english and vietnamese tesol journal article abstracts a genre-based analysis = các toát yếu bài báo tiếng anh và tiếng việt chuyên ngành giảng dạy tiếng anh phân tích theo thể loại

However, very few studies have compared genre in English journal article abstracts and Vietnamese ones, none of which focused on TESOL field.. Dudley-Evans 2000 noticed that „texts used

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

M.A Combined Programme Thesis

Major: English Linguistics

Hanoi -2011

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

M.A Combined Programme Thesis

Major: English Linguistics

Supervisor: Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân

Hanoi -2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART A: INTRODUCTION………1

1 Rationale of the study……… 2

2 Aims and objectives of the study……….2

3 Scope of the study………3

4 Theoretical frameworks and research questions……… 3

5 Methodology……….4

6 Design of the study……… 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT……… …… 6

Chapter 1: Literature Review……….……7

1 Introduction……… …7

2 Genre analysis………7

2.1 The ESP approach to genre……….7

2.2 Systemic function approach to genre……… ……….13

2.3 The similarities and differences between ESP and systemic functional approach… 18

3 The theory of SFL………20

4 Research article abstracts……….23

4.1 Research article abstracts……… 23

4.2 Genre analysis of research article abstracts……….… 26

4.2.1 Move analysis of research article abstracts………26

4.2.2 SFL studies on research article abstracts………31

5 Summary……… 36

Chapter 2: The research……… 37

1 Introduction……….……….37

2 Data collection……….….37

3 Data analysis……….…38

4 Findings……… 40

4.1 Move analysis………40

4.1.1 The overall structure of English and Vietnamese research article abstracts (RAAs)40 4.1.2 Analysis of Move 1: Situating the

research……… ……….41

4.1.3 Analysis of Move 2: Presenting the research……… 44

4.1.4 Analysis of Move 3: Describing methodology……… …… 47

4.1.5 Analysis of Move 4: Summarizing the results……… 49

4.1.6 Analysis of Move 5: Discussing the research……….… 49

4.1.7 Some variations of move structure……… ……… 51

4.2 Passive voice construction……….…… 54

4.3 Transitivity analysis……… ……… 54

4.3.1 The distribution of processes in the English and Vietnamese RAAs……….54

4.3.2 Analysis of material processes……… …….56

4.3.3 Analysis of relational processes……….… ……….58

4.3.4 Analysis of mental processes……….………60

4.3.5 Analysis of verbal processes……… 61

4.3.6 Analysis of existential processes……….……… 62

5 Summary ……… ……64

PART C: CONCLUSION……… 65

1 Conclusion……….……… 66

2 Implications……… ……… 67

3 Directions for further research 68

References 69

Appendix A……… 72

Appendix B……… 81

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ESP - English for specific purposes

RAA - Research article abstract

SFL - Systemic Functional Linguistics

TESOL - Teaching English to speakers of other languages

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2 1 Process types, their meanings and characteristic participants

(Halliday, 2004:260)………21

Table 2 2 Frequency of moves in abstracts of English and Vietnamese economic articles (N.T.Hung & B.T.T.Ha, 2007)………28

Table 2 3 The analysis of the Processes (Silva et al., 2007:805)……….29

Table 2 4 Thematic organization: percentage (Silva et al., 2007: 808)………30

Table 2 5 Interpersonal meanings (Silva et al., 207: 810)………31

Table 2 6 Comparison of frequency of Processes in the international and Chinese sets (Huang, 2009: 27)………32

Table 2 7 Linguistic features in English and Vietnamese research papers (D.V Loc, 2001: 68)………33

Table 3 1 Combination model for research article abstracts analysis……… 36

Table 3 2 Total sentences and average of abstracts……….37

Table 3 3 Comparison of English and Vietnamese sets, Move distribution…………37

Table 3 4 Comparison of English and Vietnamese sets, Submove distribution…… 38

Table 3 5 Reduced moves in English and Vietnamese sets……….45

Table 3 6 Distribution of additional moves/submoves of English and Vietnamese abstracts………50

Table 3 7 Distribution of Passive voice Construction in English and Vietnamese sets………51

Table 3 8 Comparison of frequency of Processes in the English and Vietnamese sets………53

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 A framework for developing academic English courses

(Swale, 1990: 69)………6

Figure 2 Perspectives on discourse (Bhatia, 2002 : 16)… 9

Figure 3 Halliday‟s network of meanings (Anis, S.B and Mary,

J R , 2010:31)……… 13

Figure 4 Martin‟s (1985) modified network of meaning (Anis, S.B

and Mary, J R , 2010:31)……….14

Figure 5 The Inter-related Status of the Abstract for Scholarly

Communication between Producers and End-users (Chan S.K., Foo S., 2000:3)………23

PART A

INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

More and more Vietnamese scholars are having their research articles published in English-medium journals However, it is noted that this number is still modest in comparison with authors from other countries (only nine articles in The Asian EFL Journal, one in The Journal of English as An International Language, none in The Linguistics Journal, none in The Asian ESP Journal, to name some) One of the reasons identified is the different generic features that Vietnamese research article abstracts often retain (N T Hung and B T T Ha, 2007) The abstract is an important part of a research article as it captures the essence of the whole article Also, it is the „advertisement‟ of the research article; whether or not the article is going to be published or read largely depends

