Generic Structures Of The Concluding Chapter Of Master Thesis In Applied Linguistics By Chinese And American Writers: A Cross-cultural Perspective

Genre analysis of academic discourse, which has drawn muchattention form linguistic scholars in the last30years, tends to focus onthe research article rather than longer texts such MA or PhD theses anddissertations, let alone the research into the generic structure of specificthesis chapters, only with one exception of Bunton (1998,2005). Thepresent study, with the reference to Bunton’s research (1998,2005), hasinvestigated the generic structure of the concluding chapter of MA thesisin Applied Linguistics by Chinese and American writers, with thepurpose to reveal the cultural variations in their move-step models andprovide pedagogical suggestions for conclusion writing in AppliedLinguistic thesis. The corpus of the research consists of60English-language MA theses, which are equally divided into twocategories of American students’(AS) MA theses and Chinese students’(CS) MA theses.Research results show that:1) All the60samples include the partsplaying concluding role which fall into Bunton’s classification ofConclusion structure—Introductory restatement, Consolidation ofresearch space, Practical implications, and Recommendation for futureresearch.2) Conclusion play a dominant role in the end of both thesescomposed by writers from two cultural backgrounds, with Discussionsscattered in a number of chapters, and rarely having chapters of their own.American students’ theses tend to be longer, with more varied titles and section headings as well as a higher number of references than theirChinese counterparts.3) Significant cross-cultural difference mainlyexists in the moves and steps: Introductory restatement move is favoredmore by Chinese students who tended to restate the work carried out,rather than to restate the research questions and previous researches(support) which are preferred by their American counterparts; in theConsolidation move, Chinese thesis writers more often simply putforward logical conclusions drawn out of the findings obtained in theirstudy rather than first presenting the results/findings and then makingclaims as American students do, and the latter students prefer to containmore Reference to previous research, Unexpected finding, Explanation,and Question Raising steps, while former students tend to use moreMethods, Evaluation (of method or product) and Information steps intheir Consolidation; the Practical Implication move is preferred in AStheses Conclusions rather than those in CS theses, either as a single moveor as a step embedded elsewhere; yet the CS samples contain moreWarning/Caution steps than AS ones; AS Recommendation move oftenincludes steps which should be dressed earlier in previous moves, whileCS Recommendations do not includes these steps with shorter step-cyclesand tend to be more concise.From the analysis of the generic structure of the concluding parts ofEnglish-language MA theses in Applied Linguistic from a cross-cultural perspective, this study offers specific generic model for Linguistic-majorstudents to write Conclusions of their MA theses, and could help themincrease cross-cultural awareness which will be beneficial for them topublish their research findings in English.