Rhetorical Moves Analysis of RA Abstracts in English Applied Linguistics and Psychology Journals

Abstract

Abstracts are essential in a research as it provides an overview of the article itself. Considering its importance, numerous studies on abstracts have been done. Nonetheless, to the best of the writer’s knowledge, few have directly compared the abstracts of research articles (RA) in English applied linguistics and psychology journals. This study is aimed at filling this gap by investigating what rhetorical moves are found in the research article abstracts in these two groups. This study analyzed 20 abstracts taken from 4 national journals. More specifically, 10 abstracts from 2 applied linguistics journals and 10 from 2 psychology journals. All 4 journals are SINTA accredited with a rank of 2 and 3. All of the abstracts are randomly taken from the latest issue from each journal. To analyze the rhetorical moves, the framework from Hyland (2000) was utilized. Findings showed some similarities and differences in terms of what moves were found in the abstracts. Some moves were categorized as obligatory while others were classified as conventional and optional. The findings seem to suggest that the abstracts from both groups generally employed similar moves as they both fall under the soft science field. Seeing as these abstracts are taken from reputable journals (Sinta 2 and 3), it is suggested that researchers employ similar moves when composing their abstracts in these fields of study.