1992) "Genre Analysis in Biological Science texts"

The present study presents the results of a search for the percentage of
linguistic features specifically shared by texts in the field of biological science.
The findings are compared to the general science corpora described in Biber's
analyses.
The study includes 700-word text samples extracted from larger texts. All
texts were automatically included in readable codes for the computer, words
were automatically counted, and 10 of the linguistic features (those which most
frequently co-occurred in Biber's general science corpora) were automatically
identified. After the computational analysis was done, inspection by the analyst
of the computer results to check for errors was also mandatory as the program
used, AnyTEXTm, did not always recognize all the linguistic features.

1
 The frequency counts of linguistic features were normalized to a text
length of 1000 words. By summing up the frequency of each of the linguistic
features in the texts, I was able to average the factor score for each text across
all texts in the biological science genre and compute a mean dimension score
for the genre. I then used this mean dimension score to compare and to specify
the relations among three sub-genres: biology, microbiology and biochemistry.
The findings of this analysis show that narrowing the corpusto a specific
field provides an array of linguistic dimensions which do not necessarily
coincide with the results of the general science corpora described in Biber's
analysis.
This finding provides a firm foundation for curriculum developers who rely
on these general science corpora when developing teaching materials to create
more accurate and relevant teaching materials. The study should also continue
to prove useful to the investigation of the co-occurrence of linguistic features in
specific fields such as history, food science, pharmacy, etc.

2.11 Conclusions:
This chapter sheds light on the review of literature and related
previous studies. So, the researcher as English language teacher, gives an
account of his reading on the topic of this study. It is about analysis of genre of
MA abstracts in English language departments at university level. Moreover,
this chapter describes and discusses in details the respective studies of genre,
genre analysis, discourse analysis, register analysis, writing research articles
abstracts. Thus, this study differs from the above mentioned previous related
studies. It is an attempt to investigate and analyze the MA researchers' abstracts
that are written by EFL Sudanese Students in English language at university
level. It concerned with post graduate Sudanese who are majoring in English
language

CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
3.0 Introduction
This study is an attempt to investigate and analyze the MA Dissertation
abstracts that are written by EFL Sudanese Students in English language
departments at university level. This study uses descriptive and analytical
method of language description to analyze research article abstracts
constituting the corpus of the study; it outlines and pinpoints discoursal and
rhetorical features that signify the genre of the abstracts. Models and
techniques of genre analysis approach will be the only ones used for analysis
needed by this study.
Genre studies include a variety of frameworks that can be adopted to
analyze a set of textual genres constructed, interpreted and used by members of
various disciplinary communities in a--cademic, professional, workplace and
other institutionalized contexts. They range from a close linguistic study of
texts as product, investigation into a dynamic complexity of communicative
practices of professional and workplace communities to a broad understanding
of socio-cultural and critical procedures used to interpret these textual genres in
real life settings. Understanding the nature of discursive practices of various
disciplinary cultures which often give shape to these communicative processes
and textual genres is yet another aspect of genre-based investigations.
Validity of the results of genre analysis depends heavily on the method
adopted for the study. The present study uses a qualitative and quantitative
research method. This chapter will discuss the research method employed in
this study, including the corpus, data collection, method of analysis, samples,
procedures and instrumentation of the study.

3.1.The Corpus
One of the fundamental factors about a clear understanding of any
work is to know what type of corpus was used in the study and particularly the
genre. The present study intends to analyze a corpus composed of 39 abstracts
of master of English language . These abstracts were collected manually and
randomly by researcher from different fields of English language departments ,
(literature ,technology, curriculum and methodology) at Sudanese university
and chosen according to the norms of genre analysis. Moreover, the abstracts
were published from 1980 to 2011. They were written by Sudanese post-
graduate students. The corpus of this study consists of 9665 words. The
following table (1.3) explains the categorization of corpus.
Table ( 3.4 ) The Corpus of MA English Language Abstracts
Size of Abstract in words Approximately 9665 words

Numbers of Abstracts 39 abstracts

Medium written

Subject English language

Text Type Research Articles Abstracts

Authorship Written by non-native Sudanese writers

Language English language by non-native Sudanese

Publication date From 1980 to 2011

3.2 Justification of Sample

The corpus of this study has been collected deliberately from above
mentioned Sudanese universities because the researcher do believe that these
universities such as ( Khartoum , Gezera, Omdurman Islamic and Al.Alzhari )
are mixed between old and latest universities, moreover, they have great
postgraduate studies, particularly in EFL studies and always have enjoyed
the highest degree of prestige and credibility since their foundation. Therefore,
the researcher gets the data from them.
3.3 Discourse community
 The discourse community that uses the genre of master English
language abstracts which involves in this study are Sudanese nationality
writers. They have master in English language. They specialized in different
branches of English. They are different in gender ( males & females) , of
course most of them are teachers of English language with diverse academic
and professional backgrounds. the participants are involved in composing a
completely new genre to appeal to an unfamiliar audience, namely, research
articles English language abstracts. According to the researcher's view, the
participants suffer from their unfamiliarity with the conventions of the genre;
therefore, they are in need to promote themselves as perfect professional and
academic writers. In other words, in this rhetorical situation, the researcher
expects their writings not only will conform to the conventions of the genre but
also they meet the expectations of their evaluators.
3.4 Communicative purposes
The scientific community is growing considerably and no matter
what country the research is developed in, English is The language used in
scientific discourse, especially in research articles published in journals
through which the work becomes accessible for the international scientific
community. The abstract, which is a summary of the scientific text, is of
extreme importance as it gives a general overview of the work and an outline

that guides the reader through the text or serves as a way of selecting the
reader‘s choices. According to Bazerman (1984), the article‘s abstract serves as
one further step in turning the article into an object, for the abstract considers
the article as a whole and then makes a representation of it.
There has been a great concern with the genre-centered approaches
to the analysis of discourse in the last decades. The genre-based analysis allows
writers to observe the linguistic patterns used for a specific genre by a
determined discourse community. Abstracts are considered a specific genre
used in a specific circumstance and for specific purposes. Therefore, the
Sudanese writers and readers of abstracts form a discourse community of the
study.
3.5 Sample of the Study
Because the scope of the study is limited, it is necessary to decide on
effective procedures of representative sampling that would reflect all the basic
concern of the study. Sampling should be seen at one level of data collection:
the texts of abstracts have been collected and classified randomly by the
researcher. Genres to be used are mainly academic research article abstracts
which they have already been mentioned in the corpus.
3.6 Procedures
The researcher adopted the following procedures to tackle the problem of
the study.
a. Specification of the study population and sampling is including post-
graduate Sudanese universities students who are majoring in English language
and they represent the sample of this study which have already been mentioned
in the corpus.
b. The abstracts are selected and based on their relevance to the topic . Since
the study is to investigate and analyze the patterns of organization of moves

and the linguistic features of RAA . The analysis will be analyzed according to
genre's models.
c. After the selection, the abstracts will be sorted to identify the moves and
steps and their order in the text in each one . The notion of communicative
purpose is central for analysis of RAA. The analysis could be done according
to ( Swales, 1990 , Bhatia ,2004 . Nwogu's 1997 ) models.
d. This study based on the models of genre Analysis including the following
categories lexco-grammatical features ( Present simple , Past simple , Passive
& present perfect ) .
e. The abstracts are analyzed and categorized in term patterns of organization
of moves , sub- moves and niche.
f. Identification and length of each abstract: the abstracts are numbered from
one to thirty-nine . The number of words in each abstract should be counted, to
determine its length.
3.7 Instrumentation
The instrument in this study is ( Swales, 1990 , Bhatia ,2004 .
Nwogu's 1997) models. The CARS model seems to be the most comprehensive
framework, and its earlier version has been successfully and extensively
applied by researchers on introductions in different disciplines.
3.8 The Statistical Treatment:
To demonstrate the questions of the research, the researcher counted the
frequency of grammatical items and occurrence of moves and steps of each
abstract. Moreover, the analysis will show which moves and linguistic terms
occur most frequent among the study population. Furthermore, in the analysis
procedure, the researcher uses
the statistical operations such as the frequency, percentage . The SPSS-10
computer program is used to process the data

3.9 Conclusion
To sum up, this chapter elucidate the corpus of the study and procedures
that the researcher used, besides, the description of the population and the tool
of gathering data, the statistical treatment as well. The tool that chosen by the
researcher was a written research article abstracts, which represents the sample
of the study.
 CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.0 Introduction
This study strives to analyze and describe the MA Dissertation abstracts
that are written by EFL Sudanese Students in English language departments at
university level. The data were analyzed in three levels. The first level of the
analyses, which was the hand-tagged move structure analysis of the corpus
within the frame work of genre ((Bhatia,1993) was predominately concerned
with discorsal and rhetorical features of the corpus. The second level of
analyses mainly focused on the lexico-grammatical features of the corpus. The
third level is to find out whether the structural components of moves of these
MA abstracts compatible with genre analysis models. However, in the course
of analyses, whenever possible, the three levels of analyses were carried out
and applied by using genre analysis models in an integrated fashion to increase
the reliability of the findings. In the analysis procedure, the researcher used the
statistical operations such as the frequency and percentage. The SPSS program
was used for analyzing the data.
4.1 Analysis of the Abstracts' Moves, Bhatia (1993)
Data generated through Bhatia's Genre Model and it has been analyzed
quantitatively and qualitatively and revealed some interesting results using an
SPSS-10 computer program. Frequencies and percentages are calculated
straight away for all corpus items.
The examination of the corpus reveals a set of four moves presented in the
abstracts, interacting with each other forming a particular structural
organization. The four moves are: introducing Purpose, Describing
Methodology, Summarizing Result, and Presenting Conclusion, and henceforth
are referred to as Moves IP, DM, SR, and PC. The names of moves are
explicitly reflected the functions of the moves in the abstract texts.

