Thematization Strategies in the Generic Moves of Research Article Introductions

 

Thematization Strategies in the Generic Moves of Research Article Introductions

 

Assef Khalili

Tabriz University of Medical Sciences

 

 Despite the heterogeneity of ideas regarding the definitions of genre, there are also common instances shared among scholars interested in particular aspects of the notion. Swales (1990) and Bhatia (1993) are primarily interested in the sociological and psychological aspects of genre's functioning and construction, respectively.. Swales analyzes the genre of 'article introduction', into four generic moves on the basis of the communicative intentions they serve, and Bhatia investigates the tactical aspects of their construction. The present paper, is an attempt to study the patterns of thematic development-based on Daneš(1974) proposed patterns-  in such generic moves. For this purpose, 12 academic papers were analyzed for their constituent generic move structures, with respect to the thematic choices and progression inside these moves. The results indicated that each move has characteristic patterns of thematic selection and progression, which must be motivated by the global discourse topic and the communicative intention of these moves, as moves of dissimilar communicative intentions had characteristic patterns of thematic selections. In the light of the result of the experiment conducted on the teachability of generic moves, it is believed that the present study can have insightful implications for writing and reading pedagogy.

 

Keywords: Genre, Generic Move, Thematic Selection, Thematic Progression, Discourse Topic

 

 

Historically, genre analysis -in a narrow sense-  was mainly developed out of concern for the classification of texts in ESP, and has its main roots in 1960s, when the unprecedented spread of English, as an international language stressed new considerations in teaching English, which, initially, focused on textual particularities, but were complemented in 1980s when context was seriously taken into account and became a building block in major schools of linguistics where genre was interpreted in a non-taxonomic trend, and its analysis grew an all-embracing comprehensive approach that was able to account for the reality of different text types . Since 'genre' in its recent definition and textual elements like 'theme' and 'rheme' are of special significance in the present work, this paper will have a cursory glance at their emergence and conceptualization by different ESP practitioners, and linguists in the past few decades.

In 1974, Firbas proposed that the movement of ideas from the initial notion to the goal discourse is reflected in the word order and reveals  the  movement of the mind itself ( Firbas 1974). Two new terms, 'foundation'  and  'core' were coined to refer to known information or the starting point of the sentence and what is said about the starting point, respectively. The terms 'foundation' and  'core' were replaced by 'theme'  and 'rheme' and the intervening elements between them were called 'transition' which referred to the words which in fact were parts of the rheme, but occurred at its periphery (Daneš1978). Firbas(1974) elaborated further on this notion, introducing the notion of communicative dynamism(CD)"the extent to which sentential elements contribute to the development of communication", identifying the initial clausal elements as context-dependent with lower degree of CD, which gradually pass on the context-independent final elements carrying higher degree of CD. Baker calls it an oversimplification to view  clausal elements  as merely some laying a foundation(theme and transition) on which other clausal elements(rheme) may convey a message(Baker 1992). This conceptualization of context and theme Fries(1994) finds problematic from the systemic functional point of view. He argues that in systemic functional approach "that information is context (in)dependent which is presented as context (in)dependent". As for the definitions of theme and rheme most functional linguists take more or less similar positions:

Halliday (1985) identifies theme  as the element assigned to the first position in  the constituent structure of the clause and defines it as the point of departure of the message or likens it to a peg around which the message is hung; the former, is a formal definition while the latter is functional. Each clause will occur at some particular point in the unfolding of a text - this is the textual environment and it is assumed that the system of theme provides a local environment by  reference to which the addressee interprets the message (Mathiessen & Halliday 1997). With this system, the speaker specifies the place in the listener's network of meanings where the message is to be incorporated as  relevant, "what comes first constitutes the initial textual context for what follows" ( Halliday 1985/1994). The local context serving as the point of departure is the "theme" and what is presented against this local environment, or where the clause moves after its point of departure is called the 'rheme' ( Martin et al. 1995).

Daneš (1978: 111) looks on the 'theme' from the perspective of text organization as "the linkage of discourse" and argues that the organization of information in texts is determined by the progression in the ordering of utterance themes and their rhemes. His spelling out of the relationship between successive themes and their rhemes that is T-R nexus would appear to provide a more satisfactory account of what Fries (1995) calls the method of development which different types employ. "The notion of thematic progression brings forth the concept of hyper themes, which relates to the expectations on text types" ( Maynard, 1986: 91).As Downing puts it, "it is not rheme alone, but its connection with the given T that is communicatively relevant" (Downing, 2001:10). Thus, despite the communicative weight Firbas (1974) attributes to rheme, from the point of view of text organization it is the theme that plays an important constructing role. Angela Downing (2001) believes that Daneš's important contribution is his extension of  the concept of theme as the point of departure of a single utterance (sentence), to that of explaining the inner connexity of texts. Defining thematic progression(TP) as the choice and ordering of utterance themes, their mutual concatenation and hierarchy, as well as their relation to the hyper themes of the superior text unit ( such as paragraph, chapter, etc.), to the whole text, and to the situation, Daneš views thematic progression as the skeleton of the plot and  postulates three basic types of thematic progressions (Daneš1974: 114 ):

