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Pragmatics: Online-First Articles

Move combinations in the conclusion section of applied linguistics research articles

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Genre analyses of research articles (RAs) have identified types of communicative purposes or moves achieved in different sections. However, very few studies have explored why moves are sequenced in specific manners. This study examines how writers relate moves to be coherent in the conclusion section of fifty applied linguistics RAs. The analysis shows that the writers achieved different types of moves in a relational manner for specific rhetorical intentions. The majority presented a summary of the study or previous research trends as background information to guide readers to acknowledge the significance of the study or the findings they later indicated. Some writers drew implications from findings of their studies they presented earlier to demonstrate the usefulness of the findings. Others provided recommendations for future studies based on the limitations of their studies that they indicated earlier to draw readers’ attention away from the limitations as potential weaknesses.
Keywords: genre analysis, research article, conclusion section, moves, coherence relations, Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST)
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Genre structure and coherence structure
    • 2.2Why (separate) conclusions?
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1How to analyse coherence relations between conclusion moves
    • 3.2Data selection
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Overall results
    • 4.2Move combinations that utilise Background
      • 4.2.1Move 1 Background Move 2–1
      • 4.2.2Move 2–1 Background Move 3
      • 4.2.3Move 2–2 Background Move 3–1
    • 4.3Move combinations that utilise Concession or List
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusions
  • References
Published online: 9 January 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.22070.kaw
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