Although if is more frequent than whether... : An analysis of the uses of adverbial clauses in Philippine English research articles

This study on research articles written in Philippine English shows how the four semantic classes of adverbial clauses are used in the different sections of research articles. One of the salient findings is the high incidence of condition and cause clauses in the two sections of RAs: introduction and results and discussion sections. In the introduction section, it is extensively used to establish the research territory; while in the results and discussion section, it plays a role in the explanation of research findings. Suggestions can be made concerning language teaching and future research based on the findings. First, why a specific linguistic variable is salient in one section of an article is far from being accidental. It may tell us of its importance, and therefore should be given emphasis in teaching especially in academic writing. Second, so far, most of the linguistic variables that have received attention in research articles are tenses, modals, lexical markers or modality, and other metadiscoursal markers (Salager-Meyer, 1992, 1999; Vassileva, 2001; Hyland, 1994)