A Genre Analysis Study of Algerian Magister Dissertations in Linguistics and Didactics: The Case of English Department of the University of Algiers
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Date
2009
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Mouloud MAMMERI University of Tizi-Ouzou
Abstract
The investigation of generic discourse in academic writing is gaining a sweeping
interest among genre analysts. However, research into post-graduate writing as a genre
is still in its infancy. This study is an attempt to analyse the genre of Magister
dissertations produced by Algerian post-graduates in Linguistics and Didactics at the
University of Algiers. The analysis is meant to investigate the schematic structures of
three part-genres: Introductions, Abstracts and Acknowledgements and compare them to
what was reported in similar genre studies. To reach this aim, I employed, as starting
theoretical frameworks, Samraj’s (2008) 3-move CARS model developed for Master’s
theses introductions, Samraj’s (2002) move structure of Abstracts and Hyland and Tse’s
(2004) move pattern of Acknowledgments. It was found that the introductions do not
share a common rhetorical structure and only half the texts supported Samraj (2008)
framework. Furthermore, Move 2 and 3 were more commonly found than move 1 and
new steps were identified in the first and the third move. The corpus of abstracts
displayed a rhetorical structure similar to that proposed by Samraj (2002) although an
additional move was identified. The acknowledgments’ move pattern, in turn, was quite
different from Hyland and Tse’s model (2004). In fact, almost all the
acknowledgements were framed around a unique thanking move instead of three moves.
Overall, some shared shaping forces are behind the students’ rhetorical practices such
as: the discourse community in which the genre occurs, the nature of the DIs’ discipline
and lack of formal instruction in dissertation writing. Therefore, post-graduate students
of the English Department of Algiers need an explicit learning of the dissertation genre
in order to raise their awareness of the genre characterising features and help them make
informed writing choices.
Description
142p.:ill;30cm.(+cd)
Keywords
Genre, Genre analysis, move, step, dissertation, introduction, abstract,
acknowledgment
Citation
Didactics