English research article: subject-specific characteristics of the Results and Discussion sections

Abstract

This paper considers research article in English as a common genre of written academic discourse. A modern research article has a normative compositional and content macrostructure, consisting of sections related to the progress of scientific research. The article examines the sections "Results" and "Discussion" in order to identify the subject-specific characteristics of linguistic and medical research articles. The main parameters of the analysis were the compositional and content macrostructure of these sections, as well as verbal and non-verbal means of its implementation. The source of the hypothesis about the subject-scientific specifics of the English-language research article was K. Hyland's concept of the disciplinary variation of academic discourse. The material of the study was medical and linguistic research articles in English. As a result of the study, the content structure of the "Results" section, consisting of the components of the presentation of the research results; explanation of the results; comparison of results with a hypothesis; comparison of the results among themselves, and the section "Discussion", consisting of the components of the generalization of the results; interpretation / evaluation of results; comparison with the results of other studies; a statement of the limitations of the study that affect the degree of generalization and extrapolation of the results of an English-language research article, and also the main language and visual-graphic means of their implementation were identified and described. In the course of the study, subject-scientific variation was found at all levels of analysis: the presence of separate/combined sections, the presence/absence of the content component “stating the limitations of the study”, greater/ lesser density of the use of the verbs show, find, indicate, identify as language means of presenting the result, dominance of the present/past tense form for the presentation of the result; variable/standardized use of lexical language means in the verbalization of comparison of results. The conducted research will expand the understanding of the norm of the written mode of the English-language academic discourse and its subject-scientific specifics.