Rhetorical Organization of Tourism Research Article Abstracts

Genre Analysis of abstract writing has drawn academicians’ attention in recent years. The rhetorical organization of research article abstracts has undergone several studies (Swales, 1990, Bhatia 1997, Salager-Meyer 1990, Don Santos, 1996, Hyland, 2000 & 2005, Tseng 2011). Their studies focused mainly on cross-linguistic and cross-disciplinary aspects of this part-genre. This study looks into the rhetorical organization specifically of tourism research article abstracts, which has either been under represented or overlooked. A corpus of 35 tourism research article abstracts was chosen randomly to describe the move-structure. Results suggest significant variations in the move-structure method and strategies for realization of communication objectives by the authors. Both linguistic and pedagogical implications are discussed at the end.