on the abstract Graetz (1985) noted that it greatly enhances the comprehension of journal abstracts if readers can recognize the linguistic signals of the different functions of an abstract And because these signals provide a clear guidance to readers, writer can then communicate their ideas more effectively The knowledge of the textual structure and the linguistic features of research article abstracts therefore will be of great value to novice writers In fact, there have been a number of studies of research article abstracts However, very few studies have compared genre in English journal article abstracts and Vietnamese ones, none of which focused on TESOL field Dudley-Evans (2000) noticed that „texts used in particular specialist environments […] have particular characteristics that distinguish them from other texts…‟ Therefore, in this study, a genre-based analysis was conducted to compare English and Vietnamese TESOL journal article abstracts

2 Aims and objectives of the study

In this study, a genre-based analysis was conducted to compare the structure and linguistic features of research article abstracts in English and Vietnamese to find the similarities and differences between the two sets These differences may not necessarily be constraints for Vietnamese scholars to publish in English-medium journals However, the results of this study suggest implications for Vietnamese TESOL scholars, especially M.A students of English Linguistics and English Language Teaching Besides, suggestions may also be made for foreign TESOL scholars who wish to publish in Vietnamese journals

3 Scope of the study

On the basis of the purpose stated above, the study focused on journal article abstracts in TESOL field only Besides, due to the limitation of time and the author‟s knowledge, the study only focused on the move structure and transitivity analyses

4 Theoretical frameworks and research questions

There have been a considerable number of studies on the structure of research articles (Swales, 1981, 1990; Salager-Meyer, 1992; Bhatia, 1993; Martin, 2003; Lores, 2004; Samraj, 2004), and a number of models have been proposed However, variation in rhetorical structures according to academic disciplines and genres are notified (Swales, 1990) Therefore, this study drew on models of move structure of previous studies These models were then refined, basing on data of the study

It is noted that move analysis can only show how research articles are organized at the macro-level; it cannot explain how language is used (Huang, 2009) Therefore, transitivity analysis was also conducted to examine the data at a more micro level, using Halliday‟s (2004) transitivity system The transitivity system construes the world of experience into a manageable set of PROCESS TYPES, including: material processes (i.e., processes of doing – and – happening), mental processes (i.e., processes of sensing), relational processes (i.e., processes of being and having), verbal processes (i.e process of saying), existential processes (e.g., exist, arise, ensure, emerge) and behavioral processes (e.g., breathe, cough, smile, dream) will be examined

Basing on the presented theoretical framework, the study addressed the following research questions:

1 How are English and Vietnamese TESOL journal article abstracts structured? What are the differences between the two sets?

2 How are different types of processes used in the data? What are the differences in the use of processes between the two sets?

5 Methodology

5.1 Data collection

Three Vietnamese journals and three English journals were selected Vietnamese journals include: Journal of Science - Foreign Languages (Vietnam National University, Hanoi), Journal of Science (Hue University), and Journal of Science and Technology (Da Nang University) from 2004 to 2010 Three English journals chosen are: TESOL Quarterly, TESOL Journal, and TESL-EJ These journals were chosen because they are central readings in both international and Vietnamese TESOL fields Articles were chosen randomly in these journals from 2004 to 2010

5.2 Data analysis procedure

For move structure analysis, a top-down approach was utilized to identify the moves and steps in the articles, based on functions or content of the text

For transitivity analysis, different process types were compared, and percentages for each process type per move and section were calculated in both sets

6 Design of the study

The study is organized around four chapters

Chapter one, Introduction, aims at giving the background of the study In this chapter, the rationales, objectives, scope, and method of the study are briefly introduced

Chapter two, Literature review, aims at providing the theoretical background of the present study First, the theories of genre and different ways and means of genre analysis are addressed, with the focus on Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) approach and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) approach to genre, which were adopted in the present study In the second part of the chapter, previous studies on generic structure and lexico-grammar of research article abstracts are reviewed

Chapter three, Methodology, discusses in detail the framework for analysis, and the research procedure Next, the findings of the research are presented The structures and

linguistic features of research article abstracts are described and compared between the two sets, English and Vietnamese ones

The last chapter, Conclusion, summarizes the whole research Implications for TESOL scholars are also discussed in this chapter

PART B

DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1

LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Introduction

This chapter provides theoretical background which the present study is based upon as well

as the review of the previous studies on the subject In the first part of the chapter, theoretical background, the theories of genre and different ways and means of genre analysis are addressed, with the focus on Systemic Functional approach and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) approach to genre, which were adopted in the present study In the second part of the chapter, previous studies on generic structure and lexico-grammar of research article abstracts are reviewed

2 Genre analysis

The concept of genre has been used widely recently in linguistics Although there is a long tradition of the study of genre in literature, genre analysis in linguistics has come to the fore only since 1980s In examining the concept of genre, I studied Swales, Bhatia, Martin and other genre analysts Genre is viewed differently from different disciplines In this chapter, I review two major approaches to genre which this study is based upon: English for specific purpose (ESP) approach and systemic functional approach

