321-337, 1997
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Introduction
Since the early 80s applied linguists and language teachers, especially
those concerned with the teaching of ESP and EAP, have shown a great
deal of interest in genre-centered approaches to the analysis of written and
spoken discourse. This interest in genre analysis has, to a large extent, been
motivated by pedagogical concerns, in particular by the need to provide
satisfactory models and descriptions of academic and scientific texts and to
enhance the ability of non-native speaker students to understand and, where
appropriate, to produce them. It has been suggested, for example by Bhatia
(1993), that earlier studies of academic and scientific discourse have failed
to produce relevant and comprehensive accounts of such texts.
Address correspondence to: Richard Holmes, 23, Jalan Pukat Satu 19/23A, Seksyen 19, 40000 Shah Alam.
Selangor, Darul Ehsan, Malaysia (e-mail: richard@ppp.itm.my).
321
322 R. Holmes
Although there have been some studies of academic writing in the humani-
ties and social sciences, for example by McCloskey (1986)) Peck MacDonald
(1987,1990,1992), Dillon (1991)) Hunston (1993) and Brett (1994), the bulk
of the research to date on particular sections of the RA or on its overall
structure has dealt with the natural sciences. This is perhaps unfortunate
since a large and increasing number of non-native speaker students are
studying social science subjects through the medium of English. There is
therefore a pedagogical rationale for extending the genre analysis of the RA
into the social sciences. A further justification for studying social science
RAs is that this will enable us to determine how far the patterns observed in
the natural sciences are generalizable to all written academic discourse.
The objective of the present study is therefore to examine the structure
of the Discussion sections, or equivalent, of articles from the disciplines
of history, political science and sociology. Although there are studies by
M&inlay (1984)) Hopkins (1985) and Peng (1987)) research on this section
is limited compared to the Introduction and there appear, moreover, to be
no published studies to date that have focused on Discussion sections of
social science RAs. Given the variability of this section and the importance
attached to it by students and supervisors (Dudley-Evans 1986, 1993), the
absence of research is especially striking. This study will examine the ways
in which the Discussion sections of social science RAs differ from those in
the natural sciences and the ways in which there is variation within the
social sciences. Political science and sociology were chosen since they are,
by common consent, central social science disciplines. History was included
because its ambiguous status, “traditionally poised between the social sci-
ences and the humanities” as Dillon (1991:15) puts it, might help to dis-
tinguish the features specific to social science disciplines.
Methods
Thirty articles were selected for analysis, 10 each from the disciplines of
history, political science and sociology. The choice of journals was motivated
324 R. Holmes
In most cases the unit of analysis was the sentence. There is a case for
adopting a unit of analysis below the level of the sentence such as the clause,
phrase or T-unit since a small number of instances were observed where
writers embedded one move inside another or included two moves within a
single sentence, techniques that seem to be more prevalent in the natural
sciences. It was felt, however, that such a procedure would be too cum-
bersome for the present study and would not be worthwhile since it would
involve very few sentences. Where a sentence appeared to contain two
moves it was assigned to the move that seemed to be more salient. In the
very few cases where it was impossible to decide which of the two moves
within a sentence was more salient, it was coded as containing two moves.
This was necessary for only three sentences in the entire corpus. It must be
noted that this procedure does involve a degree of subjectivity that is perhaps
unavoidable. The main consequence of using the sentence as the unit of
analysis is that there is a slight underestimation of the degree of subtlety
and complexity in a few Discussion sections. It might be noted that Crookes
(1986) also argues for this procedure. If, however, we were to analyze a
single text or segment of text rather than comparing several texts, it might
be more appropriate to adopt for analysis a unit below the level of the
sentence. Table 1 below presents an example of analysis of a Discussion
section. The text is from history article H5, “Moving out and settling in:
326 R. Holmes
TABLE 1
Outline structure of discussion section of “moving out and settling in”
Our study of residential mobility in interwar Riverside and the postwar United
States yields several findings. First, the evidence on tenure in Riverside before
1950, and especially before 1946, carries implications for understanding both
historical and postwar residential mobility. Historical estimates of 50 percent
turnover within a decade probably mask a cycle of movement that was much
shorter, on the average about two years. Also, interwar residential mobility
paralleled the general pattern of nineteenth-century mobility historians have
consistently found, which leads us to conclude that there was no fundamental
change in the American propensity to move until after World War II. Second,
the two major explanations advanced by postwar social scientists to explain
contemporary residential mobility cannot by themselves account for the
sudden, dramatic, and nationwide decrease in mobility that has characterized
the United States since 1950. We believe that Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal
housing programs and policies ultimately constrained mobility by making
home ownership easier and more attractive than it had been since the mid-
nineteenth century. Roosevelt’s vision of a modernized social compact
depended on a residentially stable citizenry. The size and power of the state
that Roosevelt’s administration created allowed the federal government to
intervene directly and forcefully in the home-financing market to achieve the
president’s goal. It was not, however, simply a matter of the state providing
access to home owning that restrained the American people’s propensity to
move but rather its providing the means, the long term mortgage, which was
motivated by the government’s desire to promote better citizenship.
