The abstract is an important part of a research article; it is a research summary that must be attached, presented together with the research article. Therefore, the quality of an abstract is explicitly significant. This article aims to determine the similarities and differences of the rhetorical moves and linguistic features of abstracts of…

Could targeted inclusion initiatives press Canada's professional theatre community to tap the vast reserve of disabled people disenfranchised by its current practices? In 2015/2016, several long-standing professional institutions dedicated to fostering Canadian theatre joined with Canadian disability theatre artists in order to mark and understand…

Metadiscourse markers (MDMs) are lexical resources that writers employ to organize their discourse and state their stance towards the content or the reader. This study investigated the frequency with which interactive and interactional MDMs were employed in biological research articles (RAs). It also explored the possible relationship between the…

As the scope of rhetorical inquiry broadens to cover intersemiotic and intertextual phenomena, scholars are increasingly in need of new, defensible analytic procedures. Several scholars have suggested that methods of discourse analysis could enhance rhetorical criticism. Here, I introduce a discourse-based method that is empirical, delicate, and…

Coherence as one of the criteria for textuality is the main element of a well-produced text. In the literature, there are many studies on the classification of coherence relations. Although there are different classifications on coherence relations, similar findings are reported regarding the acquisition order of coherence relations in different…

The previous studies on abstracts (e.g., Santos, 1996; Samraj, 2002; Pho, 2008) illustrate that disciplinary variation in research article abstracts is discernible. However, the studies of abstracts from two related disciplines are still limited. The present study aimed to explore the rhetorical moves of abstracts in the fields of linguistics and…

This study addresses the need in discourse psychology for computational techniques that analyze text on multiple levels of cohesion and text difficulty. Discourse psychologists often investigate phenomena related to discourse processing using lengthy texts containing multiple paragraphs, as opposed to single word and sentence stimuli.…

Despite his considerable influence on the development of ESP and all our professional lives, almost nothing has been written about John Swales' distinctive prose style. Based on a 340,000 word corpus comprising 14 single-authored papers and most chapters from his three main books, this paper sets out to identify the main features of this style.…

Studies from a range of disciplinary perspectives have highlighted how the public rhetoric of the Bush administration has shaped the representation of the conflict which has followed 9/11. However, the literature in this area raises but does not itself address the question of how the administration's use of "terror", "terrorism" and "terrorist(s)"…

Dialogs with the previous article establishing a comparative analysis between the political acceptance present in the reactionary speech of Dom Jose Mauricio da Rocha and in the monarchist words of Joaquim Nabuco. (PA)

Noting that little effort has been devoted to the precise use of the term "theory" in rhetorical theory studies, this paper argues that, for the sake of scholarly precision in research, it is important to establish parameters of the term and to distinguish it from related terms and concepts. The paper reviews the advantages of the use of theory,…

Appraises R. Kaplan's "contrastic rhetoric" in the light of a multilanguage research project on discourse structure. Concludes that Kaplan's specific analyses are in need of substantive revision. (FL)

Research is reviewed on systematic differences in expository styles due to cultural or linguistic diversity. The critique concentrates on the method of data gathering, the usage of the categorization "Oriental," and the description of English paragraph development. An investigation is reported that consisted of an analysis of the Japanese and…

Research articles and research theses constitute two key genres used by scientific communities for the dissemination and ratification of knowledge. Both genres are produced at advanced stages of individuals' enculturation in disciplinary communities present original research aim to persuade the academic community to accept new knowledge claims,…

Offers a comparative analysis of the historical dispute over protective legislation for women and the current controversy over fetal protection policies. Argues that, despite seeming dissimilarities, current symbols are attitudinally united with historical symbols, reducing the interests of all women to motherhood and thereby limiting women's…