Evaluative languagein thesis abstracts of novice writers in science and engineering

Abstracts are considered to be the main means for researchers to handle the enormous flow of information in today’s competitive research environment and they are essential part of research writing. The fierce competition for readers’ attention has driven the academic writers to employ various promot...

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Main Author:	Mehrjooseresht, Maryam
Format:	Thesis
Language:	English
Published:	2016
Subjects:	LB Theory and practice of education
Online Access:	http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/78748/1/MaryamMehrjoosereshtPFP2016.pdf
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spelling	my-utm-ep.787482018-08-30T08:06:55Z Evaluative languagein thesis abstracts of novice writers in science and engineering 2016-06 Mehrjooseresht, Maryam LB Theory and practice of education Abstracts are considered to be the main means for researchers to handle the enormous flow of information in today’s competitive research environment and they are essential part of research writing. The fierce competition for readers’ attention has driven the academic writers to employ various promotional elements in their abstracts, while positioning their research findings within the disciplinary discourse. The present study concerns with how various linguistic features work together in unique combinations to help realize the rhetorical purposes identified within the abstract genre. It examines the linguistic features of evaluation within the informational structural of abstracts as being conventionalized by two disciplinary fields: Science and Engineering. Specifically, it looks into the nature of abstracts produced by novice research writers in Malaysia, collectively contained in 866 thesis, gathered from library collections of four public research universities, produced between the years of 2000 to 2010 with total word counts of 291,104. Multi-layered text analyses were carried out: at the macro-level, a generic structure of abstracts employed by the writers were identified and exemplified; at the microlevel, the linguistic realizations of evaluation in different rhetorical sections of abstracts were further explored. Different linguistic features performing three different functions of evaluation were identified and categorized into status, value and relevance. Novice writers from both Science and Engineering fields were found to use similar generic structure, reflecting their awareness of the genre. Lexicogrammatical analyses have pointed to some interesting variations in terms of the overall preferences for status over value and relevance in the two fields. The Science writers were more inclined to include status markers expressing certainty while summarizing their research findings in the Product section of abstracts whereas Engineering writers appeared less assertive. Results from this study offer significant insights for teaching and designing materials for English for Academic Purposes courses in general, and inform novice research writers about specific linguistic choices to be made in order to produce a more efficient and persuasive research writing. 2016-06 Thesis http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/78748/ http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/78748/1/MaryamMehrjoosereshtPFP2016.pdf application/pdf en public http://dms.library.utm.my:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/vital:106138 phd doctoral Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Faculty of Education Faculty of Education
institution	Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
collection	UTM Institutional Repository
language	English
topic	LB Theory and practice of education
spellingShingle	LB Theory and practice of education Mehrjooseresht, Maryam Evaluative languagein thesis abstracts of novice writers in science and engineering
description	Abstracts are considered to be the main means for researchers to handle the enormous flow of information in today’s competitive research environment and they are essential part of research writing. The fierce competition for readers’ attention has driven the academic writers to employ various promotional elements in their abstracts, while positioning their research findings within the disciplinary discourse. The present study concerns with how various linguistic features work together in unique combinations to help realize the rhetorical purposes identified within the abstract genre. It examines the linguistic features of evaluation within the informational structural of abstracts as being conventionalized by two disciplinary fields: Science and Engineering. Specifically, it looks into the nature of abstracts produced by novice research writers in Malaysia, collectively contained in 866 thesis, gathered from library collections of four public research universities, produced between the years of 2000 to 2010 with total word counts of 291,104. Multi-layered text analyses were carried out: at the macro-level, a generic structure of abstracts employed by the writers were identified and exemplified; at the microlevel, the linguistic realizations of evaluation in different rhetorical sections of abstracts were further explored. Different linguistic features performing three different functions of evaluation were identified and categorized into status, value and relevance. Novice writers from both Science and Engineering fields were found to use similar generic structure, reflecting their awareness of the genre. Lexicogrammatical analyses have pointed to some interesting variations in terms of the overall preferences for status over value and relevance in the two fields. The Science writers were more inclined to include status markers expressing certainty while summarizing their research findings in the Product section of abstracts whereas Engineering writers appeared less assertive. Results from this study offer significant insights for teaching and designing materials for English for Academic Purposes courses in general, and inform novice research writers about specific linguistic choices to be made in order to produce a more efficient and persuasive research writing.
format	Thesis
qualification_name	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD.)
qualification_level	Doctorate
author	Mehrjooseresht, Maryam
author_facet	Mehrjooseresht, Maryam
author_sort	Mehrjooseresht, Maryam
title	Evaluative languagein thesis abstracts of novice writers in science and engineering
title_short	Evaluative languagein thesis abstracts of novice writers in science and engineering
title_full	Evaluative languagein thesis abstracts of novice writers in science and engineering
title_fullStr	Evaluative languagein thesis abstracts of novice writers in science and engineering
title_full_unstemmed	Evaluative languagein thesis abstracts of novice writers in science and engineering
title_sort	evaluative languagein thesis abstracts of novice writers in science and engineering
granting_institution	Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Faculty of Education
granting_department	Faculty of Education
publishDate	2016
url	http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/78748/1/MaryamMehrjoosereshtPFP2016.pdf
_version_	1747818061653606400

Evaluative languagein thesis abstracts of novice writers in science and engineering

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