Table ( 4.5) The percentage of Moves

Moves (1-4) Abstracts containing moves

Frequency Percentage

Purpose ( M1) 38 29.2

Methodology ( M 2) 25.4

Results ( M 3) 30 23.1

Conclusion ( M 4) 29 22.3
 Total of Moves frequencies 1 100.0

Fig (4.8) The percentage of moves

According to the objectives of this study to see whether the abstracts are
compatible with the traditional four-move structure of abstracts, the researcher
analyzed the abstracts based on Bhatia ( 1993) move structure and the results
are shown in table ( 4.1). The above table presents and elucidates the number
of abstracts utilizing four-move structure in the corpus and indicates that these
abstracts generally contain these moves. Move 1, Introducing purpose, Move 2,
Describing methodology. Move 3, Summarizing results. It should be noted that
Move1 and Move 2 are the most frequent and considered as dominant in all
abstracts, Move 1 represents (29.2%) percent while Move 2 represents (25.4%)

percent, Move 3 represents (23.1%). Move 4 contains conclusion and also

crucial and meant to interpret results and draw inferences, it represents (22.3%)
percent.
4.2 Analysis of Steps and their Discourse Function

M1 ( The introduction Section)

1
No. Step & Discourse function Frequency Percentage Tab

1 Presenting Background information 39 47.6 le (

4.6)
2 Reviewing Related Research 4 4.9
The
3 Presenting New Research 39 47.6
per
Total 82 100.0
cen
tage of steps and their functions in Move 1

Fig ( 4.9) The percentage of steps and their functions within Move 1
As shown from the above table (4.9) which illustrates the analysis of
steps and their discourse function within Move 1 that represents the
introduction section. This Move is classified into three steps according to
(Nwogu,1997). Each submove has certain discourse function and
communicative purpose to play on the analysis of these abstracts. In the
process of analysis, the researcher depends mainly on percentages of steps that
are applicable to the number of moves and abstracts as a whole. As you noticed
from above table, step1 (Presenting background information) which represents
(47.6% ) and scores 39.The second step (Reviewing related research) which
represents (4.9%) percent and gets 4 while step 3 which represents Presenting
new research scores (47.6%) percent. It has been clearly shown from both
table and figure that step1 and step 3 are the most frequent and applicable on
move 1 in the MA abstracts. But step 3 is less applicable if it compares with
other steps. The Fig ( 4.9 ) support what has been explained in the above table.

Table ( 4.7) The percentage of steps and functions in Move 2

M2 ( The Method Section)

No. Step & Discourse function Frequency Percentage
1 Describing Data Collection Procedure 28 34.1
2 Describing Experimental Procedure 26 31.7
3 Describing Data-Analysis Procedure 28 34.1
Total 82 100.0

Fig. ( 4.10) The percentage of steps and functions in Move 2

 The above table ( 4.7) , is about Move 2 which demonstrates the Method
section of the abstracts. It is categorized into three steps with their functions.
The first step describes the Data collection procedure. Its frequency is 28
which represents (34.1%) percent. The second step describes Experimental
procedure and its frequency is 26 which represents (31.7%) percent. The third
one is about Data- analysis procedure and its frequency is 28 which represents
(34.1%) percent. It has been obviously revealed from percentages which have
been mentioned that step 1 and step 3 are frequently occurred and applicable to
the abstracts.

Table ( 4.8) The percentage of steps and their functions Move 3

M3 ( The results section )

No. Step & Discourse function Frequency Percentage
1 Indicating Consistent Observations 28 100.0

Fig ( 4.11) The percentage of steps and functions Move3

 As commonly shown from the above table (4.8) that Move 3 reveals the
Results section. It includes one step and it's about Indicating Consistent
Observations. This step is applied frequently It represents (100%) if it
compares with other steps.
Table ( 4.9) The percentage of steps and functions in Move 4
M4 ( The Discussion Section )
No. Step & Discourse function Frequency Percentage
1 Highlighting Overall Research Outcome 29 47.5
2 Explaining Specific Research Outcomes 4 6.6
3 Stating Research Conclusions 28 45.9
Total 61 100.0

Fig ( 4.12) The percentage of Steps and functions in move4

The above table (4.9), is about Move 4 which conveys the Discussion
section of the abstracts. It is categorized into three steps with their functions.
The first step highlights overall research outcome. Its frequency is 29 which
represents (47.5%) percent. The second step explains specific research
outcomes and its frequency is 4 which represents (6.6%) percent. The third
one states the research conclusions and its frequency is 28 which represents
(45.9%) percent. It has shown obviously from percentages mentioned that step
1 and step 3 were frequently occurred and applicable to the abstracts.
4.3 Move Sequence and Cyclical Patterning
Table ( 4.10 ) The percentage of Abstracts' Move patterns

Moves Frequency Percent

app 26 66.7
Non-app 13 33.3
Total 39 100.0

Fig ( 4.13) The percentage of abstracts' move patterns

The above table (4.6) shows the percentages of abstracts' moves
patterns. The abstracts that applicable to Bhatia model were 26 and
represented (66.7%) percent, while non-applicable abstract were 16 and
represented (33.3%). It has shown from Fig ( 4.6) that if we compare the two
criteria, the applicable abstracts with non-applicable ones, it was found that the
applicable abstracts were more frequent and applicable than non-applicable
ones. Most of the abstracts were strictly followed the organization pattern of
PMRC. In fact variations occurred because not all of the four moves occurred
equally frequently.

As result, some patterns such as PMRC,PMR,MMRM ,PMRRR, PPC,

PMPR…etc. were also found in this corpus. This structural organization
variations thus elucidated the flexibility of the analytical framework, allowing
a certain amount of freedom and creativity for writers when writing abstracts.
In this study, some abstracts displayed cyclical patterning of certain moves.
That is, some moves were used more than once in a single abstract.
4.4 Percentage of Analyzed Verb Tenses Within Abstracts
Table ( 4.11) The percentage of verb tenses
Verb tenses Frequency Percentage

PT 221 45.0

SPT 54 11.0

PPT 14 2.9

PV 202 41.1

Total 491 100.0

PT: Present tense. SPT: Simple past tense . PPT: Present perfect. P: passive
 Fig ( 4.14) The Percentage of verb tenses

