Abstract:
PhD thesis introductions help student writers to discuss the significance of their study and establish how their study relates to and draws on previous research. The present study used a genre-based approach to examine one subsection in introductions of applied linguistics PhD theses. To that end, Iranian PhD thesis introductions were textually analysed. A researcher-made questionnaire, grounded on the responses from a semi-structured interview, was administered to Iranian applied linguists and PhD students to seek their opinions regarding how the subsection should be written. Frequency counts and statistical tests were used to analyse the data using SPSS (version 22). Results of genre analysis showed varying lengths, non-alphabetic ordering of the terms, and frequent uses of indirect quotations to organise the subsection. Results of textual analysis also revealed significant overlap between the terms in introductions and keywords in abstracts. The terms primarily derived from research questions. Results of questionnaire response analyses showed no statistically significant differences between the attitudes of applied linguists and PhD students. Implications of the study for PhD introduction thesis writing are discussed.
Machine summary:
Definitional Clarifications in the Introductions of PhD theses: A Genre-Based Analysis* Rajab Esfandiari** Assistant professor in applied linguistics at Imam Khomeini International University, Department of English Language, Faculty of Humanities, Qazvin, Iran Abstract PhD thesis introductions help student writers to discuss the significance of their study and establish how their study relates to and draws on previous research.
Of particular interest include the works of Becky and Kwan (2017) on macro-structure analysis of RAs in information systems; Tseng (2018) on the rhetorical structure of theoretical sections of language and linguistics RAs; El- Dakhs (2018) on genre analysis of abstracts; Moghaddasi and Graves (2017) on rhetorical move analysis of mathematics RA introductions; Cotos, Huffman, and Link (2017) on move-step analysis of method sections; Bruce (2009) genre analysis of results sections of sociology and organic chemistry RAs; and Liu and Buckinghum (2018) on the schematic structure of applied linguistics RA discussion sections.
Considering the foregoing limitations of the previous studies, the present study examines one of the subsections of a PhD thesis introduction which is variously known as definitional clarifications (Swales, 2004), or defining terms (Bunton, 2002; Paltridge & Starfiled, 2007; Kawase, 2018) across PhD theses written by Iranian PhD student writers in applied linguistics.
As shown in Table 10, the results showed there is no statistically significant difference between the attitudes of applied linguists and PhD students towards key terms.
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