Genre Formation in Contexts: A Cross-lingual Comparison of English MA Thesis Introductions
Issue: Vol 10 No. 3 (2014)
Journal: Linguistics and the Human Sciences
Subject Areas: Writing and Composition Linguistics
Abstract:
This study explores how genre formation is influenced by contextual factors through a cross-lingual and -cultural comparison of three groups of texts. The corpus is from English MA thesis introductions in the field of linguistics and applied linguistics written by Chinese and Norwegian students in contrast to their English native counterparts, with 20 texts from each group. Following Swales’ CARS model of move and step analysis, the study reveals some interesting features and tendencies among the three groups in their text construction. It concludes that genre formation is an ongoing process influenced by linguistic, social, cultural and other contextual factors.
Author: Yinghui Sun
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