The tenses analysis presented on the above table ( 4.7) was focused on the
frequency and percentage of tenses used in the abstracts. This table indicates
that there were four tenses used in writing abstracts, Present Simple Tense,
Present Perfect Tense, Past Simple Tense and passive tense. The present
Simple Tense was used the most (45%) and its frequency was 221. Then,
passive Tense was represented (41.1%) and its frequency was 202 and Simple
past Tense was less in percentage than the tense and it was ( 11%) and its
frequency was 54. Present Perfect Tense was the least used (2.9%). The table
also shows that the two tenses were used the most frequent in the abstracts
were the present simple and the passive tense.
4.5 Results and discussion
4.5.1 Results of Moves
With reference to the objectives of this study to see whether the abstracts
are compatible with the traditional four-move structure of abstracts, the
researcher analyzed the abstracts based on Bhatia ( 1993) move structure and
the results are shown in table ( 4.1). The above table presents and explains the
number of abstracts utilizing four-move structure in the corpus and indicates
that these abstracts generally contain these moves. Move 1, Introducing
purpose, Move 2, Describing methodology. Move 3, Summarizing results. It
should be noted that Move1 and Move 2 are the most frequent and considered
as dominant in all abstracts, Move 1 represents (29.2%) percent while Move 2
represents (25.4%) percent, Move 3 represents (23.1%). Move 4 contains
conclusion and also crucial and meant to interpret results and draw inferences,
it represents (22.3%) percent
4.5.1.1 Purpose Move
 Purpose Move or Move P is used in 39 abstracts or (29.2%) of the corpus.
The purpose of the research is usually explicitly stated, as shown in the
following instances.
[1] This study investigates the use of spelling rules to avoid errors among
Sudanese Students of secondary Schools.
[2] The study attempts to shed light on the actual problems that facing
Sudanese secondary school students in learning English language, and tries to
investigate and identify the crucial issues in chronological order as follows:.
[3] This study aims at searching for the trends of the teachers of English
language towards using the educational technologies to the Secondary Schools
in Khartoum state
[4] This study represents an attempt to investigate the difficulties in learning
and using English preposition of time
The examples reveal that the phrase this paper is commonly found in this
move. In addition, the use of present tense and either active or passive voice
(investigates, attempts, aims, represents) is preferred in this discipline.
4.5.1.2 Methodology Move
Methodology move or Move M is found most frequently, compared with
the other moves, scored 33 out of 39 abstracts or (25.4%). The method of the
research is usually explicitly stated, as shown in the following instances.
[1 The researcher applied the descriptive methodology in this study. The
means used for data collection are the questionnaire for teachers of English
language in addition to the interview form for directors of English language.
The target group is composed of the teachers and the directors of the English
language in the Secondary Schools in Khartoum State
[2] The population of this study is the first year students of Islamic university
of Omdurman, faculty of Arts. A sample of 15 male and 15 female students
was randomly chosen. The data were sampled from a test vocabulary
questions of the test covered four areas of vocabulary, meaning, grammar,
word use and word formation. The errors were identified, classified and
analyzed. The Statistical Package for Social Science ( SPSS) and analysis of
Variance (ANOVA) are used to analyze and evaluate the results.
[3] We estimate a hedonic price function for houses in the area of a
pilot project, and include the estimated part worth of yard area.
[4] The population of this study consists of forty students of English at
Islamic University of Omdurman 20male and 20 female students are
randomly chosen. In order to test the hypnoses of this study, data are
collected, using multiple choice test. The test consists of thirty items. Then the
results are analyzed according to a retain variables such as the types of
prepositions
[5] The data for the study was collected through two essay writing tests; one
pre-test and one post-test applied on randomly chosen sample for forty five
subjects. For analyzing the data collected, the researcher adopted the
descriptive and analytical approaches.
These instances briefly describe methodological procedures adopted by
the studies. As seen, this move can be expressed using research verbs in past
and present tenses, and active or passive voices ( applied, used , is composed,
were sampled , was chosen, are used, were identified, consists of ..etc.)
4.5.1.3 Results Move
Results move or Move R is found most frequently, compared with the
other moves, scored 30 out of 39 abstracts or (23.1%).The high frequency of
occurrence of this move indicates the integral role it plays in the abstracts. The
result of the research is usually explicitly stated, as shown in the following
instances:
[1]The results have shown that the word use achieved the highest percentage
of errors ( 3rd ) and also the highest mean of errors ( U.3). The results prove
that the word use is problematic to students under study. Conclusions have
been drawn.
[2] The results have shown also that the pupils lack awareness of these
discourse attributes which seem to correlate writing
[3]The analysis of data reveals the following :There is a significant
differences in the mean of errors of both the recognition and production of
English verb forms between the entrance and instruction group.
[4] The results of statistical analysis indicates Mother Tongue Interference
( negative Transfer ) and Intralinguage errors are considered to be the major
problems that face Sudanese students as well as Arab Learners in their writing.
[5] The results have shown also that the pupils lack the awareness of these
discourse attributes which seem to correlate writing.
These instances reveal that, to express Move R, a formulaic expression of the
results show, showed and have shown is common, with the alternation
4.5.1.4 Conclusion Move
This move, if found, is usually the last move to end the abstracts. The
move discusses the findings from several perspectives including implications,
significance, interpretations, explanations, etc. This move occurs in 29
abstracts or (22.3% )of the entire corpus.
[1] Teacher should be well trained in phonetics areas of spelling and improve
themselves by reading such books as ( English Phonetics and Phonology and
Better English Pronunciations).Teacher should frequently draw learner's
attention to the use of spelling rules. The learners should be encouraged to
carry out creative writing activities and team tasks by means of setting weekly
and monthly newspapers, reports, magazines, articles , poems.
[2] The researcher recommends that learners of English language of
universities should be exposed to a course on figure of speech. Readers of
poetry will benefit by such courses gaining insights and appreciating poetic
works.
[3] The finding showed that teachers sometime make their students commit
errors intentionally through improper instructions and corrections.
[4] Therefore, the researcher suggests that there should be a direct connection
between the Educational teaching program and the syllabus of English
language training in the secondary schools. The teaching force should have

1
access to training programs in the field of Educational technology and they
should learn how to use those Aids effectively in their classes. It is also
necessary that this Educational Technology should be available to teachers in
their schools as well as follow-up and environment from the educational
authorities.
Due to the multi-functions of this move, the linguistic features used to
highlight the functions are quite diverse. As shown, for instance, showed
,should be exposed .. etc.
4.5.2 Move patterns
The above table (4. 1) proves the percentages of moves' patterns. The
abstracts that applicable to Bhatia model were 26 and represented (66.7%)
percent, while non-applicable abstract were 16 and represented (33.3%). It has
shown from Fig ( 4. ) that if we compare the two criteria, the applicable
abstracts with non-applicable ones, it was found that the applicable abstracts
were more frequent and applicable than non-applicable ones. Most of the
abstracts were strictly followed the organization pattern of PMRC. In fact
variations occurred because not all of the four moves occurred equally
frequently.
As result, some patterns such as PMRC,PMR,MMRM ,PMRRR, PPC,
PMPR…etc. were also found in this corpus. This structural organization
variations thus elucidated the flexibility of the analytical framework, allowing
a certain amount of freedom and creativity for writers when writing abstracts.
In this study, some abstracts displayed cyclical patterning of certain moves.
That is, some moves were used more than once in a single abstract.
 4.5.2.1 Samples Applicable Abstracts to Genre Analysis
Example (1)
Move Abstract (1)
This study has been an attempt to identify, classify, analyze
and explain the common and frequent errors of vocabulary.
Purpose Move
The population of this study is the first year students of
Islamic university of Omdurman, faculty of Arts. A sample
of 15 male and 15 female students was randomly chosen.
The data were sampled from a test vocabulary questions of the
Method Move
test covered four areas of vocabulary, meaning, grammar,
word use and word formation. The errors were
identified, classified and analyzed. The Statistical Package for
Social Science (SPSS) and analysis of Variance (ANOVA)
Result Moves are used to analyze and evaluate the results. The results have
shown that the word use achieved the highest percentage of
errors ( 3rd ) and also the highest mean of errors ( U.3). The
results prove that the word use is problematic to students
Conclusion under study. Conclusions have been drawn, and
Move recommendations have stated.
Example (2) Abstract (2)
This study investigate the frequency repeated errors found in essay writing
of third level learners of college of language and translation , Imam Mohammed
Bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh. Learners usually commit mistakes in spite
of the great effort paid by the teacher to do the remedial work and correct their
mistakes. These mistakes are what the researcher called frequency repeated errors
and which usually drew his attention in the writing tasks in his students.
The study seeks to find a better remedy for these frequency repeated errors
and eliminate them from the roots by identifying, examining, classifying and
analyzing these errors. The data for the study was collected through two essay
writing tests; one pre-test and one post-test applied on randomly chosen sample for
forty five subjects.
For analyzing the data collected, the researcher adopted the descriptive and
analytical approaches. Through their searching for the best strategies to learn the
new language, students commit errors of different types due to several reasons.
Some are easy to eliminate by the learner himself, others are difficult to eliminate
because they are frequency repeated errors and this the statement of the problem.
So, this research is going to deal with reasons behind the frequency repeated errors
committed by Saudi Students bt writing tasks.
After thorough investigating and analysis, the researcher came to the findings
of his study which proved that frequency repeated errors in essay writing were due
to ( interlingual and Intralingual) factors, fossilization, habit formation,
performance errors. Also, the finding showed that teachers sometime make their
students commit errors intentionally through improper instructions and
corrections. Then the researcher gave some considerations and suggestions for
further investigations.
Example (3 ) Abstract (3)
The present study investigates the problem of inability of the Secondary
School Students in oral interaction. It tries to look for the cause and to offer
some solutions to the problem.
The research is an experimental one. Two groups were used. The
experimental group was subjected to a structured input that focused on
developing oral fluency. The subjects were taught materials that emphasize
speaking in integration with other skills. After the experimental finished, they
were evaluated through free speaking activities and their performance was
assessed. The control group was assessed by the same method. The results
were then compared and conclusions were made.
For more reliability and validity, instruments such questionnaires to the
teachers and interviews with experts were administered. These were analyzed
and results were discussed in the light of the experiment. The all gave the
same results.
The study arrived at some conclusions that time and amount for listening and
speaking activities need to increased. Also the negligence of oral skills in the
examinations negatively affect the development of these skills.
The study recommended that more time has to be allotted for oral skills.
They also have to be distributed evenly throughout the course. There has to be
more exposure to the language by taking advantage of the new media available
and the skills must be included in the exams. The study also recommended that
teachers need more in-service training to better their performance.
Example (4) Abstract (4)
This study aims at exploring the effeteness of Educational Aids in
teaching the English language in secondary schools. The researcher means
by Educational Aids, all means and equipment that effectively help the
teacher carry out his task as well as helping the learners to fully understand
their subjects.
The researcher used the descriptive and analytical method to come to
results. The population of the study consisted of the English language
teachers and supervisors in secondary schools as well as headmasters and
headmistresses in Khartoum north locality. The sample, who were randomly
selected, was represented by 60 male and female teachers, 36 headmasters,
18 headmistresses and 6 English language supervisors. The tools used in this
study are the questionnaire, and personal interviews. The researcher came
out with many findings. He found out there was a correlation between the
weakness in students' achievement in English and the lack of using
Educational Aids are not accessible in secondary schools in Khartoum
North locality. There was also lack of follow-up from the specialists and
educational authorities.
Therefore, the researcher suggests that there should be a direct connection
between the Educational teaching program and the syllabus of English
language training in the secondary schools. The teaching force should have
access to training programs in the field of Educational technology and they
should learn how to use those Aids effectively in their classes. It is also
necessary that this Educational Technology should be available to teachers in
their schools as well as follow-up and environment from the educational
authorities.
Example (5) Abstract (5)
This research has been an attempt to assess the paragraph writing of
Sudanese Pupils at basic Level School in Khartoum North- Musab Ibn omeir
in Shambat. The research assesses the pupils's performance in writing
paragraph.
Research data were organized written answers to examination held at
Bahri District – Bahri municipality. Musab Ibn omeir Basic level School for
boys 8th class. The results have shown that pupils' writing was characterized
by the paragraph of the proprieties of English paragraph writing. i.e.
discourse coherence and discourse mechanics.
The results have shown also that the pupils lack awareness of these
discourse attributes which seem to correlate writing.
 Example (6) Abstract (6)
Error analysis has played an important role in the study of language
acquisition in general and investigating second and foreign language in
particular.
This study aims at analyzing and evaluating the preposition errors that
are made by preliminary students of English at university levels.
This study tries to explain these errors so as to know their causes and
sources and then to propose measures of tackling them.
The population of this study consists of forty students of English at Islamic
University of Omdurman 20male and 20 female students are randomly
chosen. In order to test the hypnoses of this study, data are collected, using
multiple choice test. The test consists of thirty items. Then the results are
analyzed according to a retain variables such as the types of prepositions,
Some statistical operation are implemented to analyzed the obtained data.
These methods use theories, equitations and formals such as SAS and SPSS
package and ANOVA. Results are discussed and conclusions are drawn.