2.1 The ESP approach to genre

From perspective of English for Specific Purpose, Swales (1990) provides a detailed 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 rational shapes the schematic structure of discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style Communicative purpose is both a privileged criterion and one that operates to keep the scope of a genre as here conceived narrowly focused on comparable rhetorical action In addition to purpose, exemplars of a genre exhibit various patterns of similarity in terms of structure, style, content and intended audience If all high probability expectations are realized, the exemplar will be viewed as prototypical by the parent discourse

community The genre names inherited and produced by discourse communities and imported by others constitute valuable ethnographic communication, but typically need further validation (p58)

One of the key words in Swales‟ definition of genre is „discourse community‟; genres are developed, used and modified by the discourse community in response to the recurrent rhetorical situations they face Swales conceptualized discourse community with six defining characteristics as follows:

1 A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals

2 A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members

3 A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback

4 A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims

5 In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis

6 A discourse communicative has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree

of relevant content and discoursal expertise

On the purpose of serving ESP instruction, Swales‟ (1981, 1990) genre analysis focused on the description of the language and discourse features of specific genres The information acquired in the analysis is then applied in curriculum design and ESP teaching materials

He proposed a framework for developing academic English courses, explaining how the

knowledge of discourse and community contribute to the development of academic English programs

Ethnography DISCOURSE COMMUNITIES

Evaluations and validations

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS AND ADVICE

Access

routes

for the

designer

Discourse analysis GENRE

Methodology LANGUAGE-LEARNING TASKS

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION/ ACQUISITION OF LITERACY, ETC

Figure 1 A framework for developing academic English courses (Swale, 1990: 69)

In the ESP perspective, discourse structures are usually described in terms of moves, and communicative purpose is given an important role Moves are defined as functional units

in a text which together fulfill the overall communicative purpose of the genre (Connor, Davis, & De Rycker, 1995) Moves may contain multiple elements that together, or in some combination, realize the move These elements are referred to as „steps‟ by Swales (1990) The steps of a move primarily function to achieve the purpose of the move to which it belongs In short, moves represent semantic and functional units of texts that have specific communicative purpose In addition, moves generally have distinct linguistic boundaries that can be objectively analyzed (Biber, Connor, and Upton, 2007) The second part of the chapter will show how „moves‟ and „steps‟ can describe the genre of research article abstracts

Continuing this approach to genre analysis established by Swales, Bhatia (1993) argued for combining language insights with socio-cognitive and cultural considerations He further argues that these factors contribute to genre construction, interpretation, use and exploitation He attempts to move the focus of genre study from a predominantly

pedagogic direction to studying genres in their professional and institutional settings – the real worlds of written discourse A different concept of genre thus follows – genre is not considered as something pure with distinctly established boundaries and limits, necessarily attributed to a specific discourse community He put forward a comprehensive definition of genre as follows

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 (Bhatia, 2004: 23)

Bhatia (2004) argues that the tension between mixing and embedding of genres and yet preserving their generic integrity is the key to how professional expertise is acquired and this has not been put forth in available literature Bhatia considers genres in all their complexity: vertically as super-genres and sub-genres, horizontally as genre sets, and their interrelations and relatedness to features of context Bhatia (1993, 2004) maintains that generic integrity is not static but developing in concordance with a particular generic event

He advocates a multidimensional approach for analysis of the intricacies of academic, professional and institutional discourse by drawing on various discourse and non-discourse techniques that offer new perspectives and insights into how the real world of the written discourse is represented in the generic structuring of texts (Bhatia, 2004) To illustrate this,

he proposed an overlapping model of genre analysis, which reflects multiple-perspectives

to genre

Figure 2 Perspectives on discourse (Bhatia, 2002 : 16)

As can be seen, three perspectives on discourse include: the textual perspective, the cognitive perspective (the world of private intentions, i.e., exploitations of discourse by individual players), and the socio-critical perspective

socio-Discourse as text refers to the analysis of language use that is confined to the surface level

properties of discourse, which include formal, as well as functional aspects of discourse, that is phonological, lexico-grammatical, semantic, organizational, including intersentential cohesion, and other aspects of text structure such as 'given' and 'new', 'theme' and 'rheme', or information structures, such as 'general-particular', problem-

Socio-critical perspective

Pedagogic perspective

DISCOURSE AS SOCIAL

PRACTICE Social knowledge

Socio-cognitive domain

DISCOURSE AS GENRE

Genre knowledge

DISCOURSE AS TEXT Textual knowledge

solution, etc., not necessarily having interaction with context in a broad sense Although

discourse is essentially embedded in context, discourse as text often excludes any

significant analysis of context in any meaningful way, except in a very narrow sense of intertextuality to include interactions with surrounding texts Similarly, the emphasis at this level of analysis is essentially on the properties associated with the construction of the textual product, rather than on the interpretation or use of such a product It largely ignores the contribution often made by the reader on the basis of what he or she brings to the interpretation of the textual output, especially in terms of the knowledge of the world, including the professional, socio-cultural, and institutional knowledge as well as experience that one is likely to use to interpret, use, and exploit such a discourse