The structure of this text seems fairly straightforward although there are
some points of difficulty. The reference to “findings” in the first sentence is
somewhat confusing since it seems to refer both to data uncovered by the
authors’ research and to deductions and hypotheses arising from the data.
The fifth sentence of paragraph 1 also presented some difficulty. At first
glance the sentence reads like an indication of a gap or weakness of the
kind normally found in Introductions. It was eventually classified as a Move
4 since it is unambiguously a reference to a hypothesis produced by previous
research although, unusually, it criticizes a previous hypothesis instead of
using it to support the authors’ generalizations. The fourth sentence of the
second paragraph was classified as part of a Move 7 since, although it refers
to another writer, it concerns a recommendation by that writer rather than
his previous research.
Results
The RAs in the corpus were first analyzed for general patterns of organ-
ization. It was observed that all the texts were divided into sections. Those
in the history articles were not titled and were demarcated by double spacing
and partial capitalization of the first line of each section, presumably as a
result of editorial policy. The sections in the political science and sociology
RAs, except in most cases for the Introductions, were titled although the
number of sections and their titles varied quite considerably.
The organizational patterns of the political science and sociology RAs
were quite similar. Firstly, they all contained a recognizable Introduction.
In 18 out of 20 cases this was untitled and was then followed by a titled
section. With one exception, this was an extensive section that dealt with
theoretical background, previous research and general topical information
in varying proportions. Political science and sociology RAs also had, with
two exceptions, sections in the main text that dealt with methods. One of
the exceptions discussed questions of method in an appendix. Two political
science and four sociology ras had fairly long sections in which hypotheses
were laid out. All of the RAs had identifiable sections dealing with Results
and Discussions.
Most of the history articles were rather different. All contained an ident-
ifiable Introduction and a Discussion section, or conclusion as the authors
would probably prefer to call it, but only two contained a section devoted to
background and only two a section that dealt with methods. They all had a
main section that, for the sake of comparability across the disciplines, will
be referred to as the Results section although normally historians would
probably call it an argument or a narrative.
It seems safe to say that there is a standard pattern of organization for
RAs in political science and sociology and perhaps for other social science
328 R. Holmes
TABLE 2
Move structure of RA Discussion sections
No. of
RA Structure (Moves) Move units
History
Hl Schweniger 2-3 2
H2 Childers 2-6-1-4-2-7-2+1-2-6-S 12
H3 Wortman 2-8-7-8 4
H4 Fuchs & Moth 2-6-4-6-4 5
H5 Tobey et al. 2-6-467 5
H6 Steams & Haggerty a68 3
H7 Goheen 4-l-4-6 4
H8 Ross 6-l-2-8-7 5
H9 Schwartz l-2-86 4
HlO Waldron 8 1
Political Science
Pl Roberts 1-4-141-4-1-6-3-5-6-l-6-7 14
P2 Jacobson l-4-26-7 5
P3 Morehouse l-3-2-5-3-4-3-5-2-3-5-4-6 13
P4 Rapoport et al. 2-4-2-3-4-5 6
P5 Studlar et al. 2-616-1-2-l-61-2-6-2 12
P6 Welch and Leege 6-4-6-2-3-~6-4~6-4-6-4-1-6-l-6 16
P7 Sniderman et al. 2-6-2-4-7 5
P8 Quinn & Shapiro 4-2-6-4-6-l-6-4-fX-7-4-2-1-2-1-2 17
P9 Feiock 64-7-&7-6-3-l-6-7 10
PlO Jenkins-Smith et al. 2-6-2-6-2-6-2-62-4-6 11
Sociology
Sl Wilson 2-1-3-1-2-64-2-7-6 10
s2 Levy 6--4-2-l-62-&242 10
s3 Hessler et al. 4-7 2
s4 Britton 2-3-6-2-6-I-242-&7 11
s5 Pescosolido l-2-1-4-&l-3-2-3-2-5-4-6-7 14
S6 Graham & Hogan 2-7-4-6-2-d-2-7 8
s7 Smith 2%67-67-&7 7
S8 Grasmick et al. 3-2-3-l-2-3-&7 8
s9 Hwang & Murdock 2-3-6-4-7 5
SlO Semyenov & Lewin-Epstein 2-6-2-6 4
TABLE 3
RA Discussion sections: number of sentences per move
since it appears only in history RAs and then in only half of them, although
when it does appear it takes up a substantial amount of text.
