This study investigates the rhetorical structure of abstracts of papers published in Applied Linguistics and Education. It examines how abstract authors in these two fields emphasise the significance of their research, and how they appeal to their prospective readership. Although abstracts in both disciplinary groups are found to display a coordinate textual development they exhibit a utilization of different relational schemata to indicate the functional prominence of textual propositions. In particular, different relational patterns are seen to be employed to fulfil the two primary objectives of an abstract: to provide a synopsis of the accompanying article, and to promote it to relevant research and professional communities. The way authors demonstrate the value of their research and their professional credibility appears to be conditioned by disciplinary writing conventions. It is proposed that relational choices, which result in differences in the accentuation of communicative messages in Applied Linguistics and Education abstracts, depend on the perceived relationship between the author and the discourse community in terms of expectations of prior knowledge.
1. Introduction
The role of the abstract in the contemporary exchange of scholarship continues to grow in importance. Abstracts are the first port of call in search for relevant literature and readers’ first encounter with a text, indicating whether the corresponding article merits further attention. The abstract has attained the status of an independent academic genre which is critical to knowledge making. Journals, edited volumes of papers, conferences, congresses and seminars require and publish abstracts and there are publications which consist entirely of abstracts.
Due to its pivotal role in exchange of scholarship in research communities, the genre of the abstract has attracted considerable attention from text analysts, and its rhetorical organisation has become the object of extensive research. Abstracts have been studied across disciplines (e.g., Anderson and Maclean, 1997; Hartley and Benjamin, 1998; Huckin, 2001; Hyland, 2000; Lore´s, 2004; Melander et al., 1997; Nwogu, 1990; Salager-Myer, 1992; Samray, 2002, 2005; Santos, 1996), and across cultures (e.g., Anderson and Maclean, 1997; Johns, 1992; Martı´n, 2003, 2002; Melander et al., 1997; Ventola, 1994a, 1994b). The abstract has been seen as a ‘‘concise summary’’ of the accompanying paper (Lore´s, 2004:281), and its main function as ‘‘informing about the exact content of the article’’ Martı´n, 2002:26). Previous research has suggested that the textual structure of an English abstract follows the generally accepted structural patterns of a research paper. The observed patterns of the latter have been described variously as: Introduction–Methods–Results–Discussion (IMRD) (Ventola, 1994a), Problem–Methods–Results–Conclusion (PMRC) (Graetz, 1985), Purpose–Methods–Results–Conclusion (PMRC) (McNab, 1990), Introduction– Methods–Results–Conclusion (IMRC) (Martin 2003), and Objective–Methods–Results–Conclusion (OMRC) (Melander et al., 1997).
Although a great deal of research has been carried out on the rhetorical structure of abstracts, the outcomes of these investigations have been rather inconclusive. The studies of macro patterns lead to examination of the rhetorical organisation of the abstract through the lens of the framework of rhetorical moves derived from
canonical moves present in a research article, such as the Swalesian conception of moves 1 (Swales, 1990).
However, while move analyses work well in longer texts that can be easily segmented into substantial chunks of discourse (cf., Anderson and Maclean, 1997), an abstract’s brevity imperative results in propositional density where textual chunks are congested and embedded in other textual chunks. Consequently, studies such as those of Lore´s (2004) or Martı´n (2003) that investigated abstracts in terms of Swales’ ‘‘Create a Research Space’’ (CARS) schema, were only partially successful in applying this model to their texts. Merely 30.5% of Lore´s’ abstracts featured CARS moves, and in Martı´n’s abstracts, Swales’ moves were confined to the first of the four structural units of IMRC. Among other attempts at move analysis, Santos (1996) reported that of his five move pattern, only ‘‘introducing research’’ and ‘‘describing methodology’’ moves were compulsory; and Nwogu (1990) found that of 11 moves identified in his research articles, just two, ‘‘indicating consistent observations’’ and ‘‘stating research conclusions’’, were commonly found in abstracts. A corollary of the considerable variability in the findings reported by different studies has been a lack of comparable data (cf., Melander et al., 1997). These difficulties can be attributed to the analytical methods employed as well as to interdisciplinary differences in abstract writing conventions.
This study investigates the relational structure of abstracts of papers published in Applied Linguistics and Education. The paper moves away from analysing specific rhetorical moves in the linguistically tight structure of an abstract, and instead explores the coherence relations employed in the communication of the abstract’s
propositional content. It examines how writers appeal to their readers through the choices of coherence relations and reveals how they emphasise the significance and value of their work by indicating the functional prominence of textual propositions. Such issues are directly related not only to the abstract’s role in presenting the synopsis of a paper, but also to its role in promoting the paper to future readership – an area which has so far received scant scholarly attention. This article aims to fill this gap by exploring how authors of abstracts select and highlight not only those aspects of their studies that are of primary importance, but also those deemed most appealing to prospective readership.
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