Discourse as genre, in contrast, extends the analysis beyond the textual output to

incorporate Context in a broader sense to account for not only the way text is constructed,

but also for the way it is likely to be interpreted, used and exploited in specific contexts, whether social, institutional, or more narrowly professional, to achieve specific goals The nature of questions addressed in this kind of analysis may often include not only linguistic, but also socio-cognitive and ethnographic This kind of grounded analysis of the textual output is very typical of any framework within genre-based theory

Discourse as social practice takes this interaction with the Context a step further in the

direction of social context, where the focus shifts significantly from the textual output to the features of context, such as the changing identities of the participants, the social structures or professional relationships the genres are likely to maintain or change, the benefits or disadvantages such genres are likely to bring to a particular set of readers

It is important to note that the three interacting views of discourse are not mutually exclusive, but essentially complementary to each other It is possible to use the proposed framework in a number of ways, depending upon the objective one may need or decide to pursue (Bhatia, 2002: 17)

In brief, the two dominant features of the ESP approach to genre are the description of genre in terms of functionally-defined stages, moves, and steps, and the association of genre with particular „discourse communities‟, i.e networks of expert users (for example: applied linguists) for whom a genre or set of genres (research article, conference paper) constitutes their professionally recognized means of communication

2.2 Systemic functional approach to genre

The second approach to genre which is relevant to the present study is systemic functional approach Systemic functional linguistics sees language structure as integrally related to social function and context Language is organized the way it is within a culture because such an organization serves a social purpose within that culture “Functional” thus refer to the work that language does within particular context “Systemic” refers to the structure or organization of language so that it can be used to get things done within those contexts

“Systemic” then refers to the “systems of choices” available to language users for the

realization of meaning

A great deal of the work in SFL can be traced to Halliday‟s Language as Social Semiotic,

in which Halliday describes how “the network of meanings” that constitute any culture, what he calls the “social semiotic,” is to a large extent encoded in and maintained by its discourse-semantic system, which represents a culture‟s “meaning potential” This is why,

as Halliday argues, language is a form of socialization, playing a role in how individuals become socialized and perform meaningful actions within what he calls “contexts of situation.” Halliday explains that contexts of situation are not isolated and unique, but often reoccur as “situation types,” a set of typified semiotic and semantic relations that make up “a scenario of persons and actions and events from which the things which are said derive their meaning” Because contexts of situation reoccur as situation types, those who participate in these situation types develop typified ways of linguistically interacting within them As these situation types become conventionalized over time, they begin to

“specify the semantic configurations that the speaker will typically fashion” Halliday refers to this “clustering of semantic features according to situation types” as register By

linking a situation type with particular semantic and lexico-grammatic patterns, register

describes what actually takes place (the “field”), how participants relate to one another (the

“tenor”), and what role language is playing (the “mode”)

Field 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 components?

Tenor refers to who is taking part, to the nature of the participants, their statuses and roles:

what kind of role 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

on which they are involved?

Mode refers to what part the language is playing, that it is that the participants are

expecting the language to do for them in that situation: the symbolic organization 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 &Hassan, 1998)

What happens at the level of context of situation in terms of field, tenor, and mode corresponds to what happens at the linguistic level in terms of what Halliday refers to as the three language “metafunctions”: ideational, interpersonal, and textual

Ideational refers to the linguistic representation of action (who is doing what, to whom,

when, and where) As such, the ideational metafunction corresponds with field

Interpersonal describes interactions between participants (such as asking questions,

making statements, or giving commands) at the linguistic level The interpersonal

corresponds with tenor

Textual describes the flow of information within and between texts, including how texts

are organized, what is made explicit and what is assumed as background knowledge, how

the known and the new are related, and how coherence and cohesion are achieved The

textual metafunction thus corresponds to mode At the level of register, then, context of

situation and language realize one another as follows:

Context of situation: field tenor mode

Figure 3: Halliday‟s network of meanings (Anis, S.B and Mary, J R , 2010:31)

Martin builds on Halliday‟s work by locating genre in relation to register so that genre and register relate to and realize one another in important ways According to Martin, while

register functions on the level of context of situation, genre functions on the level of

context of culture The relationship can be diagrammed as follows:

Context of culture: genre

Context of situation: field tenor mode

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)

Genre „refers to the staged purposeful social processes through which a culture is realized

in a language‟ (Martin and Rothery, 1986:243)

Later on, Hassan (1989) proposed a theory for generic analysis: „generic structure

potential‟ in her collaborative work with Halliday Language, context, and text: aspects of

language in a social semiotic perspective The essence of her generic structure potential

theory consists of three main propositions as follows

The features of contextual configuration could be used for making some kind of predictions about text structure and the sequence and order of the elements in the structure Contextual configuration is composed of three components as stated above: field of discourse, tenor of discourse, and mode of discourse