1) The first type is "simple linear TP" in which the rhemes are linearly thematized, or the context of theme of the second sentence is derived from the context of the rheme of the preceding sentence, the context of theme 3 from the context of rheme 2, etc. as shown below;

T1  R1

             

             T2 R2

                        

                        T3 R3

 

2) the second type of TP which can be called 'theme iteration' refers to TP with a continuous ( constant ) theme, provided that themes of at least two adjoining sentences are identical. In this type of TP the same theme enters in relation with a number of different themes. The result of this kind of TP is that the themes in the text constitute a chain of ( typically ) co-referential items which extend through a sequence of sentences or clauses:

  T1 R1

   

   T2 R2

  

  T3 R3

3) the third type is "TP with derived themes" in which case the themes of individual sentences are derived from the so-called hyper theme of the text. Such sort of TP develops when the whole passage concerns a general notion, and the themes of the constituent clauses are all derived from that general notion but are not identical to one another.

  

                                 T1

                                  
     T1  R1                       T2 R2                  T3 R3

 

Daneš also draws attention to the important point that the way a text thematically develops need not be necessarily based on any of the  general TP types, rather, he observes that different types of thematic progression may be employed in varied combinations. The following 'TP'is called ''the exposition of a split theme'' (Daneš 1974: 116).

 

  T1 R1 (= R1 + R1)

  

                     T2 R2

                     T2 R2

 

This type of thematic progression is in fact a combination of two basic types, 1&2. Here a certain rheme is doubled or multiplied(R+R+R…),  to produce a pair (triplet…) of TP patterns.

Out of the three main fields in which genre analysis is being practiced, (namely, New Rhetoric Study, Australian Genre Theories, and ESP) our stance on the notion is shaped by ESP practitioners who view genres as oral or written text types whose formal properties as well as communicative purpose within social contexts give them a particular generic structure or specify them as belonging to a particular genre. The social contexts of text production(Swales 1981&1990), the psychological motives underlying them( Bhatia 1993) and the formal properties of different text types are all highlighted in ESP, with certain researchers being more interested in one or another.  Swales is mainly interested in social functioning of genres and emphasizes that he considers genres in terms of the communicative purposes which give rise to particular features, not features themselves (Swales 1990);"…[genres] comprise a class of communicative events the members of which share some communicative purposes, these purposes are recognized by the parent discourse community and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre" (Swales,1990: 58).  This conception of genre sets up a realizational relationship between the purpose accomplished by a genre and the structure it exhibits. Inspired by Swales (1981&1990) Bhatia views genres as structured and conventionalized communicative events whose communicative purposes are identified and mutually understood by members of the particular communities in which they occur. He also observes that genre's conventionalized nature places constraints on the allowable contributions, and that expert members of a particular community might manipulate such constraints to achieve private intentions within the framework of socially recognized purposes (Bhatia, 1993).

Bhatia assumes psychological factors, which he calls tactical aspects of genre construction, to play a significant role in the concept of genre as a dynamic, rather than a static, process. Although the communicative purpose of genres is assumed to be achieved through the interplay among sociological, psychological and linguistic features, it appears most studies have focused on detailing the formal characteristics of genres. Hopkins &Evans believe ESP needs a system of analysis that students need to be able to produce and understand, and try to develop an approach to describing the organization of particular kinds of texts, assuming that " an explicit description of the way in which texts are organized will be helpful to teachers and students alike"( Hopkins& Evans 1988, p.113).  Flowerdew (1993) describes activities like 'gap filling' of structural slots, "Flow chart"analysis of genre structure and 'concordancing' of the verb forms found in different genres, and suggests that students be trained in the techniques of  text analysis that they can use to identify  the discourse conventions of different genres( Flowerdew 1993, pp. 310-312). Swales has attempted to help students follow the linguistic conventions of research article introductions in their own texts, suggesting techniques like marking of texts with colored pens, or reconstructing the proper order of jumbled article introductions Swales(1981,1990).

Swales' analysis of some 48 article introductions led to the development of what he called "research space model" in which he proposed that the genre of research article introductions, as a part of their generic structure, consist of four rhetorical moves which accomplish the communicative purpose of this genre:

Move(1) Establishing the research field

Move(2) Summarizing the previous research

Move(3) Preparing for the present research

Move(4) Introducing the present research (Swales 1990).

In his view, each of these has a communicative intention of its own, with all  four moves functioning collaboratively to get the communicative purpose of article introductions accomplished.

