Syntactic Complexity and Communicative Moves of Applied Linguistics Research Article Abstracts: A Function first Approach
There is currently a growing tendency to a meaning-based approach to the analysis of syntactic complexity in academic writing. While previous studies have offered illuminating insights into linguistic realizations of rhetorical structures in relation to syntactic complexity, they have typically...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Imam Khomeini International University, Qazvin,
2023-07-01
|
| Series: | Journal of Modern Research in English Language Studies |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://jmrels.journals.ikiu.ac.ir/article_2974_8813d51a4d87f127dd3a53b2e39d445a.pdf |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | There is currently a growing tendency to a meaning-based approach to the
analysis of syntactic complexity in academic writing. While previous
studies have offered illuminating insights into linguistic realizations of
rhetorical structures in relation to syntactic complexity, they have typically
analyzed lexicogrammatical features in a decontextualized manner.
Drawing on a corpus-based cross-sectional design, this study takes a
function-first approach to investigating the rhetorical functions of
syntactically complex structures in research article (RA) abstracts in
applied linguistics. To that end, a corpus of 270 texts from leading applied
linguistics journals was constructed. Based on the model proposed by Pho
(2008), we manually annotated the texts for the moves, and measured their
syntactic complexity using phrasal, clausal, and global metrics. SPSS
(version 25) was run for the analysis of data. Results of one-way
MANOVA (multivariate analysis of variance) and Chi-square tests
revealed significant variations among rhetorical moves in terms of clausal
and phrasal complexity measures. The findings also showed that academic
writers varied the complexity of their written structures according to their
rhetorical goals. The results establish form-meaning mappings between
syntactically complex structures and rhetorical functions. The findings
carry pedagogical implications for student writers to adjust their prose
using functionally appropriate complex structures following expert writers
through comparing their own writing with that of expert writers to notice
the gaps. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2676-5357 |