The above examples approve that some of the abstracts' writers

applied the Genre Analysis Model. They have been applicable to Bhatia Model
and supported by percentages in the above tables.
4.5.2.2 Sample of Non-applicable Abstracts to Genre Analysis
Example (7) Abstract (7)

In Sudan, Kambal ( 1980 ) analyzed errors in three types of free

compositions written by first- year Sudanese University students. The study
gives an account of the major syntactic errors in verb phrase attempt to
improve the quality of the remedial English program in the context of
Arabicization in Sudan.
Kambal reported on the main types of error in the verb phrase: verb formation,
tense, and subject – verb agreement. He discussed errors in tense under five
categories: tense sequence, tense substitution, tense marker, deletion , and
confusion of perfects tenses. With regard to subject – verb agreement, three
types of errors were identified. These involved the third- person singular
marker used redundancy, and the incorrect from of the verb to be.

Notice: There is only one move applicable ( Purpose Move), that is, the other
three moves are not applicable according to Bhatia Model.
Example (8) Abstract (8)
This study focuses on identifying and analyzing the student's actual use
of language while writing in order to reveal their knowledge of the language
and how they use it, and it will be useful to those who are in field of
linguistics. Semantics and syntax are a problematic are of research, especially
in English language learning as a foreign language ( ELT or a second
language ( E SL) . Because there is not any established framework to be
followed. The data for the present study has been collected from difficult
sources, compiled and analyzed in terms of semantics and syntax. This thesis
contains six chapters dealing with specific areas of study.
Example (9) Abstract (9)
The study is an attempt to identify and analyze the linguistic errors in the
written English assignments of Al- Zaem Al- Azhary University students. The
problem can be handled in the light of the following questions:
1.What are the learning strategies that underlie the subject errors?
2.What are the probable accounts for the occurrence of errors?
The aim of this study is to identify and analyze the most common errors
committed by learners of English in the University of Al- Zaem Al-zhary
students. The study is based on the following assumptions :
1.Some learning strategies remain as potential source for the occurrence of
errors.
2.Interference of ( L1 ) is not the only one source of student's errors.
The study will be set among other fewer studies to analyze the written English
assignments in Al- Azhary University.
By looking at the most errors that made by students one can trace evidence for
three main processes:-
a. Overgeneralization of second language rules,
b. Simplification redundancy reduction by omitting elements ,
c. Transfer of rules from the mother tongue
The first and the second are intralingual processes. The third is an
interlingual one.

1
Example (01) Abstract ( 01 )

The main goal of this research is to experience the effect of use of computer in
teaching English language in Secondary Schools first class, Gezira State for the
Academic year ( 2004- 5005). The test has been used as means of data
collection to the research topic. The study depends on one basic assumptions:-
The computer has an efficient effect in teaching English language, secondary
stage first class. The researcher reaches to the conclusion results:-
1. The use of computer save time and efforts for both teachers and students.
2. The importance of the use of computer in teaching English language
secondary stage, in general.
3. The importance of the use of computer in educational process. In light of
this result, the researcher presents a number of recommendations, some of
them are:-
1.The importance of using computer in teaching English language in
secondary stage.
2. The necessity of training teachers in using the computer.
3. The importance of providing the computer and make it available in the

The above examples approve that some of the abstracts' writers did not
apply the Genre Analysis Model. This examples have been supported
percentages in the above tables.
4.5.3 Verb Tenses Used by Abstracts' Writers
As can be observed from the analysis of verb tenses which obtained on the
above table ( 4.7) focused on the frequency and percentage of tenses used in
the abstracts that there were four tenses used in abstracts writing .Present
Simple Tense, Present Perfect Tense, Past Simple Tense and passive tense. The
present Simple Tense was dominant in writing of abstracts. It scored (45%)
and its frequency was 221. Then, the passive Tense was represented (41.1%)
and its frequency was 202 and Simple past Tense was less in percentage than
the tense and it was ( 11%) and its frequency was 54. Present Perfect Tense
was the least used (2.9%). The table also shows that the two tenses used
frequently in the abstracts were the present simple and the passive tense.
4.6 Suggested Abstract Model
From the results it was found that the abstract writers used mostly the
combination of 2 tenses, present simple and passive voice. Therefore, the
researcher has created a model for writing an educational abstract in English
which may be useful for novice abstract writers or the ones who would like to
know English tenses used in abstracts writing or for those researchers who
would like to further investigate about English tense used in abstract writing.
Although, it is not an absolute model for writing an abstract in English, but it
can be used as a guideline and a frame for writing abstracts in English.
 Abstract
The purposes of this research were/are; 1) …………………………,
2)…………………… and 3) ……………………..The samples used in this
research were/are……………………………………………………………
The research tools/instruments used were/are; 1) …………, 2)……………
and 3) ……………….……….The procedure comprised of /comprises of /
composed of / composes of / consisted of / consists of; 1) …….…………,
2)……………….., 3) ……………………and 4) ………….…………….
Statistics used to analyze the data obtained were/are …………..…………
The results/findings were; 1)………………..... , 2……………….………,
3) ………………..and 4) …………………………………………………

Fig(4.15) Suggested Abstract Model

4.7 Conclusion
To sum up, this chapter was mainly concentrated on analysis and
discussion of the results, interpretation of data, results of study questions, the
analysis was done through different statistical operations such as frequency
and percentage.The SPSS program was used for analyzing the data.
 CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION, FINDINGS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
5.0 Introduction
This study is an attempt to analyze and describe the MA Dissertation
abstracts that are written by EFL postgraduate Sudanese Students in English
language departments at university level. In this chapter, the researcher
would like to conclude this study with a summary of this research, main
conclusion, findings and recommendations for further studies.
5.1 Conclusion
This study strives to investigate and analyze the MA research article
abstracts that were written by EFL Sudanese students in English language
departments at university levels. The analysis was based on 39 abstracts which
taken from different university English language departments. The rhetorical
characteristics as well as linguistic features of the research article abstracts
were examined by using Bhatia model (1993). The researcher in this study,
attempted to concentrate on the three main aims. The first aim, to analyze
English language abstracts by applying generic approach. The second aim, to
focus on the lexico-grammatical features of the corpus. The third aim to find
out whether these abstracts coincided with Bhatia Genre Model. However, in
the course of analyses, whenever possible, the three aims of analyses were
carried out and applied by using Genre Analysis Model in an integrated fashion
to increase the reliability of the findings.
This study presents descriptive and analytical study of abstracts in
English language from Genre and a linguistic perspective. This study has the
objectives to characterize their overall organization and prominent linguistic
features. The findings reveal that, despite their requirements of precision and
conciseness, abstracts in English language are not well-organized.
 in general, the analysis shows the internal organization of abstracts that are
identified as moves. With the presence of all of the four moves, a move
structure of P-M-R-C seems to be common. Nevertheless, given the dynamic
and flexible nature of abstracts, variations in the presence/absence of moves are
expected
5.2 Findings of the Study
According to the previous analysis which came out from the statistical
operations, the most important findings of this study as follows:
a. The majority of the research abstracts writers applied (Bhatia Genre Model)
in writing research article abstracts.
b. Most of the postgraduate students in mentioned universities applied the first
three moves such as the purpose move, methodology move, results move and
neglected the conclusion move.
c. Most of these students of research article abstracts have no background of
linguistic terms such as move and steps: that is , they wrote these abstracts by
experience and unconsciously.
d. The findings of the present study have pointed to the existence of variations
in organizational structure particularly in moves and steps which attributed to
the lack of knowledge of those students in writing research article abstracts.
e. Most of the abstract writers used the present simple tense and passive in their
abstract writing: The findings show that the two tenses used frequently in the
abstracts were the present simple and the passive tense.
f. There are few writers used past simple tense and present perfect tense.
g. There is disorder in using the rhetorical moves and verb tenses in writing
abstracts.
h. The findings indicated that the four Move Structure were involved in
abstract writing, namely, purpose move and conclusion move.
i. Through analysis and observation ,it can be seen clearly that the major
problem faced by English postgraduate students in writing research abstracts is
related more to the logical structure of the abstracts rather than language: that
is, the students are not only unable to write grammar but they had structural
problems in organizing their writing abstracts at both macro and micro levels.
h. Through the analysis, the researcher notice that some of the MA abstract
writers have a lack of knowledge and techniques of in their writing abstract
because some of them did provide full information about their research and
also did not apply the genre technique as well as disordering of moves and
steps functionally and rhetorically.
5.3 Recommendations
On the light of the previous findings and ideas stated above, the
researcher suggests the following recommendations:
a. The adoption of Genre Analysis Approach in teaching writing can help
students to solve structural and rhetorical problems in writing research article
abstracts as well as allow them to have better understanding on how research
abstracts were structured and organized.
b. There should be a pedagogical template viable and useful for students which
included in the syllabus to develop coping strategies in response to the
rigorous writing demands of academia encountered. A better understanding of
how research articles are constructed can enhance not only their writing skills
to conform to the expectations of the target discourse community, but also the
quality of communication and chance of success in their respective academic
context in an international forum.
c. The results of this study should be realized to teach advanced level students
pursuing their master's and doctoral degrees .
d. Teachers should raise student's awareness of different practices between
students writers and expert writers and guide them to select the most
appropriate rhetorical moves to fulfill their rhetorical goals so as to help
students construct an impression of a writer who has a good place in the
discourse community.
e. Teachers should encourage their postgraduate students to be more
autonomous learners and guide them to analyze authentic research article by
applying the generic approach.
f. The integrated process-genre approach seems to be effective and useful in
teaching abstract writing for the students at university level, it might be useful
to introduce this teaching technique to other writing teachers and course
developers.
g. There should be designed materials for students of EPA with clear view to
new entrants into academic discourse community who face difficulty with
producing clear and coherent abstracts.
5.4 Suggestions for Further Studies
On the basis of this study ,the following suggestions, are recommended
a. The researcher did not do the experimental study, further studies should be
conducted using the experimental design to see the effects of integrated
process-genre approach of teaching.
b. This study was conducted with a small group of subjects; further studies
should be done with a large number of subjects.
c. This study concerns with English language MA abstracts, further research
should be conducted on other subjects in different departments.
d. Since this study related to research article abstracts, there should be further
studies on research articles such as theses, instructions, reports, memos,
letters..etc.
e. The present study has embarked only on the rhetorical features of
information structure (Moves) of MA English language abstracts. There could
be other numerous future studies inspecting other probable rhetorical
differences with respect to the Move structures.
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 Appendix (1)
The Corpus of the Study
Collected Universities' Abstracts