  Bhatia (1993) took the point further, focusing on the function of each move in the light of his proposed psycholinguistic model, and the psychological or the tactical aspects of genre construction. He noted that just as each genre has a communicative intention that it tends to serve, each move also serves a particular communicative intention subservient to the overall communicative purpose of the genre, and that a writer might use rhetorical strategies to realize a particular communicative intention at the level of  a move. In the case of article introductions, for instance, the following strategies might be used to accomplish the communicative purposes of the each move:

 

Move(1),establishing the research field, could be accomplished by:

a)        asserting the centrality of the topic

b)       stating current knowledge

c)        ascribing key characteristics

Move(2), summarizing the previous research, may be realized by one or a combination of the following strategies:

a)        using a strong author orientation and/or

b)       using a weak author orientation and/or

c)        using subject orientation

Move(3), preparing for the present research, can be carried out through

a)        indicating a gap(in the previous research)

b)       question raising

c)        extending a finding

And finally, Move(4), introducing the present research, can be realized by:

a)        stating the purpose of the present research and/or

b)       outlining the present research

 

Drawing on the works done in the fields of genre and text analyses in ESP, with the former emphasizing the pivotal role of the communicative purpose in shaping the formal properties of texts, and the latter stressing the centrality of themes and their ordering in organizing information in texts, the present paper seeks to establish whether the communicative purpose of a genre, namely research article introductions, influences the "method of development of the text type" with respect to its selection of themes and their patterns of progression inside the constituent rhetorical moves of this genre.

 

Methodology

 

Research hypothesis

 

Using Daneš (1978) proposed patterns of thematic progression, the present research aimed at investigating the internal structure of the constituent moves of article introductions for their thematic selections and their patterns of progression inside the experimental research article introductions, hypothesizing  that  moves of different communicative purposes would opt for different patterns of thematic selections and progressions.

 

Data Collection

 

To test the hypothesis, the article introductions, published in internationally recognized journals, from different fields were chosen and analyzed. Trying to characterize the thematic patterns of the Swales' proposed generic move structure, we noticed that  not all article introductions were readily divisible into the hypothesized four rhetorical moves of Swales'. Therefore, our investigation on the thematic patterns of the moves was carried out on the article introductions which lent themselves well to the proposed move-structure. Twelve articles from four different disciplines, namely medicine, pharmacology, ceramic, and linguistics, were chosen. Nine of these (No. 1-9) were typical article introductions reporting an experiment or theorizing a view and the other three (No. 10-12) were review articles the introductions of which, in the course of the analysis, turned out to display distinctive characteristics, as far as the thematic development was concerned.

 

Results and Discussion

 

Just as the genre of the introduction itself has a communicative purpose to serve, so does each of the four rhetorical moves within this genre which, according to Swales (1990), is subservient to the overall communicative purpose of the genre. Since the realization of the communicative intention at the level of a move can be accomplished through different strategies, a certain degree of variation in the internal structure – and hence thematic development – of the moves is expectable in different genres, depending on the nature of the topic / or disciplines and  the background knowledge of the intended readership, etc.. As our analyses revealed, however, each move, based on its particular communicative intention, allows for such variation to a certain limit in its thematic patterns, and some seem to reciprocate with one another in the number of their themes and their arrangements. In order to demonstrate this in a tangible way, the discussion and investigation of each move is taken up separately together with their patterns of thematic progression.

 

The First Move – Establishing the Research Field

 

The first move – establishing the research field –, which begins an introduction, has characteristic thematic choices peculiar to itself. The table giving the necessary information about the move numerically, together with the illustration of the patterns of thematic selections and progression of the themes is presented below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 1.

Themes in the first move

Type of articles	Ordinary									Review
Number of articles	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
Total T-units in the four moves	20	22	15	12	9	11	9	10	4	16	17	15
T-units in this move	7	3	7	1	2	2	2	1	1	3	3	6
First themes D/N	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D
D themes inside the move	3	2	3	1	2	1	2	1	1	3	3	6
N themes inside the move	4	1	4	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Textual themes in this move	0	1	2	0	1	1	0	0	1	0	0	1

N= Non-derived

D=Derived

 

Move 1 No.1                                                                    Move 1 No.2

       (D)                                                                             (D) 

T R                                                        T R

T₂ r₂                                                        t₂ r₂                                                                 

                                                                                                                

                           t₃ r₃                                                                                               r₃ r₃ 

                           

                           t₄ r₄

                                                      

                                                    t₅ r₅

                                                    t₆ r₆

                                                                                   t₇ r₇

Move 1 No.3                                                                       Move 1 No.4

       (D)                                                                             (D)   

T R                                                               T R       

t₂ r₂

t₃ r₃

t₄ r₄

t₅ r₅

t₆ r₆

t₇ r₇ 

 

 

 

Move 1 No.5                                                                Move 1 No.6       

 

