A Contrastive Study on the Generic Structure and Socio-pragmatic Proclivities in Acknowledgements

Year 2021, Volume: 12 Issue: 2, 357 - 376, 17.04.2021

Tuğba Elif Toprak Yıldız Yasemin Aksoyalp

https://doi.org/10.17569/tojqi.847181

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the rhetorical organization of acknowledgements accompanying Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) dissertations written in English by native speakers of English and Turkish, and gain insights into the underlying socio-pragmatic proclivities. To this end, the macro-textual analysis of 136 PhD dissertations was conducted in light of Hyland and Tse’s (2004) coding scheme. The findings revealed that more than half of PhD dissertation acknowledgements in both corpora consisted of only thanking move while the most commonly used step was thanking for academic assistance, followed by thanking for moral support. Moreover, the findings of the study also revealed that the acknowledgement section in PhD dissertations goes beyond being merely a part of a given dissertation and reflects social and cultural characteristics as well. The findings were discussed, and the implications were made.

Keywords

Acknowledgements, thanking, PhD dissertations, academic discourse, sociopragmatic variation

Doktora Tezi Teşekkür Bölümlerinin Organizasyonel Yapısı ve Sosyo-pragmatik Eğilimler Üzerine Karşılaştırmalı Bir Çalışma

Abstract

Bu çalışma, anadili İngilizce ve Türkçe olan araştırmacılar tarafından İngilizce olarak yazılan doktora tezlerinin teşekkür bölümünün retorik organizasyonunu incelemeyi ve mevcut organizasyona sebep olabilecek sosyo-pragmatik eğilimleri anlamayı amaçlamaktadır. Bu amaçla, bu nitel araştırmada, 136 doktora tezinin makro-metin analizi, Hyland ve Tse'nin (2004) geliştirdiği kodlama şeması ışığında gerçekleştirildi. Bulgular, her iki bütüncedeki doktora tezlerinin yarısından fazlasının sadece teşekkür etme altsözcesinden oluştuğunu, en sık kullanılan yapıların ise akademik yardım için teşekkür etme ve manevi destek için teşekkür etme olduğunu ortaya koydu. Ayrıca, incelenen teşekkür bölümlerinde Hyland ve Tse’de (2004) bulunmayan iki farklı adıma rastlanmıştır. Genel olarak, çalışmanın bulguları, doktora tezlerinde yer alan teşekkür bölümünün bir tezin parçası olmanın ötesinde çeşitli sosyal ve kültürel özellikleri de yansıttığını ortaya koymuştur.

Keywords

Teşekkür bölümü, teşekkür etme, doktora tezleri, akademik söylem, sosyopragmatik varyasyon

References

• Afful, J., & Mwinlaaru, I. (2010). The construction of multiple identities in the acknowledgement section of a master’s dissertation. English for Specific Purposes World, 30(9), 1-26.
• Afip, L. B. A., Ustati, M. K. H, & Dahan, H. (2013). The differences between Malay and Chinese post-graduates’ gratitude: The generic structure of dissertation acknowledgement. Researchers World: Journal of Arts, Science & Commerce, 4(3), 1-10.
• Al-Ali, M. N. (2010). Generic patterns and socio-cultural resources in acknowledgements accompanying Arabic PhD dissertations. Pragmatics, 20(1), 1-26.
• Apte, M. L. (1974). “Thank you” and South Asian languages: A comparative sociolinguistic study. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 3, 67-90.
• Bhatia, V. K. (1993). Analyzing genre: Language use in professional settings. London: Longman.
• Cheng, S. W. (2005). An exploratory cross-sectional study of interlanguage pragmatic development of expressions of gratitude by Chinese learners of English. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Iowa.
• Cheng, W. (2012). A contrastive study of master thesis acknowledgements by Taiwanese and North American students. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 2(1), 8-17.
• Cotos, E. (2018). Move analysis in C.A. Chapelle (Ed.), Encyclopedia of applied linguistics. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Cronin, B. (1995). The scholar’s courtesy: The role of acknowledgements in the primary communication process. London: Taylor Graham.
• Devitt, A. J. (2004). Writing genres. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
• Eisenstein, M., & Bodman, J. W. (1986). “I very appreciate”: Expressions of gratitude by native and non-native speakers of American English. Applied Linguistics, 7(2),167-185.
• Giannoni, D. S. (2002). Words of gratitude: A contrastive study of acknowledgement texts in English and Italian research articles. Applied Linguistics, 23(1), 1-31.
• Hyland, K. (2003). Dissertation acknowledgements: The anatomy of a Cinderella genre. Written Communication, 20, 242-268.
• Hyland, K. (2004). Graduates’ gratitude: The generic structure of dissertation acknowledgements. English for Specific Purposes, 23, 303-324.
• Hyland, K., & Tse, P. (2004). “I would like to thank my supervisor”: Acknowledgements in graduate dissertations. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 14(2), 259-275.
• Jordan, R. R. (1997). English for academic purposes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Karakaş, Ö. (2010). A cross-cultural study on dissertation acknowledgments written in English by native speakers of Turkish and American English. Unpublished master’s thesis. Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.
• Mohammadi, M. J. (2013). Do Persian and English dissertation acknowledgments accomodate Hyland’s model: A cross-linguistic study. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 3(5), 534-547.
• Naito, T., Wangwan, J., & Tani, M. (2005). Gratitude in university students in Japan and Thailand. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 36(2), 247-263.
• Nguyen, T. T. L. (2017). Generic structures and linguistic features of TESOL master’s thesis acknowledgements written by Vietnamese postgraduates. The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies, 23(2), 27-40.
• Pishghadam, R., & Zarei, S. (2012). Cross-cultural comparison of gratitude expressions in Persian, Chinese and American English. English Language Teaching, 5(1), 117-126.
• Swales, J. M. (1996). Occluded genres in the academy: The case of the submission letter in E. Ventola & A. Mauranen (Eds.), Academic Writing: Intercultural and Textual Issues, (pp. 45-58). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Swales, J. M. (2004). Research genres: Exploration and applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Toprak, T. E. (2011). The textual organization of discussion and conclusions sections of research articles in applied linguistics. Unpublished master’s thesis. Uludag University, Bursa, Turkey.
• Wang, J. (2011). Cultural differences and English teaching. English Language Teaching, 4(2), 223-230.