Evaluative Strategies in Iranian and International Research Article Introductions: Assessment of Academic Writing

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz

Abstract

Despite a spate of interest in the study of the Introductions of scholarly articles, the
focal genre of knowledge construction, research is yet to reach conclusive answers on
the nature of this genre. Thus, the present study analyzed research article
Introductions, aiming to explore how the process of knowledge construction is
achieved by Iranian and international writers of English research articles. The research
investigated the ways by which Iranian writers apply evaluative stance as they
construct an argument for their own research. To this end, the researchers, initially,
analyzed 80 research article Introductions to find the instances of explicit Attitude and
then to spot the Graduation resources that grade explicit Attitude. The results
conspicuously revealed that the international writers, compared to the Iranian writers,
tended to apply a greater proportion of explicit Attitude and Graduation resources.
Lack of variety to grade explicit Attitude in the process of constructing an argument
within the Introduction section of the Iranian English articles might indicate that, at
least, some of these articles did not completely conform to the conventions of
discourse community.

Keywords