              (D)                                                                                     (D)

 T R                                                         T R 

 

T₂ r₂                                                                                     t₂ r₂

 

Move 1 No.7                                                             Move 1 No.8

 

(D)                                                                            (D)   

T  R                                                     T  R  

            

t₂ r₂  

Move 1 No.9                                             Move 1 No.10

(D)                                                            (D)

T R                                                   T    

                                                                                                                    

                                         t₁ r₁      t₂ r₂       t₃ r₃  

Move 1 No.11

 

      (D)

T R

t₂ r₂

                                            

                           t₃ r₃

Move 1 No.12

      (D)

T R

                               

                             t₂ r₂

                                                                                             

                                                          t₃ r₃

                                                                                                                                                                                                          

                                                                                       t₄ r₄

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

                                                                                       t₅ r₅                        

                                                                                                                                                                                             

                                                                                       t₆ r₆

Since the beginning theme of this move is also the beginning theme of the ‘introduction’ with no preceding themes, the question which may naturally come to mind is “what does it originate from?”

In the article introductions studied in this research, eight out of twelve introductions had their beginning themes directly derived from the topic of the article. The beginning themes in the first moves of the other four had easily recoverable relations with the topic:1) starting with something more general than the topic, 2) using a more revealing equivalent for the topic,  3) laying the ground for a theme derived from the topic to be expressed in the rheme.

These possibilities together with the direct derivation of the beginning themes of the first move from the topic led us to the conclusion that the topic serves as the starting point of an article introduction. The initial theme's being derived from the topic is also supported by textual evidence, with regard to the fact that there were instances of textual themes accompanying the beginning theme. Bearing in mind the function of textual themes – establishing a relationship to previous discourse – what can the previous discourse be at the very starting point of a text, but the topic itself? That is to say, a writer can have a textual theme accompany the initial theme when he presumes the intended reader's prior knowledge, triggered by the topic.

The number of the themes in the first move and the analysis of their patterns of progression revealed much variation, determined by factors like the nature of the readership and the background knowledge to be assumed on the part of the reader. That is, for a topic the reader is quite familiar with, a few T-units (1-3 ) will suffice to "establish the field of the research"; however, a newly-emerging topic will require more elaboration and thereby more T-units (up to a half of the total number of themes) to accomplish the function of the first move.

As for the progression of themes inside this move, when more than one theme was involved, texts of different sub-genres exhibited obvious differences. In the case of 'unmarked' (as opposed to review) article introductions, themes seemed to have developed by the writer's style or the nature of readership and the topic, rather than by an inherent constraint in the move. Thematic cohesion ( that is whether themes are derived from the themes or rhemes of preceding sentences), where there were more than one theme, did not have to be observed to make the move coherent, and both derived and non-derived themes served to fulfill the function in successive sentences.

                                             T R

                                                t r

                                            T R

                                                t r

                                                t r

                                            T R

 

However, a closer look on the message being conveyed to "establish the research field" seemed to be pointing to the fact that the basic communicative intention of the move was actually realized by the derived themes cross referring, with the intervening non-derived themes presenting new sub-topics which served to prepare for the successful expression of the message in the derived ones.

 This pattern which was observed in the internal structure of the first move in one of the introductions, clearly shows that this move keeps its coherence despite the fact that half of all its themes are non-derived. It may be a gross overgeneralization, but it looks as if non-derived themes serve much less than the derived ones for the accomplishment of the purpose of the move.

But in the review articles studied here, the internal structure of the first move exhibited characteristics different from those of the typical article introductions: no non-derived theme was present in this move, and the patterns of progression for the derived themes fell neatly under a category of the three basic types of thematic progression patterns proposed by Danes (1974).  This obvious difference in the patterns of thematic selections between ordinary and review article introductions can be traced to the difference of the nature of the message conveyed in these two sub-genres of article introductions.  As argued formerly, the existence of non-derived themes in unmarked article introductions was assumed to be due to the inclination of the writers to introduce different sub-topics in the introduction to prepare for the main topic they want to propose in the article introduction in hand. In the light of this observation two dichotomic roles may be ascribed to the new topic of an article: to establish a reasonable field it needs  to refer to different topics already investigated, and at the same time, it serves to provide an orientation to those sub-topics, so that the move would be perceived coherent by the readers. As such, in review articles where there is no new topic for whose proposal to resort  to other subtopics, the writer would just review the topics already researched. Accordingly, we might suppose the derivedness of all the themes to be the result of the lack of a new topic, which would require writers to refer to different topics and then the new topic itself, would provide an orientation according to which the sub-topics would be organized.

The conclusion we might draw from this difference between ordinary and review articles is that the communicative purpose of "establishing the research field" follows the overall implied communicative purpose of articles to introduce a new topic, which  has a direct role to play in determining the thematization patterns in the first move. In other words, the presence or absence of the communicative purpose of introducing a new topic yields different patterns of thematic selections in the first move.

