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

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

Öz

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.

Anahtar Kelimeler

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

Kaynakça

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