Every genre has a generic structure potential, in which there are three kinds of elements: obligatory, optional, and recursive The generic structure potential for a genre is a linear combination of the above-mentioned three elements in a certain order or sequence

Genre is defined by obligatory elements in structure By implication, the obligatory elements and their sequence define the genre to which a text belongs The function of optional elements may account for the variations in all the texts that belong to the same genre

Hassan has made a systematic probe into the concept of genre, providing a theoretical basis for further research in the area

Systemic functional approach has stressed the importance of the social purposes of genre and of describing the schematic (rhetorical) structures that have evolved to serve these purposes Work in this area has sought to explicate the distinctive stages, or moves, of genres together with the patterns of lexical, grammatical, and cohesive choices which

„construct the function of the stages of genre‟ (Rothhery, 1996:93)

2.3 The similarities and differences between English for Specific Purpose approach and Systemic Functional approach

Although the two approaches discussed above deal with different issues, they have a great deal in common Anis and Mary (2010) pointed out three the similarities between the two approaches

 They both share the view that linguistic features are connected to social context and function

 They are both driven by the pedagogical imperative to make visible to disadvantaged students the connections between language and social function the genre embody

 Both ESP and SFL genre approaches are also commited to the idea that this kind of explicit teaching of relevant genres provide access to disadvantaged learners

Although the two approach have similar analytical strategies and pedagogical commitments, they differ in their target audience SFL genre approaches generally target economically and culturally disadvantaged school-aged children in Australia, while ESP genre approaches generally target more advanced, often graduate-level, international students in British and U.S universities, who, as non-native speakers of English, are linguistically disadvantaged The differences in target audience and genre focus between systemic functional approach and English for Specific Purpose approach highlight a related difference in understandings of context Because SFL approaches generally focus on pre-genres, they have tended to define context at a fairly macro level SFL genre approaches locate genre at the level of “context of culture” ESP genre approaches, however, locate genres within more specifically defined contexts: Discourse community, where the genres‟ communicative purposes are more specified and attributable (Anis and Mary, 2010)

I have discussed in detail two approaches to genre analysis: the ESP approach to genre with the two representatives: Swales and Bhatia, and the systemic functional approach with Halliday, Martin, and Hassan There are also other current approaches to genre study such

as new rhetoric and critical approach The new rhetoric approach, unlike ESP approach, is concerned with composition and professional writing in a first language context The work

of the new rhetoric school also places emphasis on the social purposes that genre fulfills in

certain situational contexts Genre is viewed as dynamic, social texts, which are not static but ongoing processes of discourse production and reception shaped and influenced by other related texts and utterances (intertextuality) of the sociocultural context Scholars in the new rhetoric field have tended to use ethnographic rather than linguistic or rhetorical methods, such as the move structures for analyzing texts Within the critical discourse framework, Fairclough defines genre as “a socially ratified way of using language in connection with a particular type of social activity (e.g interview, narrative, exposition)” (1995, p.14) The distinction he draws between discourse, style and genre is explained, in relation to political language, in his account of the discourse of New Labor (Fairclough, 2000):

Styles (e.g Tony Blair‟s style) are to do with political identities and values, discourses (e.g., the discourse of the “Third Way”) are to do with political representations, and genre are to do with how language figures as means of government (so the Green Paper constitutes a particular genre, a particular genre, a particular way of using language in governing)

The critical view of genre is that such “ways”, as part of the unequally distributed symbolic capital of society, are empowering to some, oppressive to others

Oppressive, but not necessarily imprisoning, genres are historical outcomes, and subject to change through contestation (the resistance of individuals) Widdowson‟s claim that subjects are not absolutely controlled by conventions, “there is always room for maneuver”, represents a widely held view Genre, like context, is “negotiated” in the process of interaction (Trappes-Lomax, 20003: 149)

These approaches to genre analysis have much in common, even though they deal with different issues and have different theoretical concerns Bhatia (2004) summarized some of the common ground of genre studies as follows

1 Genre are recognizable communicative events, characterized by set of communicative purposes identified and mutually understood by members of the professional or academic community in which they regularly occur

2 Genre are highly structured and conventionalized constructs, with constraints on allowable contributions not only in terms of the intentions one would like to give expression to and the shape they often take, but also in terms of the lexico-grammatical resources one can employ to give the discoursal values to such formal features

3 Established members of a particular professional community will have a much greater knowledge and understanding of the use and exploitation of genres than those who are apprentices, new members or outsiders

4 Although genre are viewed as conventionalized constructs, expert members of the disciplinary and professional communities often exploit generic resources to express not only „private; but also organizational intentions within the constructs of

„socially recognized communicative purposes‟

5 Genre are reflections of disciplinary and organizational cultures, and in that sense, they focus on social actions embedded within disciplinary, professional and other institutional practices

6 All disciplinary and professional genre have integrity of their own, which is often identified with reference to a combination of textual, discursive and contextual factors

(Bhatia, 2004: 23)

3 The theory of SFL

According to Halliday (1978), language has three functions: ideational which includes experiential and logical, interpersonal and textual