 

The Second Move – Summarizing the Previous Research

 

The second move, which summarizes the previous research, structurally follows the first move and has a distinctive role to play in the organization of an article introduction. Table 2 illustrates the related patterns of thematic selections and progression.

 

Shifting the attention from the first move "establishing the research field" to the second “summarizing the previous research", we came across non-derived themes( in all sample texts) initiating the second move. However, given the distinct communicative intentions these two moves serve, one would have expected this difference to have structural manifestation, as well. Thus, for more insights we tried to explore the reason in semantic-pragmatic terms, beyond the restrictions of a purely structural analysis, i.e., Hallidayan approach, where theme is conceived of as the first ideational element in the clause structure, whereas we are operating in the boundaries of rhetorical move structures. In semantic- pragmatic perspective the notions of theme and topic collectively characterize particular text-types and the difference in the ways they unfold (Guijarro & Hemandez 2001 ).

 

Table 2.

Themes in the second move

 

Type of articles	Ordinary									Review
Number of articles	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
Total T-units in the four moves	20	22	15	12	9	11	9	10	4	16	17	15
T-units in this move	5	7	2	4	3	4	5	4	1	6	10	5
First themes D/N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N
D themes inside the move	2	5	1	3	2	1	3	3	0	3	3	4
N themes inside the move	3	2	1	1	1	3	2	1	1	3	7	1
Textual themes in this move	2	2	0	1	1	2	0	1	0	1	5	1

N=Non-derived

D=Derived

 

 

 

 

Move 2 No.1                                                                             Move 2 No.2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Move 2 No.3                                                             Move 2 No.4

(N)                                                                             (N)        

T R                                                              T R

                                                                                        

t₂ r₂                                                                                                     t₂ r₂

 

 

                                                                                                                                                       t₃ r₃

                                                                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                                                     t₄ r₄

Move 2 No.5

 (N)

T R

 

 t₂ r₂

                                       

                                              t₂ r₃ 

 

Move 2  No.6                                                Move 2 No.7

(N)                                                                 (N)

T R                                                T R

                                                                                                                                                                                                        

t₂  r₂                                                                                                           t₂ r₂

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

t₃  r₃                                                                                                                                   t₃ r₃

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

t₄  r₄                                                                                                                                                                  ­t₄ r₄

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                       t₅ r₅

 

 

Move 2 No.8

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Move 2 No.10

(N)  T R

                                      

                                     T₂ r₂

                                                                                                           

                                                                                                         T₃ r₃

                                                                                                         T₄ r₄

                                                                                                                                                                     T₅ r₅

                                                                                                                                     T₆   r₆

Move 2 No.11                                                                      Move 2 No.12

 (N) T R                                                        (N)

       t₂ r₂   

       t₃ r₃                                                      T R

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

       t₄ r₄                                                                                    t₂ r₂

                                                                    

                                                       t₅ r₅                                                         

                                                       t₆ r₆                                                                                         t₃ r₃

                                     t₇ r₇                                                                                        t₄ r₄

                                                       t₈ r₈                                                                                                                                                                                                               

                                   t₉ r₉                                                                                                                                     t₅ r₅

                                                                                                                                                

                                                                                                     t₁₀ r₁₀

Following Downing (2001), who, rejecting Halliday’s concept of topical theme suggests a dissociation between the notions of theme and topic, Guijarro and Hemandez. ( 2001 ) view topic as pragmatic, cognitive phenomenon interpreted as ‘aboutness’. They further elaborate on this formulation by distinguishing two types of topic: global topics (discourse level) and local topics (sentence level) and the relationship between them is hypothesized as follows :

“The local topics are closely related to the discourse topic which organizes them hierarchically under the same topical frame…. While the sentence topic represents the proposition about which information is given at local level, the discourse topic represents what a whole text or discourse is about… and is defined as a cognitive scheme which sequentially organizes and unifies all the local topics of the discourse under one topical frame” (Guijarro and Hemandez 2001, 363) If we apply this conceptualization to our own analyses, we can view rhetorical moves as global topics and their T-units as local ones motivated and organized by the global communicative intention. Accordingly, from one move to the next, we will have a global topic shift, and the observation that the initial T-units of the second move were all non-derived is thus accounted for. Considering the difference in the communicative purposes of the first and second moves (discourse topics ) one would expect the individual T-units ( local topics ) to manifest the difference as a way of textualizing the communicative intention. Thus, we can conclude that when the communicative purpose is different in two stretches of discourse ( here moves 1 & 2 ), the difference is manifested in thematic choices of the constituent sentences of the two segments even if they are part of a single text.

