| As significant parts of academic discourse, research article introductions (RAIs)are the primary parts for readers to have a general idea of the whole paper and then todecide whether to finish reading the paper or not. RAI plays an important role ininternational academic communication, and in addition to the macro-structure, itsmicro-lexical use is also of great importance, especially the application of appraisalresources. The core part of appraisal resources is attitude system, hence it is worthexploring how the authors’ views and standpoints are showed through attitude resourcesin each move structure to construct interpersonal meaning in RAIs.The author establishes a corpus of40discourses of RA introductions written byChinese academics in economical journals. Quantitative method and qualitative methodare combined to explore RAIs’ genre structures and attitude resources as well as thedistribution of attitude resources in each move-step. Firstly, this paper applies Swales’s(1990) CARS Model to analyze the move structures of RAIs (macro-structure), aimingto reveal the genre structure and move-step characters of economical RAIs in academicdiscourses. Then, this paper explores the factors of disciplinary cultures andconventions by analyzing the genre structures of RAIs from factors within and outsidethe text. In addition, this paper also analyzes micro-structure of the economicdisciplines’ RAIs under the theory of Martin (2005)’s appraisal system, aiming atfinding out the distribution characters of attitude resources in introductions. Lastly, theauthor combines the move-step structures with attitude resources and shows thedifferent distributions of attitude resources in various move-steps in RAIs, in order toprob into how the communicative purposes are realized through the usage of attituderesources in different move-structures, and also to explore the factors within and outsidethe text that cause the differences among the steps.The results indicate that: as to macro-structure, there are significant differences inthe moves of the economic RAIs. The frequencies of Move one "establishing aterritory" and Move three "occupying the niche" both reach more than80%, whichmeans economic research articles (RAs) focus on stating research field and indicatingresearch findings. The frequency of Move two "establish a niche" is lower, taking only63%. And steps like "counter-claiming" and "continuing a tradition" are seldom applied.As to micro-structure, the "Affection" subsystem of Attitude system is not showed in RAIs, and the frequency of using "Appreciation" subsystem is386, which is slightlyhigher than that of "Judgment" subsystem, which contains255resources. Attituderesources emerge mostly in Move one step3"reviewing previous research" and Movethree step2"announcing principle findings", which involve176and134resourcesrespectively. This shows that Judgment resources are inclined to be used to state theresearch for the characters of rigor and practicability in economic research. AndAppreciation resources are applied to express authors opinions for the complexity andvariety in economic field. Characterized by data and facts, economic RA introductionsrarely apply "Affection" resources to reflect individual emotions.The present study suggests that attentions should be paid not only to the genrestructures but also to the selection of attitude resources as well as their properdistributions in academic writing. The results are supposed to facilitate the compositionof more standard RA introductions by Chinese economical scholars under the ESP genreanalysis theory. At the same time, it is hoped that this paper is to help academics verifythe differences in applying attitude resources in economic RAs and to improve thewriting conscientiousness and expression abilities so as to promote researchachievements smoothly. |
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