University of Khartoum Length of

No ID M.of Year
Abstracts
Title of Abstracts

Deficiency in the Use of Spoken Language – Sudanese 2001

1 F M.E.d 365
Secondary School Students'

2 F Implementing Story Telling in Developing Writing Technique M.E.d 2001 487

The Artistry and thematic Preoccupation of Charlotte Bronte

3 M M.A 1997 309
with special reference to Jane Eyre

The State of Instructional technologies in teaching English in

4 M M.E.d 2007 248
Sudanese Secondary Schools in Khartoum state

Employing Poetry in developing The Comprehension of

5 M M.A 2008 271
Figurative Language

Shaw's Concept of Realistic Comedy With Particular Reference

6 M M.A 1999 320
to Arms and the Man

7 M An evaluation of the New English language Program M.E.d 1989 197

The Difficulties face the Sudanese School Students in English

8 F M.E.d 1996 143
consonants' pronunciation

9 F Implementing Some Rules to Avoid Errors M.E.d 2005 249

Problems Facing Sudanese Secondary School Students in

10 M M.E.d 1992 223
Learning English Language

An Analysis of Khartoum University Students' Composition

11 M Errors with Implications for remedial English in the Context of M.E.d 1980 121

Arabicization"
No ID University of Gezira M.of Year Length of

Abstracts
Title of Abstracts

12 M Mother tongue Interference in Sudanese Universities M.E.d 2007 233

Computer A assisted teaching and its Role in foreign

13 M M.E.d 2008 185
language Teaching

Improving EFL Learner's Communicative competence

14 M M.E.d 2011 260
Through Effective Reading

Improving Students Language Teaching Through

15 M M.E.d 2011 201
Supplementary Reading Books

16 M Improving Classroom performance in receptive skills M.E.d 2007 232

The major factors affecting EFL and ESP Students' writing

17 F M.E.d 2009 275
at Al- Baha University, K.S.A

Using Literature for Promoting Students' English

18 M M.E.d 2010 183
Language

19 F Improving learners' Performance in oral skills M.E.d 2006 263

No ID Omdurman Islamic University M.of Year Length

Title of Abstracts

Evaluation of Students' Errors in the use of the

20 M M.A 2004 340
English preposition of university level

An Analytical study of Syntactic s & Semantic

21 F M.A 2003 112
Aspects of English sentences

An Analysis of EFL Learners' Errors on English verbs

22 M Forms: A case study of students of English at M.A 2002 456

Omdurman Islamic University

The Attitudes of EL teachers Towards Supervision in

23 M M.A 2008 370
Saudi & Arabia

24 F Errors in using Vocabulary ; Analysis and Evaluation M.A 2006 147

25 F Symbolic Portrayal of Characters in Al- Tayeb Salih M.A 2008 279

Investigating Figures of Speech I Words Worth

26 F M.A 2007 183
Poetical Works

27 M University Students' Errors in Using prepositions M.A 2006 153

28 F Problems of Paragraph Writing at basic level Schools M.A 2006 102

29 M Frequency Repeated errors in Essay Writing M.A 2008 285

English Prepositions of Time Encountered by Libyan

30 M M.A 2009 181
Secondary Stage Students
No Al. Azhary University Length
I M.of Year
of
Title of Abstracts Abstracts

Spelling and Grammatical Errors Committed by Al- 2004

31 M M.A 255
Azhary University students

Investigating Problems facing the Secondary

32 F M.A 2007 224
Schools Students' in Writing English

Deficiency of Sudanese Secondary School Students

33 F M.E.d 2008 242
in Speaking English

Conflict of Identity in Al. Tayeb Salih Fiction with

34 M special reference The Wedding of Zain: and Season M.A 2008 236

of Migration

The Effect of the Use Computer in Teaching English

35 M M.E.d 2005 178
language

Stating and Achieving of English Language

36 M M.E.d 2008 207
Learning Objectives at Basic Level

Exploring the Effectiveness of Educational Aids in

37 M Teaching the English Language in Secondary M.E.d 2004 252

Schools

Investing University Students' Errors in English

38 M M.A 2008 338
Language

The Interference of Mother Tongue in the use of

39 M M.A 2006 370
English as A Foreign Language

1
 Appendix (2)
Verb tense frequencies
No. of Frequencies of Verb Tenses
Abstracts PT SPT PPT PV
1 2 0 0 2
2 9 0 0 2
3 2 5 0 1
4 3 2 0 2
5 12 0 0 7
6 17 0 0 17
7 4 1 0 15
8 5 1 0 4
9 2 1 0 3
10 6 3 3 5
11 3 1 0 7
12 5 1 0 8
13 9 0 0 9
14 10 1 1 4
15 12 2 0 10
16 6 1 1 5
17 9 2 0 3
18 6 7 0 3
19 3 0 0 3
20 6 1 0 13
21 5 0 0 2
22 3 2 0 11
23 1 5 0 10
24 10 1 1 3
25 5 1 1 0
26 4 1 0 3
27 4 0 0 6
28 2 0 0 2
29 7 4 0 4
30 0 1 2 7
31 10 0 0 8
32 11 0 0 0
33 6 2 3 1
34 6 0 1 6
35 8 3 3 4
36 4 0 1 7
37 1 0 2 2
38 10 2 0 2
39 4 4 0 2
 Move patterns of MA Abstracts (Bhatia, 1993)

RAA Moves No. of move abstracts

Abstract 1 1,2,3, 3
Abstract 2 2,2,3 3
Abstract 3 1,2,3,4 4
Abstract 4 1,4 2
Abstract 5 1,1,4 3
Abstract 6 1,1 2
Abstract 7 1,2,4 3
Abstract 8 1,2,3,4 4
Abstract 9 1,2,3,4 4
Abstract 10 1,1,4 3
Abstract 11 1,1,2,3,4 5
Abstract 12 1,2,3,4 4
Abstract13 1,3,2,4 4
Abstract 14 1,2,3,4 4
Abstract 15 1,2,3,4 4
Abstract 16 1,2,3,4 4
Abstract 17 1,2,3,4 4
Abstract 18 1,4 2
Abstract 19 1,2,3,4 4
Abstract 20 1,2,3,4 4
Abstract 21 1,2,3,4 4
Abstract 22 1,2,3 3
Abstract 23 1,2,3,4 4
Abstract 24 1,3,4 3
Abstract 25 1,2,1,3,4 5
 Abstract 26 1,2,3 3
Abstract 27 1,2,3 3
Abstract 28 1,1,2,3,4 4
Abstract 29 1,2,3 3
Abstract 30 1,2 2
Abstract 31 1,2,1,3 4
Abstract 32 1,3,4 3
Abstract 33 1,2,3,4 4
Abstract 34 1,2,2,3,4 5
Abstract 35 1,2,3 3
Abstract 36 1,2,3,4 4
Abstract 37 1,2,3,4 4
Abstract 38 1,2,3,4 4
Abstract 39 1,2,2,3,4 5
No. of Moves 140
Abstracts applicable to Bhatia Genre's model 26

