A Genre Analysis of Research Article Discussions in Applied Linguistics

Abstract

This study adopts Peacock(2002) revised model of move analysis to address questions related to the rhetorical structure of research article discussions and intra-disciplinary variations within the field of applied linguistics. Data were compiled from a corpus of 50 research articles published in five major peer-reviewed journals in applied linguistics. The results indicated that Moves 2 (Finding) and 4 (Reference to previous research) were obligatory; Moves 1 (Information move), 5 (Explanation for expected or unexpected results), 6 (Claim) and 8 (Recommendation) were conventional whereas Moves 3 (Expected or expected outcome) and 7 (Limitation) were optional. The four most common moves included Moves 1, 2, 4, and 5 whereas the least common move was Move 7. The results also suggest some intra-disciplinary differences in terms of the number and type of moves and move cycles in Studies in Second Language Acquisition. This study findings will benefit teachers, graduate students, and less-experienced research writers in teaching and writing RA discussions that meet the expectation of their research discourse community.