A comparative corpus-based study of nursing and language teaching research articles: a multidimensional analysis

Abstract

This paper presents the results of multidimensional analyses investigating patterns of linguistic features in Nursing Research Article Corpus (NURAC) and Language Teaching Research Article Corpus (LTRAC). The findings showed the nursing research articles contained four stylistic patterns and communicative functions. They are Evaluative Stance Focused, Established Knowledge Focused, Claim Focused, and Intention Focused. The language teaching research articles contained six stylistic patterns and communicative functions. They are Persuasion Focused, Evaluative Stance Focused, Claim Focused, Established Knowledge versus Past Action Focused, Ownership Focused, and Modified Information Focused. An intersectional comparison within NURAC and within LTRAC indicated that each pattern was found in different research article’s conventional sections. An interdisciplinary comparison indicated that three out of the four dimensions in NURAC were also found in LTRAC. Herewith, the findings argue that the professional research article writers employ several stylistic patterns for writing each research article’s conventional section. The use of these patterns depends primarily on the functional properties and the textual variation. A possible reason why some stylistic patterns used in NURAC slightly differ from LTRAC might presumably be due to differences of their writings natures. In the researcher’s opinion, the findings from this dissertation could be beneficial to ESP / EAP course and curriculum designers, teachers of English language in academic writing courses, non-native English and novice researchers and students particularly from these two disciplines for the application of this knowledge to improve their academic writing skills.