As for the internal structure or the pattern of thematic progression inside the second move, there was no instance of textual themes in the initial sentence to render a connective tie to previous discourse. And this, as argued before, is due to the fact that a totally new global topic comes to the scene in the second move, which textually bears no relation to the move preceding it. The number of themes in this move with regard to the total number of themes in article introductions was not so variable as that of the first move. Unlike the first move where the number of themes varied from one-twelfth to half of the total number of themes, in the second move in balance with the third move ( to which we will come shortly ) one third of the total number of T-units are assigned by most writers to carry out the communicative intention of summarizing the previous research. In a few ( two out of twelve ) article introductions where the number of themes unusually exceeded the general pattern, the number of T-units in the third move alternated with those of the second move and decreased to more or less the same extent. The reason for this difference may be understandable if we investigate the factors determining the number of T-units in these two moves.

Although we observed considerable fluctuation in the number of the T-units in the first move ( see discussion on the first move ), in the second move – summarizing the previous research – the situation is different. If the number of themes in the second ( or third ) move(s) were as variable as that of the first, it would involve excessive reference to the literature or previous research or a prompt start to the objective of the research in the introduction section, either of which would distort the overall purpose of the article introductions. Evidently, no writer would feel the obligation of referring to all the research already done on the subject, and such a move exists to avoid an out of blue start to the research in hand, and to give the reader a general idea of the state of the topic at the time of the research. And, the balance or alternation in the number of themes between the second and third moves also indicates that these two moves are mainly doing the same job with a difference in focus – preparing for the present research – with the former hinting at the related researches and the latter outlining the particularities of the topic.

The conclusion we can draw from this discussion is that the proportion of the T-units included in the second move has to be observed by most writers due to the significance and the nature of the message it conveys.

With regard to the patterns of thematic progression, we, again, found differences between the second and first moves. As mentioned before, in the first move, the text maintained its coherence despite the existence of non-derived themes ( see the related discussion ). However, in the second move, we observed that most of the themes were derived from the preceding T-units, and when non-derived themes did appear, they were accompanied by a textual theme to hold relation to previous discourse ( or T-units ). It is so, because when the previous research is being summarized, background knowledge with regard to exact dates or previous findings may not logically be expected on the part of the readers. Accordingly, it might be deducible from this data that, for a text to have coherence, its themes ought to be derived from the preceding T-units. If there are non-derived themes, the connection to previous discourse has to be sustained by background knowledge of the readers or by textual connectors in thematic positions. Although the moves analyzed here were not independent texts in the strict sense of the word, they were stretches of discourse with a global topic and supported the deduction above.

 

The Third Move – Preparing for the Present Research

 

The third move follows the second move- summarizing the previous research – and shares a great deal of commonalities with it. The related table and the patterns of progression of its themes are given below:

 

Table 3.

Themes in the third move

 

Type of articles	Ordinary									Review
Number of articles	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
Total T-units in the four moves	20	22	15	12	9	11	9	10	4	16	17	15
T-units in this move	7	5	4	3	1	4	1	3	1	6	3	2
First themes D/N	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D
D themes inside the move	4	4	3	3	1	4	1	3	1	4	3	1
N themes inside the move	3	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	1
Textual themes in this move	5	4	1	2	1	4	0	1	0	2	0	2

N= Non-derived

D= Derived

 

Move 3 No.1                                                             Move 3 No.2

(D)                                                                                 (D)           

T R                                                           T R                         

                                                                                        t₂ r₂

t₂ r₂                                                                                            t₃ r₃

t₃ r₃                                                                                            t₄ r₄    

t₄ r₄                                                                                             t₅ r₅

 

t₅ r₅                                                                                              t₆ r₆

 

t₆ r₆

 

t₇ r₇

 

 

Move 3 No.3                                                                  Move 3 No.4

 (D)                                                                                 (D)

T R                                                                 T R

t₂ r₂

                                                                                                   

t₃ r₃                                                                 t₂ r₂

                                                                                                                 

                             t₄ r₄                                                                                              t₃ r₃

 

Move 3 No.5                                                             Move 3 No.6

 (D)                                                                     (D)

T R                                                    T R

                                                                                   

                                                                                   t₂ r₂

                                                                                                                            

                                                                                   t₃ r₃

                                                                                                                                

                                                                                   t₄ r₄

Move 3 No.7                                                         Move 3 No.8

(D)                                                                     (D)

T R                                                        T R

                                                                                                                                                      

Move 3 No.9                                                                 t₂ r₂

(D)                                                                               

 

T R                                                          t₃ r₃ 

Move 3 No.10                                                            Move 3 No. 11

(D)                                                                      (D)

T R                                                         T R

                                                                                     

                          t₂ r₂                                              t₂ r₂

                                                                                                                                     

                         t₃ r₃                                                 t₃ r₃   

                                       

                         t₄ r₄                                                                      Move 3 No.12 

 

                         t₅ r₅                                   (D)      T R

                         t₆ r₆                                                                        t₂ r₂

 

 As evidenced in our data, the initial themes of the third moves, "preparing for the present research",   in all sample texts , were all derived from the preceding moves, summarizing the previous research. As mentioned before, the T-units are assumed to textualize the communicative purpose of the discourse they comprise, and a closer inspection of the third move reveals that it is communicatively the continuation of the second move, that is it mainly recapitulates the information provided in the second move to imply a need for 'the present research'. 

