CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN THE ORGANIZATION OF RESEARCH ARTICLE INTRODUCTIONS FROM THE FIELD OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY: ENGLISH AND PERSIAN

This paper investigated the rhetorical organization of the introduction sections of 50 English and Persian research articles in the field of educational psychology. It applied a genre-based contrastive rhetorical examination of textual differences between English and Iranian research article introductions. It adopted Swales’s (1990, 2004) framework of move analysis. Iranian speakers often include discourse features valued in Iranian culture in their writing, which differ from those used in English prose and include the use of a preponderance of proverbs, quotations, allusions and historical references to delay arguments. Swales’s (1990, 2004) CARS (Create a Research Space) model was selected as the basis for the analysis and coding of the moves and steps in both sets of articles. Past studies (e.g. Najjar, 1990; Taylor and Chen, 1991; Ahmad, 1997; Jogthong, 2001; Ahmed, 2004) have confirmed Swales’s move- analysis framework as a valid tool for analyzing research article introductions in particular and other research article sections (including complete research articles) in general. The CARS model consists of three stages termed ‘‘moves’’ by Swales. The three moves in Swales’s (1990, 2004) CARS model are Move (1) establishing a research territory, Move (2) establishing a niche Move (3) occupying the niche (Swales, 1990)/Move 3—presenting the present work (Swales, 2004). In general, the findings of the present study revealed that there are similarities and differences between English and Iranian research article introductions in terms of the employment of moves and steps. It is suggested that the rhetorical differences reflect some of the distinctive characteristics of the two different cultures, English and Persian. The findings of the present study have both theoretical and pedagogical implications. The differences in preferred Iranian and English rhetorical patterns may cause problems for Iranian students writing academic English prose which tends to use logical reasoning and English rhetorical structure. The findings can be used to show possible difficulties faced by Iranian EFL students in producing acceptable academic English writing and to suggest ways in which they and their teachers might deal with these difficulties.