Formulaic Sequences In Move Connections In Research Article Introductions

Formulaic sequences(FSs)are pervasive in both academic speaking and writing.They are taken as a primary meaning carrier in a language and are also important linguistic features for members communicating in a discipline-specific discourse community.With the development of computer technology,especially with the vigorous rise of corpus linguistics,the research on FSs has been a research focus in recent years.The present study attempts to examine disciplinary variation in terms of occurring fixed formulaic expressions(i.e.n-grams)and semi-fixed formulaic sequences(i.e.phrase frames,p-frames)that are distributed in the whole RAs introductions and are used to realize communicative aims of different rhetorical moves and steps in RAs introductions.This study discussed the generic and disciplinary variations via frequency,structure,function and extended unit of meaning.The research aim was motivated by the insights into the importance of both ngrams and p-frames in academic writing as well as the variation in formulaic language use across different genres and disciplines.The study of n-grams focused on formulaic expressions via the factors of structure,functions and meaning unit.The analysis above revealed the co-selection relation at the levels of “word and word,” “word and grammar,” and “ patten and meaning,” and also the restriction of discipline and genre in the use of n-grams.The study of p-frames emphasized the internal variability and association of semantics.Such analysis can be explored to detect the generic and disciplinary tendency and the degree of formulaicity in a genre text.This research was based on a self-built corpus consisting of 383 RA introductions from four different disciplines,i.e.Linguistics,Marketing,Biology and Mechanical Engineering,that are representative of soft-pure,soft-applied,hard-pure,hard-applied disciplines.After cleaning up the texts,moves and steps were manually annotated and target FSs(n-grams and p-frames)were located through automatic extraction and manual filtering.Because the framework of rhetorical moves and steps had direct influence on the subsequent analysis of the genre-based study of N-grams and p-frames,the correspondence analysis was performed to confirm if the move scheme and its coding were empirically tenable.Based on the fact that move scheme was empirically tenable,this study explored the move-step sequences and identified whether they are optional or obligatory.After the above generic analysis,the research discussed the generic and disciplinary tendency of the high-frequent n-grams and p-frames via a macro analysis of move analysis and a micro analysis of linguistic features.Based on the above results and findings,this study designed a FSs-based Academic English Teaching Assisted Tool.The purpose was first to validate the generalization and pedagogical value in this study and to increase the applicability of this research.This study has obtained the following research findings:(1)This study explored the move-step sequences and identified whether they are optional or obligatory.The above data in general reflect the rhetorical device and information that was prioritized by disciplinary authors.It was found that the macrostructure of introduction sections has shared conventions and distinct variations across four disciplines.They are influenced by the constraints of a discourse community and can be explained under the dimensions of “soft-hard” disciplines and “pure-applied” sciences.The two dimensions are reciprocal academic criteria,accounting for a richer understanding of academic writing,both in the rhetorical organization of the genre and in the linguistic features that realized the rhetorical organization.(2)In the sector of research in n-grams,it was found that the n-grams distribution has its sub-generic features in introduction sections.The study then gathered universal bundles that occurred in all four disciplines and confirmed the fact that core bundles exist to some extent.However,the core bundles in RAs introductions were different from those in the whole RAs,and they were much less than the distinctive bundles.Furthermore,the use of core bundles has disciplinary differences from the aspects of collocation,semantic prosody and semantic preference.Later,the N-grams were matched to the rhetorical moves and steps of RAs introductions.The chi-square test indicated that there was a statistically significant difference,in terms of types and tokens,between the pure and applied sciences.The analysis of Standardized residuals showed in each cell showed Move 3 contributed to the rejection of the null hypothesis.(3)In the sector of research in p-frames,it was found that the internal variation is not identical in all four disciplines,but their average coefficient is high,up to 0.75.The correlation between the frequency of phrase frames and the variants showed from the moderate(0.4-0.6)to the substantial(0.6-0.8).Later,this study discovered that universal phrase frames occurred in all four disciplines.It was found that there existed a few core phrase frames while their variants are distinctive.At last,this study observed the high frequency of using phrase frames in three moves of RAs introductions.The test indicated that there was a statistically significant difference,in terms of types and tokens,between the pure and applied sciences.According to the standardized residuals,the cells contributing to the observed differences are Move 1 and Move 3.This study is innovative in terms of methodology,research subjects and the application value of self-programmed writing assisted tool.It is hoped that the original findings and analytical frameworks developed in this study would serve as an excellent reference to support,benefit and inspire future research in EAP(English for academic purpose)pedagogy aiming at promoting the awareness of genre specificity.