However, since there was not even a single initial T-unit in the third move in all our data which did not have its roots in the preceding move, we explored this observation further in case there were other determining factors which obliged the initial themes of the third move to be unanimously derived from the second move.

Bhatia (1993) remarks that the writers can accomplish the purpose of the third move, "prepare for the present research", by

1)      indicating a gap

2)      question raising ( about previous research )

3)      extending a finding.

He calls them ‘strategic’ or ‘non-discriminative’ choices determined by the writer’s taste, nature of the topic and readership and other non-linguistic factors. These three communicative purposes – although apparently different from one another – have a common point and that is dependence on the previous move; only by reference to what is said and relating it to what is to be said 1)  a gap can be indicated  2) a question can be raised about a topic introduced before, and 3)  you can extend a topic already introduced.

The writer is free to choose from among the three choices the one that best fits the requirements of the text he has created. However, in order for these communicative purposes to be relayed through text, they seem to have an obligatory thematic choice, which consciously or unconsciously is observed by the writers: The theme to initiate the third move has to be derived from the preceding move. Thus, in addition to being motivated by the communicative purpose of the discourse, the thematic choices, at least, those beginning a stretch of discourse, also prepare the conditions for successful accomplishment of that purpose. As we observed in the third move, the three possible communicative purposes of the move could only be achieved if a relation to a previous discourse had been presupposed, and the function of the derived themes was to provide this link.

Coming to the patterns of thematic progression in this move, we noticed that they were very similar to those of the second move; the themes were mostly derived and the non-derived ones were mostly accompanied by textual themes to establish a connection to preceding T-units inside the move ( for the reasons of this see discussion on move 2 ).

The number of themes in relation to the total number of themes in the article introduction was proportionate to, and alternated with that of the second move; when for one reason or another the second move opted for more than the usual number of themes( one third of all themes), it decreased to more or less the same extent. This might be considered as further proof that these two moves are basically interrelated in their communicative functions, and the details of their reciprocation may be explained in the following way: when the second move employed more than its typical number of themes, its angle of summarizing the previous research was narrowed down to more or less the same extent and the third move recapitulated the information already narrowed down and required fewer number of themes ( T-units ) to prepare for the fourth move where it is clearly articulated.

 

The Fourth Move – Introducing the Present Research

 

The fourth move is the last in the generic structure of an article introduction. The related table and the patterns of progression of its themes are given below:

The last move, introducing the present research, can logically be considered a continuation of the preceding moves, articulating the message that has already been developed in the previous moves, particularly the one immediately preceding it. So, on the basis of its communicative interrelationship with the third move, and the aforementioned analysis of the third move(see the related discussion) where the interplay between the similar communicative intention of its preceding move(the second move) and that of its own led derived themes to initiate  the third move in all cases, one would also expect the initial themes of the fourth move to be all derived from its preceding move. However, the analyses did not support the expectation and found non-derived themes initiating this move in all 12 article introductions. This finding, despite sounding odd at first sight, may be justifiable if we take the communicative purpose of its global topic into account.

 

Table 4.

Themes in the fourth move

Type of articles	Ordinary									Review
Number of articles	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
Total T-units in the four moves	20	22	15	12	9	11	9	10	4	16	17	15
T-units in this move	1	7	2	4	3	1	1	2	1	1	1	2
First themes D/N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N
D themes inside the move	0	1	0	1	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
N themes inside the move	1	6	2	3	1	1	1	2	1	1	1	1
Textual themes in this move	0	2	1	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1

N= Non-derived

D= Derived

 

Move 4 No.1                                                             Move 4 No.2

(N)                                                                                  (N) 

T R                                                             T R

                                                                                            t₂ r₂

Move 4 No.3                                                                       t₃ r₃

                                                                                                                                   

         (N)                                                                            t₄ r₄

T R                                                            t₅ r₅ 

 t₂ r₂                                                           t₆ r₆

                                                                                          t₇ r₇

Move 4 No.4    

(N)                                                                                                               Move 4 No.5

 

T R                                                                                      (N)   

 

t₂ r₂                                                                                                                                                        T R

                                                                                                                  

t₃ r₃                                                                                                                                                          t₂ r₃               

t₄ r₄                                                                                                                                                           t₃ r₃

 

 

Move 4 No.6                                                             Move 4 No.7

(N)                                                                            (N)     

T R                                                             T R    

 

 

Move 4 No.8                                                             Move 4 No.9

