TY - JOUR
T1 - The relationship between syntactic complexity and rhetorical move-steps in research article introductions
T2 - Variation among four social science and engineering disciplines
AU - Lu, Xiaofei
AU - Casal, J. Elliott
AU - Liu, Yingying
AU - Kisselev, Olesya
AU - Yoon, Jungwan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2021/7
Y1 - 2021/7
N2 - This study investigates disciplinary variation in the relationship between syntactic complexity and rhetorical move-steps in research article (RA) introductions. Our data consisted of the introduction sections of 400 published RAs in two core social science disciplines, Anthropology and Sociology, and two core engineering disciplines, Chemical Engineering and Electrical Engineering. Each sample was manually annotated for rhetorical move-steps using an adapted version of Swales’ (2004) revised Create a Research Space model and assessed for syntactic complexity using multiple measures of global complexity, finite subordination, clausal elaboration, and phrasal complexity. Our results revealed significant disciplinary variation in terms of the syntactic complexity of sentences realizing each of six rhetorical move-steps commonly found in RA introductions. Our findings contribute to the emerging understanding of disciplinary variation in function-form mappings in RA writing and have useful implications for genre-based academic writing research and pedagogy.
AB - This study investigates disciplinary variation in the relationship between syntactic complexity and rhetorical move-steps in research article (RA) introductions. Our data consisted of the introduction sections of 400 published RAs in two core social science disciplines, Anthropology and Sociology, and two core engineering disciplines, Chemical Engineering and Electrical Engineering. Each sample was manually annotated for rhetorical move-steps using an adapted version of Swales’ (2004) revised Create a Research Space model and assessed for syntactic complexity using multiple measures of global complexity, finite subordination, clausal elaboration, and phrasal complexity. Our results revealed significant disciplinary variation in terms of the syntactic complexity of sentences realizing each of six rhetorical move-steps commonly found in RA introductions. Our findings contribute to the emerging understanding of disciplinary variation in function-form mappings in RA writing and have useful implications for genre-based academic writing research and pedagogy.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jeap.2021.101006
DO - 10.1016/j.jeap.2021.101006
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85105079739
VL - 52
JO - Journal of English for Academic Purposes
JF - Journal of English for Academic Purposes
SN - 1475-1585
M1 - 101006
ER -