Abstracts non-applicable to Bhatia Genre's model 13

Percentage of applicable abstracts 66.7
Percentage of non-applicable abstracts 33.3
 Appendix ( 4)

Analysis of Abstracts Steps & function (Nwogu, 1997)

M1 ( The introduction Section)

Abstracts
No. of Steps & their discourse function

PBI RRR ( 2) PNR ( 3 )

(1)
1 + _ +
2 + _ +
3 + _ +
4 + _ +
5 + _ +
6 + _ +
7 + _ +

8 + _ +
9 + _ +
10 + _ +
11 + _ +
12 + _ +
13 + _ +
14 + _ +
15 + _ +
16 + _ +
17 + _ +
18 + _ +
19 + _ +
20 + _ +
 + _ +
22 + _ +
23 + _ +
24 + _ +
25 + _ +
26 + _ +
27 + _ +
28 + _ +
29 + _ +
30 + _ +
31 + _ +
32 + _ +
33 + _ +
34 + _ +
35 + _ +
36 + _ +
37 + _ +
38 + _ +
39 + _ +
PBI 39
Total

RRR None
PNR 39

Note: The symbol (+) and (-) indicate that the step function either occurs or
does not occur respectively in each abstract.
Step 1 ( PBI) Presenting Background Information
Step 2 (RRR) Reviewing Related Research
Step 3 (PNR) Presenting New Research
 M2 ( The method Section)

Abstracts
No. of Steps & their discourse function

DDCP DEP ( 2) DDAP ( 3 )

(1) (1)
1 _ _ _
2 _ _ _
3 _ + _
4 _ _ _
5 _ _ _
6 + + +
7 + + +

8 + _ +
9 _ _ _
10 + + +
11 + + +
12 + + +
13 + + +
14 + + +
15 + + +
16 + + +
17 + + +
18 _ _ _
19 + + +
20 + + +
21 + + +
22 + + +
 23 + + +
24 _ _ _
25 + + +
26 + + +
27 + _ +
28 + + +
29 + + +
30 + + +
31 + + +
32 _ _ _
33 + + +
34 + + +
35 _ _ +
36 + _ _
37 + + +
38 + + +

39 + _ +
DDCP 29
Total

DEP 26
DDA 28
P

Note: The symbol (+) and (-) indicate that the step function either occurs or
does not occur respectively in each abstract.
Step 1 ( DDCP) Describing data collection Procedure
Step 2 (DEP) Describing Experimental Procedure
Step 3 (DDAP) Describing data Analysis Procedure
 M3 ( The Results Section )

Abstracts
No. of Steps & their discourse function

ICO (1) INCO ( 2)

1 _ _
2 + _
3 + _
4 _ _
5 _ _
6 _ _
7 + _

8 _ _
9 _ _
10 + _
11 + _
12 + _
13 + _
14 + _
15 + _
16 + _
17 _ _
18 + _
19 + _
20 + _
21 + _
22 + _
 23 + _
24 + _
25 + _
26 + _
27 + _
28 + _
29 + _
30 _ _
31 + _
32 + _
33 + _
34 + _
35 + _
36 + _
37 + _
38 + _
39 + _
ICO 28
Total

INCO None

Note: The symbol (+) and (-) indicate that the step function either occurs or
does not occur respectively in each abstract.
Step 1 ( ICO) Indicating Consistent Observations
Step 2 (INCO) Indicating non-Consistent Observations
 M4 ( The discussion Section

Abstracts
No. of Steps & their discourse function

HORO (1) ESRO ( 2) DDAP ( 3 )

1 +
2 +
3 _
4 +
5 +
6 _
7 +
_ +
_ _
_ _
_ +
_ +
_ _
+ +

8 + + +
9 + + +
10 + _ +
11 + _ +
12 + _ +
13 + _ +
14 + _ +
15 + _ +
16 + + +
17 + _ +
18 + _ +
19 _ _ _
20 + _ +
21 + _ _

22 + _ _

1
 23 + _ _
24 + _ _
25 _ _ _
26 _ _ _
27 + _ _
28 _ _ _
29 _ _ _
30 + _ _
31 + _ _
32 + _ _
33 _ _ _
34 + _ _
35 + _ _
36 + _ _
37 + _ _
38 + _ _
39 + _ _
HORO 29
Total

ESRO 4
SRC 28

Note: The symbol (+) and (-) indicate that the step function either occurs or
does not occur respectively in each abstract.
Step 1 (HORO) Highlighting Overall Research Outcome
Step 2 (ESRO) Explaining Specific Research Outcomes
Step 3 (SRC) Stating Research Conclusions
 Appendix ( 5)
Sample Abstracts from Corpus of the Study
English language Master Abstracts
ABSTRACT (1)
This study investigates the use of spelling rules to avoid errors among Sudanese Students of secondary Schools ( First year
Omdurman Model School and Ahfad Private School). The investigation arrived at different points of weakness in the students
spelling test, many spelling errors dominated the sampled data.
After the errors were analyzed, it has become evident that the methods of teaching of English in Sudanese Secondary Schools (
where spelling test received no care) , in addition, to the general decline of English learning
standards among Sudanese Secondary Schools students who did not know the rules of spelling .
In the last chapter the researcher ends his study with evidence that errors are due to both Interlingual and Intralingual
factors. Interlingual in the sense that there general English orthography areas recognized to be difficult for EFL Learners. Moreover,
the study recommends the following:
1- Teacher should be well trained in phonetics areas of spelling and improve themselves by reading such books as ( English
Phonetics and Phonology and Better English Pronunciations)
2- Teacher should frequently draw learner's attention to the use of spelling rules.
2.The learners should be encouraged to carry out creative writing activities and team tasks by means of setting weekly and monthly
newspapers, reports, magazines, articles , poems…etc. These activities may help them interact with functions of the foreign and
provide more opportunities to assess their works by themselves. The same study can be applied to test writing in longer sentences
not just single words.

ABSTRACT ( 2)
The study attempts to shed light on the actual problems that facing Sudanese secondary school students in learning
English language, and tries to investigate and identify the crucial issues in chronological order as follows:-
The first chapter establishes the significance of plan research. The second chapter focuses on literature review. The third
chapter deals with a contrastive phonological analysis of the problematic areas in the two languages.
The fourth chapter is devoted to the study of a contrastive syntactic - analysis of the relevant syntactic aspects in the two
languages ( L1 & L2 ) . In
the areas on Inflection ( Pronouns, numbers and verbs ) . Word -order (modification ) , and grammatical words that includes
prepositions and articles.
 The fifth chapter traces a contrastive lexical analysis in the areas of aspects of words ( i.e. , form , meaning , and distribution )
, receptive and productive levels, prefixes and suffixes and suffixes , compounds, and finally multi- word verbs ( prepositional verbs
and phrasal verbs)
The sixth chapter deals with methods of research .The seventh chapter is intended to provide a brief summary of what took
place in respect of the title of the research difficulties facing Sudanese School Secondary Students in learning English, together
with some solution and recommendations.
ABSTRACT (3)
In Sudan, Kambal ( 1980 ) analyzed errors in three types of free compositions written by first- year Sudanese University
students. The study gives an account of the major syntactic errors in verb phrase attempt to improve the quality of the remedial
English programme in the context of Arabicization in Sudan. Kambal reported on the main types of error in the verb phrase: verb
formation, tense, and subject – verb agreement. He discussed errors in tense under five categories: tense sequence, tense
substitution, tense

marker, deletion , and confusion of perfects tenses. With regard to subject – verb agreement, three types of errors were
identified. These involved the third- person singular marker used redundancy, and the incorrect from of the verb to be
ABSTRACT ( 4)
This study aims at searching for the trends of the teachers of English language towards using the educational technologies to
the Secondary Schools in Khartoum state and the impact of that upon the students' learning. The researcher applied the descriptive
methodology in this study. The means used for data collection are the questionnaire for teachers of English language in addition to
the interview form for directors of English language. The target group is composed of the teachers and the directors of the English
language in the Secondary Schools in Khartoum State. The researcher reached to important results among which:
1. The Secondary Schools in Khartoum State lack the technological means and consequently the absence of the practical training for
the teachers in these schools to use these technologies.
2. Weak concern of the ministry of Education in directing the teachers of English language towards using the educational
technologies in teaching this subject.
In the light of these results the researcher presents the important recommendation of which:
1. It is necessary for the concerned bodies to give more attention to the importance of the educational technologies and schedule
training courses for the teachers in this field.
2. It is important to establish lingual teaches and laboratories in domain of the English language at secondary schools in Khartoum
State.
3. It is significant to avail specialized technical coders in the field of producing, operating and maintaining the educational
technologies at the secondary schools.
 ABSTRACT (5)
In recent years more emphasis has been given to writing skills while oral skills were neglected. According to that. this study
attempts to promote the learners' oral language at secondary level school. To solve this problem, the researcher conducts this study
in Elozeiba secondary level school. This study consist of five chapters. The first one is intended to be an introductory chapter which
includes the objectives of the study. One of the main objectives to find proper and practical solutions for improving oral ability. It
also aims at teaching the language and to handle a variety of oral practice. The hypotheses of the study are reflected in the usage of
Arabic language during English lesson which minimize the students' exposure to target language and the time allotted for these
skills is very little.
The second chapter, literature review that indicates what has been written about spoken language. Chapter three is concerned with
research methodology adopted in this study, using the descriptive analytical method. Chapter four is about data, the results analysis
and discussion. The scores were computed using the SPSS program, the findings shows the time devoted to teaching oral skills in
Spin is not sufficient and teaching literature enriches and promotes students skills. the conclusion and recommendation suggest
that, teaching oral needs certain qualifications, so practicing these skills should be given attention through academic training
program. Text books should be regularly renewed and updated due to fast growing technology expansion, they also present the
importance of distinguishing between the separate goals of language helps academic improvement.
ABSTRACT (6)
The present study was carried out to investigate the difficulties that face the Sudanese secondary school students in English
consonants' pronunciation. It aims to identify the errors commuted by the students , discover the reasons of