      (N)                                                                              (N)

T R                                                              T R          

t₂ r₂

 

 

 

 

Move 4 No.10                                                         Move 4 No.11

(N)                                                                                (N)

 T R                                                        T R

 

Move 4 No.12

      (N)

T R

                            

                             t₂ r₂

 

In Swales’ proposed four-move structure for article introductions, we can see that all moves are, in fact, continuations of the preceding ones. First, a field is established, then previous research related to that field is summarized followed by a recapitulation of the summary to prepare for the presentation of the research in hand, and finally the research is introduced. In the light of the analyses and findings, as the whole picture of an introduction shows, we can find derived themes in the first T-units of moves 1 & 3 and non-derived themes in moves 2 & 4. Taking all this into consideration, we might reason in the following terms:

The initiating theme of move (1) is derived, because as discussed previously, before we can start to talk about something or discuss a topic, it has to be linked to something already known or readily accessible for the reader (see move (1) for more details). The second move had non-derived themes in its first T-units , because the nature of the message conveyed in moves 1 & 2 was different – they differed in their communicative purposes. The third move, unlike move 2, had derived themes in all its initiating T-units. And now, as an answer to why the expectation mentioned above was not backed up, the third move had derived themes, because its communicative purpose matched that of its preceding move with a difference in focus, and recapitulated the information provided by move 2 in its first T-unit. However, the difference between the communicative purposes from move (3) to move (4) is not one of focus but of nature. It is a continuation of the third move with respect to the overall coherence of an article introduction, and not the nature of the message conveyed in the two moves concerned. And this does not guarantee textual linkage at thematic position. The conclusions to be drawn from this discussion could be:

-          the first thematic choice inside a move is determined by the global topic of the move concerned, not by the continuation of the message from the preceding move.

-          The overall coherence of an article introduction, necessitates a fixed order of the moves, but doesn’t imply cohesive ties among them.

Back to the fourth move, let’s analyze the number of its themes and their patterns of progression, now that its initiating theme has been commented on. The number of T-units in this move ,in majority of the cases (8 out of twelve), comprised one or two T-units, but also consisted of as many as seven T-units (one third of the total number of themes). The first case is supposedly well justifiable, after all proposition has been developed in the preceding moves, one or two T-units will logically suffice to articulate the purpose of the research.

In just a few cases where the number of T-units, exceeded two, the writers had chosen to go into details of the way the research had been conducted. Provided that including such details in an introduction section (in move 4, to be more exact) is appropriate, we can conclude that the number of T-units in move 4, is not pre-set in relation to the total number of themes, and the writer has the freedom of choice, to introduce the present research in a single T-unit (sometimes one nineteenth of the total number of themes), or do more elaboration on the topic and assign one third of the total number of themes to introduce the present research.

 

Conclusions

 

Having explored the constituent rhetorical moves of the genre of article introductions with regard to their thematic selections and the thematic progression patterns each move displayed, we observed convincing systematicity governing the interplay between the communicative goals the moves were meant to achieve, and the moves' selection of their initial themes especially with respect to their being (non) derived from the previous discourse, and the patterns of their progression. This textual embodiment of the discoursal function of the moves, however, was not equal to having cohesive ties binding one move to another, in cases where the initial themes were derived, to render a coherent discourse. Rather, it was argued that the overriding goal of the genre dictated that each move be in its specific order, and contribute to the coherence of the text by performing its specialized role, which entailed opting for specific themes and , at times, reciprocating with an adjacent move to have a balanced number of T-units develop a particular communicative intention.

 

Pedagogical Implications

 

One of the implications of the present research could be the insights it provides for writing purposes. That is, in addition to the common activities performed in 'writing classes', (organizing sentence combining practices or explaining different types of writing), it might yield better outcomes if they were accompanied by explicit instructions on the generic features of particular text types and the demands that they make on the writers. Thus, the knowledge of generic conventions of texts, together with other aspects of writing may enable the L2 writers to produce well- written pieces of writing.

 Familiarity with the generic structures of particular text types can also help with the reading skill. Among the factors contributing to 'reading comprehension', context and the reader's background knowledge are widely acknowledged. And as Swales(1990) observes since generic structures are shaped by communicative intentions they  can assist a reader both by telling the them what sort of message to expect in particular texts, and by providing global contexts, which would enable them to make sound predictions and to know what to look for in a piece of text. Accordingly, we might argue, if readers start reading a text with their previous knowledge of the generic structure of particular text types, they may be in a better position to manipulate and comprehend the information encoded in the text concerned.

 

 

The Author

 

Assef Khalili holds an M.A. in TEFL from Tabriz University. He has been teaching General and Special English courses in different universities as well as observing English classes in Iran Language Institute. He is currently a full-time instructor in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences and has contributed to designing syllabi and teaching methodologies at this university.

 

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