Genre Analysis On Abstracts From Systemic-functional Approach

The concept of genre itself is not new, what is new, however, is the interest in the analysis of non-literary genres. Abstracts as a type of academic genres, " are texts particularly suited to genre investigation," Swales comments " Abstracts continue to remain a neglected field among discourse analysts. Moreover, study of certain type of abstract can potentially be highly revealing of disciplinary discourse communities (Swales, 1990)."Therefore, the present study conducts analysis of abstracts as a genre with linguistic journal article abstracts (LJAA) as data from systemic-functional approach. It aims to investigate the generic structure and its linguistic realizations of LJAA, exploring the deep level explanation for lexicogrammatical realizations characteristic of LJAA.The study reveals that nine generic elements constitute the Generic Structural Potential (GSP) of LJAA, of which the Purpose of Study is the sole obligatory element and the rest remain optional. The discussions on the sequencing and recursion of generic elements lead to the generalization of GSP for LJAA. The analysis of transitivity reveals that relational processes are predominated because relational processes are reflective of what the writer considers to be the most important Tokens and Values in the source article. Four generic elements are found to employ particular linguistic realizations due to corresponding functions. The priority of inanimate Themes, nominalizations as Themes, thematic patterns with derived Themes and thematic pattern indicated by generic elements are found to be motivated by the function of abstracts.It is suggested that the research findings can be revealing to linguistic major students in abstracting writing as an awareness of generic structures of abstracts would help us write well-formed texts appropriate of this genre and the linguistic realizations characteristic of LJAA shall guide us in lexicogrammatical choices hi the writing process.