“THE OVERALL AIM OF THIS WORK IS ….” FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL SUBJECT IN RESEARCH ARTICLE INTRODUCTIONS ACROSS FOUR DISCIPLINES
“THE OVERALL AIM OF THIS WORK IS ….” FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL SUBJECT IN RESEARCH ARTICLE INTRODUCTIONS ACROSS FOUR DISCIPLINES

Summary/Abstract: This study investigates the types and discourse functions of grammatical subjects in research article introductions across four disciplines, namely: Applied Linguistics and Psychology, representing soft sciences, and Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, representing hard sciences. This study was carried out on a corpus of 40 research article introductions (10 from each discipline). The research article introductions were sourced from twelve ISI journals published from 2008 to 2012. The corpus was analysed based on the modified model in relation to grammatical subject types and discourse functions suggested by Ebrahimi (2014). The results revealed that the grammatical subject type selections were guided by the nature of the research article introduction. However, the frequency of use of the grammatical subject types was constrained by the nature of the discipline. Discourse functions of grammatical subject types were predominantly determined by the divisions of the hard and soft sciences, and the specific disciplines within and the internal structure of the research article introductions. In addition, the results of this study manifest a new framework for the analysis of discourse functions of grammatical subject types in research article introductions.

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