Variation according to discipline is highly significant with regard to Move
2, Statement of Result, which was favoured by sociologists, Move 6, Gen-
eralization, which was especially prominent in political science texts, Move
7, Recommendation, which was much more in evidence in sociology texts
than in the other two disciplines and Move 8, Outlining Parallel or Subsequent
Developments, which occurred only in history articles.
Overall complexity was another area where there was a marked difference
between the disciplines. History Discussion sections were the least complex
with 4.5move-units and political science the most complex with 10.9units.
Sociology occupied an intermediate position with 7.9 units. This is in marked
contrast to the Introductions where history R4s were the most complex (see
Holmes 1995). The writers of History Discussion sections also tended to
employ a more restricted repertoire of moves. On average, 3.3 moves were
observed in history Discussion sections, 4.7 in political science and 4.3 in
sociology. As well as being less complex and employing fewer moves, history
Discussion sections also accounted for a smaller proportion of the RA than
those in the other two disciplines.
The observation, referred to earlier, by Dudley-Evans (1986) that moves
tend to occur in a predictable order was found to be applicable to the social
sciences. In the present corpus, the moves higher up the list usually made
their first appearance before those lower down. There were, however, some
exceptions. Move 2 appeared before Move 1 several times and Gen-
eralization was observed to normally occur before either Move 4, Reference
to Previous Research, or Move 5, Explanation.
A few of the sections in the corpus had a straightfonvard linear structure
in which discussion proceeded from one move to another without recursion.
Thus RA S9, “Ethnic enclosure or ethnic competition: ethnic identification
among Hispanics in Texas,” opens the Discussion section with a Statement of
Results. This is followed by a comment on the expectedness of the outcome,
a generalization that includes a limitation on claims to generalizability, a
reference to previous research on another ethnic group and rec-
Genre Analysis and the Social Sciences 331
ommendations for future research. Many texts, however, did not proceed in
such a linear fashion and were characterized by the recurrence of one or
more moves. A typical pattern was the appearance of Statement of Result or
Background Information followed by Generalization or Reference to Previous
Research. Sometimes there was quite an elaborate sequence of such cycles.
RA PlO, “Explaining change in policy subsystems: Analysis of coalition
stability and defection over time,” for instance, comprises five cycles, defined
here as segments of text beginning with a Move 1 or Move 2. The first four
cycles consist of Statement of Result and Generalization and the fifth of
Statement of Result, Reference to Previous Research, and Generalization.
Again, there were noticeable disciplinary variations. Only one history RA
was cyclical in that it contained more than one segment of text headed by a
Move 1 or Move 2. On the other hand, all the political science FL& comprised
at least two cycles and the mean number of cycles per section was 3.5.
Sociology was somewhere in between. Seven sections had a cyclical struc-
ture and the mean number of cycles was 2.7. An interesting feature of the
political science Discussion sections was that opening cycles tended to have
fewer moves than later cycles.
To review the ground covered so far, it seems that, although the model
derived from the analysis of natural science texts is, in its broad outlines,
applicable to the Discussion sections of social science RAs, the latter are
less predictable and there were noticeable disciplinary variations with regard
to complexity, patterns of cyclical organization, the choice of closing moves
and the presence or absence of particular moves.
Discussion
Result, and Deduction, occurred in all of the texts studied, although Hopkins
and Dudley-Evans (1988) found that only Statement of Result was mandatory
in biology and irrigation and drainage papers. It is also particularly striking
that a comparison of the moves observed in the social science texts with
those observed in Peng’s study, which provides a complete analysis of all
the texts, shows that generally it is either political science or sociology that
most closely resembles chemical engineering as far as the presence of
particular moves is concerned. This is consistent with the suggestion that
political science and sociology RAs belong to a subgenre that is similar but
not identical to that of the natural science RA while History RAs are rather
more distinct but still related.