the problems, and to find solutions to the problems. A sample of twenty, third year's
students, from Almohandseen Secondary School for girls was exposed to recorded oral test, consists of three activities, and
dictation test, to test the students' performance in the English consonant sounds. The researcher has adopted the target
Modification Taxonomy in analyzing and describing the data obtained from tests. The findings proved that the causes of the
problem are attributed to the teaching and learning methods and techniques used in the class rather than the mother toque
interference.. the results are discussed as well as recommendations for teaching and improvement. Then further researches are
suggested.
This thesis seeks to demonstrate and objectively evaluate the artistry significance of charlotte Bronte in novel- writing especially as
displayed in Jane Eyre, her recognized masterpiece.
ABSTRACT ( 7)
This research is a study by which the researcher was trying to state comparatively the characteristics of ELT situations in
Saudi Arabia and Sudan, where the researcher worked as a supervisor in improving the educational process in general and
English language teaching in particular.
 The researcher hope to help supervision in both countries by providing some practical ideas directly drawn from the field.
He also hope to help English language teachers, curriculum and policy makers to lead the educational process up to the best
quality that everyone is aspiring for.
According to the researcher's experience in both countries, he noticed that supervision in Saudi Arabia plays an essential
role in the educational process in general and in teaching English in particular, where as it doesn't in Sudan, as its largely
neglected. It is an effective factor in the educational development in Saudi Arabia, the where this is not the case in the Sudan.

The researcher starts by stating the objectives, the hypotheses and the significance of the study in chapter one. Then he
went to investigate the theoretical aspects in chapter two where he covered the topic with wide reading from the first hand
references in library and update data from internet. Chapter two highlights the educational supervision as it should be. In
chapter three the researcher explained the mythology in the data collection, population and sampling, questionnaire designing
and validation of questionnaire and the procedures of field of the study.
In chapter four the has been tabulated, analyzed and interpretation of the results were made. Finally, in chapter five the
conclusion, findings, recommendations and the suggestions.
According to the results of the questionnaire, teachers and supervisors in both countries agree with effectiveness of
supervision in both countries, but the results clearly show there is a statistical difference in favor of supervision in Saudi Arabia
not help teachers to improve their academic standards as much as they can do for their performance; so, in chapter five some
points are recommended concerning remedial work well as suggesting further areas for investigations in this field of
supervision particularly in Sudan.
ABSTRACT (8)
This study has been an attempt to identify, classify, analyze and explain the common and frequent errors of vocabulary. The
population of this study is the first year students of Islamic university of Omdurman, faculty of Arts. A sample of 15 male and 15
female students was randomly chosen. The data were sampled from a test vocabulary questions of the test covered four areas
of vocabulary, meaning, grammar, word use and word formation. The errors were identified, classified and analyzed.

The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) and analysis of Variance (ANOVA) are used to analyze and evaluate the results.
The results have shown that the word use achieved the highest percentage of errors ( 3 rd ) and also the highest mean of errors (
U.3). The results prove that the word use is problematic to students under study. Conclusions have been drawn, and
recommendations have stated.
ABSTRACT(8)
 This study aims at analyzing and evaluating the preposition errors that are made by students of English at university
level. The population of this study includes students of English at Omdurman University, El Nileen University and Shendi University.
Then a stratified random sample, that represents 20 % of the population, was selected in order to achieve the goal of the study,
the following questions are raised:
1- What are the difficulties that face students of English at university level when deal with English prepositions?
2- Are there any similarities or differences or handicap students' acquisition of English prepositions?
3- What is the relationship between the students' mean of preposition errors and their progress during years of study at university.
4- are there any significant differences between the students' mean of errors according to gender –difference.
5- Are there any significant differences in frequency of each of the four types of preposition errors that will be investigated in this
study.
6. Is the analysis of the English reposition system needed at university level?
In order to test the hypothesizes of the study, data are collected, using a multiple choice test. The test consists of 35 items almost
covering the major areas in English prepositional system. Then, the results are analyzed according to certain variables.
The results show that students of English at the university level face great difficulties when deal with English prepositions.
Therefore, they find some

prepositions are more problematic than others. These difficulties are due to the following reasons:
a- Incomplete acquisition of English prepositional system.
b- Ignoring the restricted rules, that had to be taken into their account.
c- Over generalization of rules.
These errors are called intralanguage errors. Such errors are due to complexity in the second language system itself. In this
study errors. Errors of complexity represent 24%
Also the results of the statistical analysis indicate that interference is the main cause of students' errors. Such errors represent
76 %. This interference is due to similarities and differences between English and Arabic prepositional systems.
Therefore, preposition errors of interference are usually made when students are not conscious of these similarities and
differences.
ABSTRACT (9)
This study represents an attempt to investigate the difficulties in learning and using English preposition of time.
The sample of the research is the second year secondary stage students (English specialization ) for both sexes Zliten town.
Libya.
The data for this study includes a written test for thirty eight students and the results of research offer important
implication for teaching preposition of time.
The study comprises five chapters. This chapter is an introduction to the research. It includes the problem, the purpose of
the study, the significance, the scope and the hypotheses. The second chapter deals with theoretical background of the study,
some related literature review. Chapter three which is the practical part of the study. It focuses on the method of the study and
the procedures and the administration of tools used. Chapter four consists of the results analysis, discussion, and findings of the
study. The last chapter presents conclusions and recommendations to overcome or at least to mitigate the difficulties which
encounter Libyan students in learning and using English prepositions of time and also suggestions for further studies.
ABSTRACT (10)
This research aims at studying characters through symbolic images in Al. Tayeb Salih fiction in an integration manner.
The majority of those who wrote about Salih have concentrated on and studied his works as separate entities. In their final
judgments they were inclined to come up with positive or negative conclusions in an objective manner, and in doing this they
were influenced by their own knowledge about Al. Tayeb Salih and the great impact to his international frame. Therefore, this
study depends mainly on the formulistic approach so as to avoid the impact of writer's personality on his work.
Four processing of the study Five chapters are divided as follows: the first chapter is an introduction that explains the
statement of the problem, its importance and its objectives.
Chapter Two is the theoretical framework of the study. It includes a brief account of novel, characters and symbols.
Chapter three is review of some related studies: This chapter confirms the new that many of the studies have tackled, in most
cases, " Season of migration to the North". In addition to this a comparative study, followed with comments.
Chapter Four is devoted to the presentation of the character through the symbolic image with regard to: the Nile Date Palm
tree as characters, character's status ( men and women) characters, names, implications, religious characters and at the end a
comparison of all Salih's works mode.
Chapter Five is the concluding chapter. It presents summary, main finding of the study, recommendations and suggestions for
further studies.
Some of the findings obtained in this study include unity in Salih's fiction and that the stories seem to occur at one and the
same place through inhabited by different people.

ABSTRACT ( 11)

The idea of this study originates from the researcher's interest in literature, especially poetry. The researcher has
endeavored to analyze figure of speech in Wordsworth poetical work. The researcher follows the analytical approach through
analysis of Words Worth's major poems.

The study consists of six chapters: in the first chapter the researcher discussed the aims of the study, the significance and
limitation. Chapter two is about Wordsworth biography studies and career. The third chapter deals with romantic period
revealing its characteristics and including its effects in English literature. In the fourth chapter, the researcher has
distinguished and classified the popular figure of speech, with some instances given to explain this phenomenon. In fifth
chapter the researcher analyzed the major poems of Wordsworth and pointed out the figure of speech.
 The last chapter centers round the researcher findings and recommendations, including some suggestions for further
studies. The researcher recommends that learners of English language of universities should be exposed to a course on figure of
speech. Readers of poetry will benefit by such courses gaining insights and appreciating poetic works.
ABSTRACT ( 12)
Error analysis has played an important role in the study of language acquisition in general and investigating second and
foreign language in particular.
This study aims at analyzing and evaluating the preposition errors that are made by preliminary students of English at
university levels.
This study tries to explain these errors so as to know their causes and sources and then to propose measures of tackling
them.
The population of this study consists of forty students of English at Islamic University of Omdurman 20male and 20 female
students are randomly chosen. In order to test the hypnoses of this study, data are collected, using multiple choice test. The
test consists of thirty items. Then the results are analyzed according to a retain variables such as the types of prepositions,
Some statistical operation are implemented to analyzed the obtained data. These methods use theories, equitations and
formals such as SAS and SPSS package and ANOVA. Results are discussed and conclusions are drawn.
ABSTRACT ( 13)
This research has been an attempt to assess the paragraph writing of Sudanese Pupils at basic Level School in Khartoum
North- Musab Ibn omeir in Shambat. The research assesses the pupils's performance in writing paragraph.
Research data were organized written answers to examination held at Bahri District – Bahri municipality. Musab Ibn omeir
Basic level School for boys 8th class. The results have shown that pupils' writing was characterized by the paragraph of the
proprieties of English paragraph writing. i.e. discourse coherence and discourse mechanics.
The results have shown also that the pupils lack awareness of these discourse attributes which seem to correlate writing
ABSTRACT ( 14)
This study investigate the frequency repeated errors found in essay writing of third level learners of college of language
and translation , Imam Mohammed Bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh. Learners usually commit mistakes in spite of the great
effort paid by the teacher to do the remedial work and correct their mistakes. These mistakes are what the researcher called
frequency repeated errors and which usually drew his attention in the writing tasks in his students.
The study seeks to find a better remedy for these frequency repeated errors and eliminate them from the roots by
identifying, examining, classifying and analyzing these errors. The data for the study was collected through two essay writing
tests; one pre-test and one post-test applied on randomly chosen sample for forty five subjects.

