A Study On The Textual Organization Of English Research Article Introductions Written By Chinese Scholars

English Research Article (RA) is an important channel for information transmission andtechnology communication. Therefore, it is important for Chinese scholars who want topublish RAs in international journals to be familiar with the textual organization of EnglishRAs, especially the textual structure of English RA introductions. Based on Swales’(1990,2004) CARS model, this study investigates the textual organization of the English RAintroductions written by Chinese scholars and attempts to find out to what extent thisorganization conforms to Swales’(1990,2004) CARS model. A corpus of40English RAswritten by Chinese scholars in Marine Science is analyzed in terms of moves and steps. Theresults show that the generic organization of the RA introductions in the corpus conforms toSwales’(1990) model but there are some differences on the move structure and theemployment of steps. In terms of the move structure, while the prototypical move structure,M1-M2-M3in CARS model is still predominant, other varieties, such as M1-M3,M1-M2-M1-M3, and M1-M2-M1-M2-M1-M3are also found, though with lower frequency.Meanwhile, there are the cycles of Move1and Move2in the move structure. And as to theemployment of steps, fewer steps are used by Chinese scholars in their RA introductionwritings especially in Move2“establishing the niche” and Move3“occupying the niche”; theStep “reviewing previous research” is not limited in Move1, but is sometimes embedded inthe other moves and steps. The findings can be used to provide guidance for Chinese scholarsin their English RA introduction writings and provide some implications for the teaching ofacademic English.