Rhetorical organization of applied linguistics abstracts: does Scopus journal quartile matter?

Abstract

This study investigates whether Scopus journal quartile affects the rhetorical organization and linguistic realizations of applied linguistics research article (hereafter RA) abstracts from Scopus-indexed journals. Embracing the corpus-based approach, this study analyzed 28 abstracts from four AL journals (seven abstracts each) with different quartile. Hyland’s (2000) model was adopted as the analysis guideline. The phrase was the unit of analysis to obtain fine-grained results of the moves occurrences. The analysis revealed that most of the articles from Q2-Q4 journals applied the informative typology, while those from Q1 journal applied the indicative-informative one. Journal quartile does not necessarily affect the manifestation of all moves and steps. The number of occurrences of Step 1-describing participants and Step 3-describing procedure in the Method move was similar in all journals. Moreover, the Purpose and Findings moves were obligatory in all journals. Journal quartile played an influential role in employing the verb tense of Introduction, Purpose, and Conclusion moves and the sentence voice of Method and Conclusion moves. The findings reach a conclusion that journal quartile does not necessarily affect the domination of the standard rules of the RA abstracts’ rhetorical organization and linguistic realizations in AL journals. This study provides insight into the realm of English academic writing about the current trends of move analysis from the journal quartile lens. Further comparative research on the rhetorical features between the accepted and rejected RA abstracts and materials development for the pedagogy of English for research publication purposes are recommended.