An Analysis of Writers’ Moves and Authorial Stance in Research Articles’ Abstracts

Analysis of Writers’ Moves and Authorial Stance in Research Articles’ Abstracts

Abstract

Research papers‘ abstracts act as a window for the readers as they can peek through and
establish a precise idea about what holds for them. One hundred research papers‘
abstracts were selected, fifty each from the genres of engineering and social sciences.
Moves analysis was carried out in accordance with their linguistic realizations and the
authorial stance of the writers. The theoretical framework consisted of Santos‘s (1996)
postulation of move structure in research abstracts, in which he has mentioned five
moves structure for writing an abstract. Whereas, Pho‘s (2008) model was selected for
the linguistic realization of those moves and the analysis of the authorial stance. The
writers while writing articles‘ abstracts for the genre of engineering, focus more on the
methodology of their research, use minimal attitudinal linguistic items and claim no
authority of the research. On the other hand, writers while writing the research papers‘
abstracts for the genre of social sciences focus more on the introduction of the research,
frequently use attitudinal linguistic items and have adapted to claiming authority of their
own research. These differences mark the difference of conventions set by the writers of
both genres, for writing research papers‘ abstracts.