For analyzing the data collected, the researcher adopted the descriptive and analytical approaches. Through their
searching for the best strategies to learn the new language, students commit errors of different types due to several reasons.
Some are easy to eliminate by the learner himself, others are difficult to eliminate because they are frequency repeated errors
 and this the statement of the problem. So, this research is going to deal with reasons behind the frequency repeated errors
committed by Saudi Students bt writing tasks.
After thorough investigating and analysis, the researcher came to the findings of his study which proved that frequency
repeated errors in essay writing were due to ( interlingual and Intralingual) factors, fossilization, habit formation, performance
errors. Also, the finding showed that teachers sometime make their students commit errors intentionally through improper
instructions and corrections. Then the researcher gave some considerations and suggestions for further investigations.

ABSTRACT ( 15)
The title of this study is " An analysis of EFL learners' Errors on English forms : A case study of students of English at
Omdurman Islamic University, the target population of this study is the students of O.I.U . A stratified random sample of 136
students is chosen as a reprehensive sample of the study target population. Specifically , this study sets out to answer the
following questions:
1- What is the relationship between the student' mean of errors on English verb forms and their progress in the
study at O.I.U?
2- Is there any significant difference in frequency of each of the four categories of errors investigated in this study?

To test the hypotheses of this study, data are collected, using a test , which is put in two formats : cognition test , which has
the multiple- choice format , a controlled production test cast in the open – ended format. This test is mainly adopted from
TOFEL.
In the analyzed data the researcher makes use of experimental and co- relational techniques to explore errors on English verb
forms made by students of English at O. I. U. the tools of data analysis in this study are the t- test one –
way analysis of variance , correlation coefficient , and chi – square, which are used to test the significance of the study
hypotheses. The analysis of data reveals the following :
1- There is a significant differences in the mean of errors of both the recognition and production of English verb forms
between the entrance and instruction group.
2- In the case of the instruction group, there are significant differences in the mean of errors of both recognition and
production of English verb forms made by students of English according to gender- difference. However, the difference
appears only in the errors of production of English verb forms in the case of the doorway group.
3- Students' errors on the production of the English verb forms are more significant than errors of recognition.
4- In the case of the instruction groups, there is a strong positive correlation between the students' errors of recognition
and production of English verb
5- forms , however, in the case of the entrance group, this correlation is very week.
 6- Data analysis reveals that there is a meaning full difference in the number of errors between the entrance group ( 1 st
year students ) and the instruction group ( 2nd , 3rd and 4th years students ). However, the study
indicates that there is no meaningful difference in the mean of errors among the groups within the instruction group.

7- In the both recognition and production ,modal auxiliaries come at the top of the hierarchy of numbers of errors among
the four categories of errors investigated in the study.
ABSTRACT ( 16)
This study focuses on identifying and analyzing the student's actual use of language while writing in order to reveal their
knowledge of the language and how they use it, and it will be useful to those who are in field of linguistics. Semantics and syntax
are a problematic are of research, especially in English language learning as a foreign language ( ELT or a second language ( E
SL) . Because there is not any established framework to be followed. The data for the present study has been collected from difficult
sources, compiled and analyzed in terms of semantics and syntax. This thesis contains six chapters dealing with specific areas of
study.

ABSTRACT (17)
This study attempts to shed light on the actual problems that face the Sudanese students in comparison with errors
committed by Arab students These problems are due to the interference of the first language "mother tongue" in the use of
English as a foreign language. These problems are very clear in the productive skills ( writing ) of English language and they are
related deeply to morphology, semantic, lexis and syntactic of English language. The population of this study includes the students
of Al-Tadreeb Higher Secondary School in Sudan and Al-Qatif higher Secondary School in Saudi Arabia. Then, stratified random
sample that represents 20% of population. In order to achieve the goal of the study the following questions are

1- Are the errors committed by students caused by the first language interference?
2- Are the errors committed by Sudanese students as similar to the ones committed by Arab learners?.
3- Are these errors related to morphological , syntactical, lexical and semantic errors?
4- Are there any significant differences in frequency of each of the types of those errors ?
In order to test the hypotheses of this study, data are collected, corrected, analyzed and evaluated.
Then , the findings are analyzed according to certain variables and categories.
Eventually, some statistical operations are implemented to analyzed the obtain data. These tools are: The mean, standard
deviation, coefficient correlation, analysis of variance and the t- test.
The results obtained reveal the following:-
1. The results of statistical analysis indicates Mother Tongue Interference ( negative Transfer ) and Intralinguage errors are
considered to be the major problems that face Sudanese students as well as Arab Learners in their writing.

1
2. The results of the statistical analysis also show that the errors committed by Sudanese students and Arab learners are actually
related to syntax, semantics, grammar and lexis.
3. Also the statistical analysis errors proves that errors committed by Sudanese students are similar to the ones committed by
Arab learners.
4. Also the statistical analysis proves there is a significant differences in frequency of each of the types of errors .
5. Also the statistical analysis proves that both the Students of the Schools ( A-Qatif & Al-Tadreeb ) have weakness in syntax and
Grammar.
ABSTRACT (18)
The study is an attempt to identify and analyze the linguistic errors in the written English assignments of Al- Zaem Al-
Azhary University students. The problem can be handled in the light of the following questions:
1. What are the learning strategies that underlie the subject errors?
2. What are the probable accounts for the occurrence of errors?
The aim of this study is to identify and analyze the most common errors committed by learners of English in the University of
Al- Zaem Al-zhary students. The study is based on the following assumptions :
3. Some learning strategies remain as potential source for the occurrence of errors.
4. Interference of ( L1 ) is not the only one source of student's errors.
The study will be set among other fewer studies to analyze the written English assignments in Al- Azhary University.
By looking at the most errors that made by students one can trace evidence for three main processes:-
a. Overgeneralization of second language rules,
b. Simplification redundancy reduction by omitting elements ,
c. Transfer of rules from the mother tongue
The first and the second are intralingual processes. The third is an interlingual one.
It seems likely that the main creative process which underlie the second language learning are generalization and transfer, but
transfer on this sense appears to have a less directly creative role.
However, it may perform an important function of ensuring that the learner can devote more of his available previous language
knowledge to other aspects of his developing language systems.

ABSTRACT ( 19)

The study aims at to show the problems that faced the Sudanese Secondary School Students especially the third class
students in writing in English as a foreign language.
The researcher designed a questionnaire for the English language teachers.
Sixty teachers and then inspectors respond to the questionnaire. Thirty boys and thiry girls responded to the
questionnaire.
Main results as follows:
 1. Teachers of English language were not trained on methods of teaching writing.
2. English language was not taught by by non-specialized teachers.
3. When curriculum was designed the teachers' ideas and ideas were not taken into consideration.
4. The writing questions were not given importance in designing the examination.
5. The writing tasks were not relevant to student's life : not taken from their environment
6. Students were not provided with suitable learning material to promote their ability in writing.
Main recommendations :
Putting into consideration the obtained results of this research. The researcher recommends the following :
1. Teachers of English should be given special and adequate training course on methods of teaching writing.
2. English language should be taught bt specialized graduate.
3. Teachers' views and ideas should be taken into consideration when designing the school syllabus.

4. Students should be provided with suitable learning materials and adequate practice to promote their ability in
writing.
5. Writing questions should be given weight in school test and examinations.
6. Setting up realistic task, which are relevant to students' life.
ABSTRACT (20)
The present study investigates the problem of inability of the Secondary School Students in oral interaction. It tries to look
for the cause and to offer some solutions to the problem.
The research is an experimental one. Two groups were used. The experimental group was subjected to a structured input that
focused on developing oral fluency. The subjects were taught materials that emphasize speaking in integration with other skills.
After the experimental finished, they were evaluated through free speaking activities and their performance was assessed. The
control group was assessed by the same method. The results were then compared and conclusions were made.
For more reliability and validity, instruments such questionnaires to the teachers and interviews with experts were
administered. These were analyzed and results were discussed in the light of the experiment. The all gave the same results.
The study arrived at some conclusions that time and amount for listening and speaking activities need to increased. Also the
negligence of oral skills in the examinations negatively affect the development of these skills.
The study recommended that more time has to be allotted for oral skills. They also have to be distributed evenly throughout the
course. There has to be more exposure to the language by taking advantage of the new media available and the skills must be
included in the exams. The study also recommended that teachers need more in-service training to better their performance.