Title: An Investigation of the Linguistic Features of Abstracts in Research Articles and Master’s Theses
Abstract: Although abstracts have been increasingly acknowledged as an important academic genre, little research has been carried out on how abstracts can be characterized in terms of their key linguistic features. In addition, comparative studies on such linguistic features in abstracts produced by expert writers and non-native novice writers seem to be very scarce. To help remedy this deficiency, this study attempts to compare the actual linguistic features of 50 abstracts in five leading journals from the field of applied linguistics and those of 50 thesis abstracts produced by Korean Master’s students. Four linguistic features including grammatical subjects, verb tense, voice of verbs, and modal verbs have been chosen for the comparative analysis of abstracts produced by both groups. Each linguistic feature was analyzed in terms of overall frequency in the abstract as well as the distribution patterns across rhetorical moves embedded in the abstract. The results show that thesis writers significantly overused certain grammatical subjects, passive voice, and modal verbs marking possibility and obligation in their abstracts compared to their expert counterparts. In the analysis of distribution of the grammatical features across rhetorical moves, a significant difference was found between expert writers and thesis writers in several categories in certain moves. The findings of the study have some pedagogical implications for academic writing courses for non-native graduate students.
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 1
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