Analysis of moves and their lexical verbs of research article abstracts of Filipino and American writers.

Rhetorical move analyses of research article (RA) abstracts have established variations across cultures and disciplines; however, other non-native users of English, such as Filipino writers, in other disciplines, such as applied linguistics, may still need a reference guide in abstract writing for they are underexplored in contrastive analysis to the best of the researcher's knowledge. Hence, this study compared the rhetorical moves in the RA abstracts of Filipino and American writers who are published in two research journals related to applied linguistics discipline. The study also explored the underlying lexical verbs in each move in all the abstracts. Findings revealed that the moves Situating the Research (STR), Presenting the Research (PTR), and Discussing the Research (DTR) were obligatorily used by both groups of writers. On the other note, the moves Describing the Methodology (DTM) and Summarizing the Findings (STF) were obligatory only among Filipinos, showing their tendency to deviate from the conventions in abstract writing of Americans who are considered native speakers and norm providers. Furthermore, this study details lists of lexical verbs that may be used to realize a rhetorical intent of a move. Hence, academic writing instructions may be informed by the rhetorical and linguistic realizations unveiled in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]