Ideational function serves for the expression of „content‟; i.e of the speaker‟s experience

of the real world, including the inner of his consciousness The ideational function has two

sub-types: experiential function and logical function In serving this function, language

also gives structures to experience, and helps to determine our way of looking at things and combining things in a logical way

Interpersonal function serves to establish and maintain social relation: for the expression

of social roles created by language itself – for example, the roles of questioner or

respondent, which we take on by asking or answering a question; and also for getting things done, by means of interaction between one person and another

Textual function is concerned with providing links with language itself and with the

features of the situation in which it is used This function of language enables speaker or writer to construct texts, or connected passages of discourse that is situationally relevant; and enables the listener or reader to distinguish a text from a random set of sentences (H

V Van, 2006) All these functions are reflected in the structure of the clause According to H.V Van (2006), when a text is realized by a unit larger than a clause, the clause is always part of it and, to some extend, contributes it meanings to the total meaning of the whole text That is why in analyzing a discourse, it is important that we should analyze the clause

grammar Halliday (1970) advocated three meanings of clause: The experiential meaning and its realization through the system of transitivity, the interpersonal meaning and it realization through the system of mood and modality, and the textual meaning and its

realization through the system of theme and information focus

In this theoretical model, it is, in fact, the transitivity system (Process, Participants and Circumstances) which “specifies the different types of processes that are recognized in the language, and the structures by which they are expressed” (Halliday, 2004) By definition, the term “process” refers to the “goings-on” in reality: doing, happening, sensing, being and having, etc The entities involved in every process are referred to as „participants‟, and

„circumstances‟ refer to certain conditions associated with a process Process, participant and circumstance are generally realized as Verb, Noun, and Adjunct, respectively (Halliday, 1985) The processes are of the following types: (1) material, (2) mental, (3) relational, (4) verbal), (5) existential, and (6) behavioral

Material Process or the process of „doing‟ involves some physical action It shows that

something is going on in the external world (e.g kicking, beating, running, walking, etc.) Material clause construe a quantum of change in the flow of events as taking place through

some input of energy Mental Process, however, indicates that something goes on in the

internal world of the mind (e.g thinking, loving, wanting, hoping, etc.) Mental clauses are concerned with our experience of the world of our own consciousness They are clauses of

sensing: a „mental‟ clause construes a quantum of change in the flow of events taking place

in our own consciousness This process of sensing may be construed either as flowing from

a person‟s consciousness or as impinging on it; but it is not construed as a material act It consists of four main subtypes: cognitive (thinking, knowing, realizing), perceptive (hearing, sensing, feeling), affective (loving, hating, adoring, pampering), and desiderative (waning, desiring, wishing) This process necessitates the involvement of a conscious participant, i.e., a human agent who will be considered „Senser‟ and another entity –

„Phenomenon‟ – which is to be sensed or experienced Relational Process, on the other

hand, does not involve an action or require some entity to act upon another Essentially, it

is a process of „being‟ and it is concerned with the relationship set up between two things

or concepts Relational clauses serve to characterize and to identified It comes under three subtypes: (i) the intensive; (ii) the circumstantial; and (iii) the possessive Like other process types in the transitivity system, relational processes consist of two modes: attributive and identifying When a relational process is in the attributive mode, it has one

participant referred to as Carrier and the quality or the thing showing that the Carrier

belongs to a class of things, which is usually realized by an adjective or an indefinite

nominal group, is usually referred to as Attribute In contrast, when a relational clause is

in the identifying mode, it has two equating participants, one identifying the other, which

are referred to respectively in two pairs of terms such as Identified/Identifier and Token/Value Circumstantial process expresses being in terms of circumstantial elements

such as time, place, distance, reason The relation between the participant and its

circumstantial element is that of Carrier and Attribute Verbal Process (e.g saying,

telling, speaking, talking, etc.) indicates the process of „saying‟ but as Halliday (1985) reminds us, “„saying‟ has to be interpreted in a rather broad sense; it covers any kind of

symbolic exchange of meaning” Existential Process shows that something exists or happens Finally, Behavioral Process refers to the process of human physiological and

psychological behavior (breathing, crying, drinking, etc.) The process types can be summerised in the table below

PROCESS TYPE category meaning participants, directly

involved

Participants, obliquely involved

Token, Value

Attributor, Beneficiary Assigner Existential: „existing‟ Existent

Table 2.1 Process types, their meanings and characteristic participants (Halliday, 2004:260)

4 Research article abstracts

4.1 Reseach article abstracts

The abstract is an important part of a research article as it captures the essence of the whole article Also, it is the „advertisement‟ of the research article; whether or not the article is going to be published or read largely depends on the abstract Surprisingly, in the past, most papers did not have abstracts; they were only introduced into medical research

articles in the 1960s, and the structured abstract (i.e with named subsections) did not appear until 1987

According to Huckin (as cited in Feak and Swales, 2009), journal article abstracts have at least four distinguishable functions:

1 They function as stand-alone mini-text, giving readers a short summary of a study‟s

topic, methodology and main findings;

2 They function as screening devices, helping readers decide whether they wish to

read the whole article or not;

