Rhetorical Variation across Research Article Abstracts in Linguistics

Abstract

This study examines the communicative characteristics of the quantity-focused and the quality-focused abstracts in the fields of Linguistics. With respect to the pattern of the rhetorical structures, in the quantity-focused abstracts, the conventional moves were Purpose, Method, Product and Conclusion; and the optional moves were Introduction. On the other hand, in the quality-focused abstracts, the conventional moves consisted of Introduction and Product; and the optional moves consisted of Purpose, Method, and Conclusion. As for the verb tense usage, in the Method move, the high frequency of the past tense was identified only in the quantity-focused abstracts. In the quality-focused abstracts, there was no incidence of the Method. Moreover, in the Purpose, the higher use of the present was only identified in the quality-focused abstracts. In the quantity-focused abstracts, however, the past was more frequently used than the present. Finally, this study investigated the first-person pronoun usage in each rhetorical move. In the quantity-focused abstracts, the first-person pronouns were used the most frequently in the Method; but in the quality-focused abstracts, the first-person pronouns were used the most frequently in the Product. Overall, this study confirmed the necessity of investigating both quantity-focused and the quality-focused abstracts, and by doing so more accurate pictures of research article abstracts in the field of linguistics were suggested.