A Genre Analysis Of Thesis And Dissertation Introductions

The thesis or dissertation introduction (T/D introduction) is important and difficult to write, however, it has long been neglected by researchers, at least partly because of the daunting size of the typical text. The present research attempts to analyze the T/D introduction with a genre-based approach.Using a synthesis of three authoritative models of genre analysis, namely, Bhatia's model, Swales' move-step model and Hasan's generic structure potential (GSP) notion, we have analyzed the move structure and came up with the generic structure potential (GSP) of the T/D introduction. This analysis reveals that 1) the T/D introduction consists of four obligatory moves and four optional moves; 2) the move structures in T/D introductions do not always follow a linear path, quite often they occur in cycles, that is, certain series of moves occur repeatedly and thus form cycles; 3) of all the possible move structures occurred in T/D introduction, one begins with a thesis statement and the other begins with introducing the topic. A close examination of the subject of the theses and dissertation indicates that those whose subject is pure language and linguistics are more likely to adopt the structure that begins with a thesis statement; 4) the primary communicative purpose is to be informative; T/D introduction can be attractive. The analysis of some of the optional moves further reveals that the T/D introduction can even carry certain promotional feature.Chinese graduate students' writing of T/D introduction is not so successful. The major problems existing are the lack of obligatory moves, the disordered sequence of move structure, and the problem of not being explicit enough about what they are researching and what they believe their research is contributing to the field. In view of this, a genre-based teaching approach is proposed.