3 They function as previews for readers intending to read the whole article, giving

them a road-map for their reading;

4 They provide indexing help for professional abstract writers and editors

In addition, 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 (Martin-Martin, 2003) 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”

Two main types of abstracts can be distinguished: indicative and informative abstracts An indicative abstract contain descriptive information on purpose, scope, or methodology, but

no details of results or conclusions An informative abstract provides detail about the substance of a piece of writing because readers will sometimes rely on the abstract alone for information Informative abstracts typically contain the information on purpose, scope and methodology as well as results and conclusion crucial for the value of the entire research

Chan, S.K., Foo, S (2000) in their research paper ‘Writing abstracts for scholarly

communication by Asian ESL research scholars: preliminary findings’ provided a diagram

showing the status of the abstract for scholarly communication The concept of scholarly communication (SC) derived from the psychology that humans share a common desire to search for information, and to want others to learn from them, provide feedback, and to use their contributions to add on more information to their common discourse community This desire can be fulfilled through formal channels including a variety of print material and online services Only when information is effectively transferred to end-users that I becomes useful Therefore, knowledge informers must cater to users‟ needs by employing suitable means to achieve that

Figure 5: The Inter-related Status of the Abstract for Scholarly Communication between Producers and End-users (Chan S.K., Foo S., 2000:3)

In the field of information studies this transfer process is fundamental to a scholar‟s information literacy, and is popularly referred to as the information literacy, and is popularly referred to as the information seeking process (ISP) for information retrieval (IR)

The three inter-related areas of the scholarly communication process are involved One, is the academic writer who in this context serves as the output source of text production Next, is the document product, which may be in print or electronic medium, and thirdly, are the components of the scholarly communication process, which includes the discourse communities, learned societies, the IR or ISP systems, and even the publishers This inter-related context demonstrates the relationship between the scholar-producer or academic writer and the world of scholarly communication where the output of academic writing, which may be a realization of the research article, acts as their bridging vehicle

Six components of scholarly communication identified include: the scholar, the learned society, the publisher, the librarian, ISP, IR and computerization First, the scholar is the producer as well as the user of information Then, the learned societies are responsible for convening meetings such as conferences for scholars to exchange information The publisher is next responsible for disseminating the scholars‟ information in forms like books, journal papers or theses But it is the librarian who is the ISP agent operating with various IR systems, print or electronic The sixth component known better as the new technologies or computerization is becoming increasingly pervasive throughout the whole process of scholarly communication, playing a determinant role in the production and dissemnination of scholars‟ work These six components are fundamentally interrelated, and codependent on each other They are collaboratively responsible for the „flow of information‟

4.2 Genre analysis of research article abstracts

4.2.1 Move analysis of research article abstracts

The Research Article abstract has been realized as a particular genre, and up to now there have been a number of studies on genre of research article abstracts Swales (1981, 1990) were among the first to introduce the genre analysis concept of the research article in

which he used the term “moves” to identify the distinctive information element in a corpus

of 48 research articles He selected the Introduction section of each research article and

found that there is a four-move structure in the research article introduction:

Move 1: Establishing the field by: Showing centrality; stating current knowledge; and ascribing key characteristics;

Move 2: Summarizing previous research;

Move 3: Preparing for present research by: Indication a gap; question raising; or extending a finding;

Move 4: Introducing present research by: Stating the purpose; and describing present research

This move structure is replicated in abstracts according to other researcher (Meyer, 1992; Bhatia, 1993; Martin, 2003) Revisions to Swale‟s model have also been made For example, some researchers (Bley-Vroman and Selinker, 1984) have commented on the difficulties of separating Move 1 from Move 2; others argue that important move options wee not included in Swales‟ move structure

Swales (1990) later adapted his research article introduction move structure to accommodate social science, which he claims is different from experimental research due

to the field‟s focus on literature review rather than research methods He offers instead the rhetorical pattern of a create-a-research-space structure (the CARS model), which has only three moves as follow:

Move 1: Establishing a territory

Step 1: Claiming centrality

and/or Step 2: Making topic generalization(s)

and/or Step 3: Reviewing items of previous research Move 2: Establishing a niche

Step 1A Counter-claiming

or Step 1B Indicating a gap

or Step 1C Question-raising

or Step 1D Continuing a tradition Move 3: Occupying the niche

Step 1A Outlining purposes

or Step 1B Announcing present research Step 2 Announcing principal findings Step 3 Indicating RA structure

Bhatia (1993), however, investigating research article abstract, confirms Swales‟ earlier model by arguing that RAA, which reflects the organization of the research article itself, should have four moves: purpose, method, results and conclusion (PMRC)

