A Contrastive Analysis of Research Article Introductions in English and Spanish

Abstract

It is now well attested that academic writing is crucially determined by the socio-cultural context in which it is produced. In line with this research this paper aims at carrying out an intercultural (English-Spanish) analysis of the rhetorical structure of research article introductions in Business Management. The analysis is based on a comparable corpus of 24 research articles: 12 published in international high impact journals in English, and 12 published in national journals. A pattern of the moves and steps found in business management research article introductions is outlined. Some rhetorical steps seem to be specific to this disciplinary field. Further, the extent of (non)inclusion of the detailed moves and steps in the two sub-corpora is determined. The comparison reveals significant differences in the rhetorical organisation of this section in the research articles in the two languages.