Innovation in Language Learning
Thematic Patterns in Engineering Abstracts: Enhancing Academic Writing Across Cultures
Nour Elhouda Dib, University of Sfax, Tunisia (Tunisia)
Abstract
Research article abstracts (RAAs) play a central role in knowledge dissemination as gateways to papers and independent genres (Swales, 1990; Hyland, 2004). Introduced into article structures in the mid-twentieth century (Swales & Feak, 2009), they have been examined from rhetorical, lexical, and grammatical perspectives. Within Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), the Theme system offers insight into information organisation and disciplinary style (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014). While early studies described RAAs as condensed and impersonal (Graetz, 1982; Ventola, 1997), later research showed disciplinary variation (Stotesbury, 2003; Lorés, 2004; El-Dakhs, 2018; Alyousef, 2021, 2023). However, large-scale corpus studies in engineering remain scarce.This study analyses a one-million-word corpus of engineering abstracts, highlighting thematic patterns and implications for ESP pedagogy.
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Keywords |
Thematic structure, abstracts, ESP, disciplinary variation, academic writing. |
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REFERENCES |
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