Genre analysis has gained significant attention in the last two decades. The studies on the generic analysis of research articles in various contexts and academic fields are abound, however, scant attention has been paid toward the comparative analysis of RA abstracts written by native and non-native researchers. The present study aims to fill this gap and sets out to investigate the rhetorical variation in the research article abstracts written by native (L1) and non-native (ESL & EFL) researchers. For this purpose, 60 RA abstracts were selected, 20 from each of the selected (American, Pakistani and Chinese) contexts. The generic analysis of the abstracts was performed by following the famous five-move model presented by Hyland (2000). Findings revealed that the native (L1) researchers were more efficient than the non-native (ESL and EFL) researchers in following the rhetorical structure of RA abstracts. Moreover, the comparison between the RA abstracts of ESL and EFL (Pakistani and Chinese) researchers reflected that the ESL (Pakistani) writers were more careful in adhering to the rhetorical structure of the abstracts of research articles. The study emphasizes the importance of observing the appropriate rhetorical structure of abstracts to come up to the accepted conventions of this discourse at international level. The study also facilitates the ESL and EFL researchers by providing basic knowledge about the rhetorical structure of RA abstract.
Key words: genre analysis, rhetorical structure, moves, abstract, research article
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