Motivated by the usefulness of abstracts in the academic field and was concerned for native writers in Brazil who needed to write for their discourse communities, Santos, in his paper entitled „The Textual Organization of Research paper Abstracts in Applied Linguistics‟ (1996), examined how abstracts could be characterized in terms of their textual organization He also analyzed other key features of this text Santos used the move analysis after Swales‟ model for his analysis, and selected 93 abstracts from three leading journals in the discipline of Applied Linguistics The corpus included 37 abstracts of paper

non-found in the journal, language learning, 31 from the journal, Applied Linguistics, and 26 from the TESOL Quarterly, all being highly reputable journals in Applied Linguistics His

methodology reflected the works of Swales (1990), in which he examined each abstract from both the macro and micro levels of the move analysis, submove analysis, and how they are presented linguistically and stylistically He then matched each move analysis, and how they are presented linguistically and stylistically He then matched each move analysis with the prescribed guidelines in textbooks The analysis of his sample corpus found a five-move model with submoves consistently in the structure of the abstracts and he identified them as follows:

Move 1- Situating the research

Submove 1A – Stating current knowledge and/or

Submove 1B – Citing previous research and/or

Submove 1C – Extended previous research and/or

Submove 2 – Stating a problem Move 2 – Presenting the research

Submove 1A – Indicating main features and/or

Submove 1B – 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

He also found the mismatch between recommendations in technical writing literature and actual practice

Santos concluded that his resultant find of the five-move structure pattern could provide pedagogical advantages It could be used for teaching novice or non-native academic writers to writer abstracts by helping them in better organization and awareness of the genre structure, and helping them to improve their reading efficiency However, he did caution against the dangers of overspecialization by focusing only on genre analysis studies, because it may be too restrictive and limiting in domain interests of research

Different again, Hyland (2000) separated the writer‟s statement of research purpose from the introduction move, categorizing abstracts into five moves: introduction, purpose,

method, product and conclusion More recently, Pho (2008) studied the structure of Applied Linguistics and Educational Technology articles and found the consistency in the structures of abstract section in both disciplines, which include four moves: presenting the research, describing the methodology, summarizing the findings, and discussing the research

In Vietnam, there has been very little research on the structure of research article abstract Duong Van Loc, in his M.A thesis entitled “Reserch paper as a Genre in English and Vietnamese: A Systemic Functional Comparison”, employed the Swales‟ four-move model (1981) to analyze eight research papers in English and eight research paper in Vietnamese

He found that some moves are missing in both sets (typically move 2 & Move 3)

Ngu & Bui, in their paper “An Investigation into Some Discourse Features of Abstracts of English and Vietnamese Economic Papers” (2007), investigated 40 English abstracts in the field of Economics and found the mismatch between the two sets:

Number of abstracts containing the move/40

Percentage (%)

Number of abstracts containing the move /40

Percentage (%)

4.2.2 SFL studies on research article abstracts

Studies of research articles have also considered aspects of lexico-grammar SFL is used as

a ground for the analysis of textualization for two reasons, according to Pagano & Vasconcellos (as cited in Silva et al., 2006), (i) the text is regarded as a social phenomenon and this is determined by other social phenomena (situation context), and (ii) the functional components of the linguistic system semantic stratum (ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions) establish organized nets of meaning potentials from which the language

user makes his/her choices

Silva et al, in their report on the ongoing project – CORDIALL (Corpus of Discourse for

the Analysis of Language and Literature) entitled An SFL – And Genre Analysis-based

analysis of Brazilian Expert Researchers’ Article Introductions Written in English, adopted

SFL theory to analyze six research articles introductions written in English by Brazilian expert researchers on generic disorders For the analysis of the Processes, they found that some Processes are used in all article introductions (e.g relational process), some tend not

to be used (e.g behavioral and existential process), as presented in the table below

Table 2 3 The analysis of the Processes (Silva et al., 2007:805)

T1, T2, and T3 stand for the group of written texts in English by the Brazilian researchers; and T4, T5, and T6 stand for the group of texts originally written in English by

international researchers

For the analysis of thematic organization, they found that the unmarked themes prevail over marked themes, and that the texts written in English by Brazilian researchers tend to display the same thematic organization as the texts written by international researchers

Table 2 4 Thematic organization: percentage (Silva et al., 2007: 808)

Interpersonal meanings are not outstanding, according to their analysis Statements in the research article introduction seem to be straightforward and the authors seem to prefer to utter affirmative sentences instead of negative There seems to be no doubt to what is being uttered

Wh-Mood adjunct

Comment adjunct

Table 2 5 Interpersonal meanings (Silva et al., 2007: 810)

Martinez (2001) in his report “ Impersonality in the research articles are revealed by analysis of the transitivity structure”, studied 21 experimental research articles in the fields

of physical, biological and social sciences and found that the distribution of different process types of RAAs as follow: [Material (45%), Relational (35%), Verbal (7%), Mental (10%),

Existential (3%), and Behavioral (0.2%)] He argued that impersonal constructions are encoded in the transitivity straucture and thus writers can strategically distance themselves from the information they present

Recently, Huang (2009) conducted move, transitivity and lexical analyses of 64 international and Chinese TESOL research article abstracts written in English He found that the four structural moves of Swales‟ model (Introduction, method, results and discussion) were evident in both abstract sets but were differently distributed The transitivity and lexical analyses provided evidence that Chinese authors write more indirectly and use more epithets than the authors in the international set, though there are

no striking differences in how both sets of authors construct transitivity in both sets The table below show the results of the transitivity analysis