A genre analysis of empirical research articles on economics

Academic writers need to attain a reasonably high level of competency in order to effectively share specialised knowledge and gain acceptance into an international discourse community. To this end, most academicians have considered the research article as one of the main channels for such scholarly communication to take place. To assist novice writers in writing their research reports, it is necessary to examine the work of expert writers to discover the rhetorical and linguistic strategies used by established members of the discourse community. One of the most powerful descriptions of language is genre analysis, but to date, there have been limited studies which have applied genre analysis to examine research articles on economics. This study investigates writers' rhetorical strategies in empirical economics research reports to identify a workable generic structure and the linguistic mechanisms used by economics researchers to achieve their communicative intentions. It employed a genre-based analytical framework based on Swales' (1990, 2004) move-step analysis to study empirical economics research reports, and the textual analysis was supported by detailed spoken data elicited from eight specialist informants. The results indicate that empirical economics research articles generally do not adhere strictly to the prevalent 'Introduction Method- Results-Discussion' (‘IMRD’) macrostructure; however, a total of 13 rhetorical moves and 38 constituent steps have been identified in relation to their different linguistic features. Specific rhetorical shifts have been found to be salient, and they illustrate how communicative functions are strategically linked by economics researchers. The results of this study are important and useful not only to the development of applied English linguistics, but also to language practitioners in the field of English for Specific Purposes