It is also noteworthy that the chemical engineering Discussion sections
contained more cycles, defined as segments of text beginning with Move 1
or Move 2, and were more complex than their social science counterparts.
Those in Peng’s corpus contained a mean of 68cycles, significantly more
than the means of 3.5 and 2.7 observed for political science and sociology
Discussion sections. Chemical engineering Discussion sections contained a
mean of 21.9 move-units compared to 10.9 for political science, 7.9 for soci-
ology and 4.5 for history (Peng’s data has been reworked to conform to the
categories of the present study).
History RAs show particular distinctiveness on a number of points. In
terms of overall structure they usually lack a Methods section. The Intro-
ductions are very long and very complex while Discussions normally do not
have a cyclical structure and tend to be brief. It seems inappropriate,
however, to regard history RAs as a separate genre, since there is clearly a
communicative purpose shared with the other disciplines and since they
adhere closely to the Swalesian model in the Introductions. It is possible
that history articles may be regarded as a distinct subgenre, as part of a
humanities subgenre, or as combining features of social science and humani-
ties subgenres. Resolving this issue would require comparison with the
structure of articles from fields such as philosophy and literary and cultural
studies.
To recapitulate, it would seem, if we make some fairly bold assumptions
about the representativeness of chemical engineering, that social science
Discussion sections are less complex, less predictable and more likely to
employ a restricted repertoire of moves than the natural or hard sciences.
The comparative complexity of social science Introductions has been noted
by Crookes (1986) and Holmes (1995). It seems therefore that the social
sciences, in contrast to the natural sciences, tend towards complexity and
elaboration at the beginning of the RA rather than at the end.
It is plausible that such disciplinary variation reflects the tendency for
research in the 20th century to become more expensive, systematic and
hierarchically organized. Bazerman (1988) has discussed the process by
which the production of knowledge in the natural sciences has become
progressively more rational, cumulative and collaborative. Similarly, McNa-
mee & Willis (1994)) following Price’s (Price 1986) concept of “big science,”
Genre Analysis and the Social Sciences 333
REFERENCES
Appendix
History
AI1 texts were published in the American Historical Review.
Hl Schweninger, L. (1990). Prosperous blacks in the south, 1790-1880. 95,
31-56.
H2 Childers, T. (1990). The social language of politics in Germany: the soci-
ology of political discourse in the Weimar Republic, 95, 331-356.
H3 Wortman, R. (1990). Rule by sentiment: Alexander II’s journeys through
the Russian Empire. 95, 745-771.
H4 Fuchs, R., & Moth, L. (1990). Pregnant, single, and far from home: migrant
women in nineteenth-century Paris. 95,1007-1031.
H5 Tobey Wetherell, R., & Brigham, J. (1990). Moving out and settling in:
residential mobility, home owning, and the public enframing of citizenship,
1921-1950.95, 1395-1422.
H6 Stearns, P., & Haggerty, T. (1991). The role of fear: transitions in American
emotional standards for children, 1850-1950. 96, 63-94.
H7 Goheen, R. (1991). Peasant politics?: village community and the crown in
fifteenth-century England. 96, 42-61.
H8 Ross, S. (1991). Struggles for the screen: workers, radicals, and the political
uses of silent film. 96,333-367.
H9 Schwartz, S. (1991). The voyage of the vassals: royal power, noble obli-
gations, and merchant capital before the portuguese restoration of inde-
pendence, 1624-1640.96,735-762.
HlO Waldron, A. (1991). The warlord: twentieth-century Chinese under-
standings of violence, militarism, and imperialism. 96,1073-1100.
Political science
P6 Welch, M., & Leege, D. (1991). Dual reference groups and political orien-
tations: an examination of evangelically oriented Catholics. 35,28-56.
P7 Sniderman, P., Piazza, T, Tetlock P., & Kendrick, A. (1991). The new
racism. 35,423-447.
P8 Quinn, D., & Shapiro, R. (1991). Economic growth strategies: the effects of
ideological partisanship on interest rates and business taxation in the
United States. 35, 656-685.
P9 Feiock, R. (1991). The effects of economic development policy on local
economic growth. 35,643-655.
PlO Jenkins-Smith, H., St Clair, G., &Woods, B. (1991). Explaining change in
policy subsystems: analysis of coalition stability and defection over time.
35,851-880.
Sociology