A contrastive study of the rhetorical organisation of English and Spanish PhD thesis introductions

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the introductory sections of a corpus of 20 doctoral theses on computing written in Spanish and in English. Our aim was to ascertain whether the theses, produced within the same scientific-technological area but by authors from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, employed the same rhetorical strategies to introduce the work presented. The analysis follows the Swalesian approach and is based on a move/step/sub-step model proposed for PhD introductions in Spanish (Carbonell-Olivares, Gil-Salom, & SolerMonreal, 2009). The Spanish academic conventions appear to be that move 1 (M1-Establishing the Territory) and move 3 (M3-Occupying the Niche) are obligatory moves in PhD thesis introductions in Spanish, while move 2 (M2-Establishing the Niche) is optional. The structure of English thesis introductions reveals that they conform more closely to the M1-M2-M3 arrangement. Moreover, combinations of moves and patterns, cyclicity and embedding make their organisation more complex. The step analysis suggests that introductions in both languages rely mainly on the presentation of background information and the work carried out. However, the English introductions tend to stress the writer's own work, its originality and its contribution to the field of study. They also present more embedding and overlapping of steps and sub-steps than the Spanish texts.

Comparative Rhetorical Organization of ELT Thesis Introductions Composed by Thai and American Students

“…Similarly, 20 thesis structures or 66.67% were identified in the ASI dataset as a conventional step, and it is also conventional in the TSI dataset, found in 22 TSI Introductions or 73.33%. The findings of these two steps agree with those investigated by Nguyen and Pramoolsook (2014) and Soler-Monreal, Carbonell-Olivares, and Gil-Salom (2011).…”

“…Compatible with several studies (e.g. Bunton, 2002;Nguyen & Pramoolsook, 2014;Soler-Monreal, Carbonell-Olivares, & Gil-Salom, 2011), this optional step was only present in two Introductions or 6.67% in the ASI corpus, whereas it failed to show up in the TSI corpus. The possible reason might be that the students of the two groups tend to define specific keyterms in Move 3 in a paragraph of text or as a separate part entitled Definitions of Terms or any other related heading.…”

Genres in the forefront, languages in the background: The scope of genre analysis in language-related scenarios

“…Essentially, the sources surveyed maintain that, unlike macro-structural rhetorical analysis, which conceptualizes genres in terms of overall information organization, phraseological, and discoursal features, move analysis provides a detailed comparative account of the formal and functional properties of sentential and clausal constructions in genre-exemplars across languages. Of note, the sources stress the idea that move-based analytic techniques afford the identification of similarities and differences across writing cultures that are not traceable through macro-structural analytic methods (Loi & Evans, 2010;Soler-Monreal, Carbonell-Olivares, & Gil-Salom, 2011). More broadly, move analysis is positively valued as a descriptive rather than prescriptive approach to understanding how academic and research genres are constructed by L2 English writers (Hung, Chen, & Tsai, 2012;Junqueira, 2013).…”

Contextual Layers in the Establishment of Research Niche in Doctoral Thesis Introductions by Malaysian Writers

“…These studies also assist us in understanding the relationship between the multilayered context of the academic setting and introductions-that culture does, to some extent, shape the research space. Several genre studies of thesis introductions, though limited, provide an overview of organisational moves and steps in different settings and languages (Bunton, 2002;Arulandu, 2005;Samraj, 2002bSamraj, , 2008Soler-Monreal et al,2011;Nguyen & Pramoolsook, 2014). Even though the aim of these studies was to identify the organisational structure of the thesis introductory chapter at the move and step level, there was also some identification of the social and cultural context as influencing factors of moves and steps, but only minimally so.…”