Browsing by Author "Bensalem, Imene"

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    Beginnings across cultures a contrastive genre analysis of english native and Nonnative speakers’ MA theses general introductions
    (university of Oum El Bouaghi, 2016) Bensalem, Imene; Chaira, Farid
    Research into academic papers generic formulas has been heatedly discussed in the literature over the last few decades. The introductory section of the research article, in particular, has received an intense interest ever since the emergence of genre-based studies with quite a considerable attention given to cross-cultural, cross-linguistic, and interdisciplinary differences. Contrastive genre studies of master's theses general introductions have, on the other hand, been almost minuscule with barely any credit given to native versus non-native MA theses introduction writing. The current study, thus, aims to report a contrastive genre-based analysis of 45 applied linguistics postgraduates' MA theses general introductions compiled into three equal-sized corpora each representing one of three different universities, namely, Oum-El-Bouaghi, Iowa, and Birmingham. To carry out the analysis, the study adopts Bitchener's (2010) three-move analytical framework adapted from Swales's (1990) CARS model of introduction writing in order to analyse the rhetorical strategies performed in each corpus as regards moves, sub-moves and move-order. The analysis, then, proceeds by comparing each of the introduction-composed samples to one another only at a macroscopic level. The results obtained indicate that each of the three groups of postgraduates go about introducing their research works exhibiting Bitchener's (2010) three outlined moves, Establishing a territory, Establishing a niche, and Occupying the niche. The difference, however, lies in the manifestation of each move with Oum-El-Bouaghi corpus being more explicitly distinctive than the other two corpora. In other words, native postgraduates' analysed texts of both Iowa and Birmingham universities are noticeably more similar in move realisations compared to the non-native sample of Oum-El-Bouaghi postgraduates that little reflects Bitchener's identified rhetorical strategies as well as the strategies manifested in the other two corpora (Iowa and Birmingham). On the whole, the findings suggest that the linguistic and so the cultural differences attested by each group wield much influence on the way the introduction genre is brought about.