Abstract:

Research articles are known to be one of the global means of academic communication among scholars from diverse disciplines both locally and internationally. Within a single genre of research articles, disciplinary variations are discernible. This study, using Swales’ genre analysis (2004), aims to scrutinize a sub-genre of research articles Introductions written in English in three disciplines of civil engineering, software engineering, and biomedical engineering. The objectives of this study are twofold: 1) to identify the structural patterns prevalent in these Introductions and 2) to capture variations in the structural patterns among the Introductions from these three disciplines. The dataset consists of 180 Introduction sections representing the three disciplines of engineering (60 Introductions each) in focus. These Introductions were systematically selected from the top five most prestigious journals of their own disciplines. The analysis shows that the Introductions of each academic discipline generally share a common rhetorical organization. However, disciplinary variations are also captured, highlighting the unique characteristics and perspectives of each discipline. The findings culminate in the conclusion that each discipline is a discourse community with its inherent cultural and pragmatic norms, values, and protocolized practices. Pedagogically, the discoursal organization identified in this study provides guidelines for engineering students in general as well as other ESP learners to be able to understand how research articles in their own disciplines are constructed, facilitating the task of reading research articles. Meanwhile, the rhetorical organization will also prepare them to succeed and thrive in their respective disciplines both locally and globally in the future. Specifically, to participate successfully in global academic communication, learners need to be not only sensitive to the rhetorical norms imposed by the genre but also aware of the cultural and pragmatic conventions practiced in their own disciplines.

Keywords:

Research articles, engineering, global communication, structural pattern, discourse analysis.