Abstract

This study is part of a larger project investigating linguistic features of the abstracts and full texts of medical research articles. Research article abstracts are a “representation” of “the article as a whole” (Swales, 1990, p. 179) and are typically “written in tightly worded sentences” (Graetz, 1985, p. 125). Abstracts may therefore contain sentences in which multiple rhetorical functions are realized through lexical choices that contribute to “framing the article that it precedes” (Hyland, 2000, p. 64). To investigate this relationship, the present study combined move analysis with lexical analysis of abstracts and corresponding full texts of 15 medical research articles.

First, drawing on Swales’s (1981, 1990) move-analytical framework, we analyzed their rhetorical organization. We used the term move-step to refer to rhetorical units at the step level. Move-steps were identified on the basis of the communicative purposes realized by text fragments within each sentence. Rather than labeling the fragments themselves, we coded each sentence for the move-steps realized by its constituent parts, allowing multiple move-steps to be assigned to a single sentence. Of the 34 move-steps identified, 19 (56%) occurred in the abstracts, whereas all 34 occurred in the full texts.

Second, we examined lexical features of sentences realizing the same move-steps in the abstracts and full texts. As an initial analysis, we focused on single sentences that realized the communicative functions of describing experimental procedures and enhancing the transparency of research procedures. In these sentences, noun phrases accounted for about half of the words in the abstracts and about 30% in the full texts. This difference suggests that abstracts may achieve greater textual condensation through more intensive use of noun phrases, even when the same combination of rhetorical functions is realized. Further analyses will examine lexical levels across move-steps shared by the abstracts and full texts.