literature review

The schematic structure of literature reviews

in doctoral theses of applied linguistics

Becky S.C.Kwan *

Department of Education Studies,Hong Kong Baptist University,Kowloon Tong,Hong Kong

Abstract

In thesis manuals and writing programs,the notions of ‘‘introduction’’and ‘‘literature review’’(LR)are often used interchangeably to refer to the beginning chapters of a thesis.Samples of introductions from research articles and theses are sometimes employed to illus-trate the structure and other features of an LR,which suggests that the introduction and the LR chapters belong to the same category of text.However,little work has been undertaken to confirm whether this is the case.This study seeks to identify the rhetorical structure of the LR chapter and compare it with the revised CARS model [Bunton,D.(2002).Generic moves in Ph.D.thesis introductions.In J.Flowerdew (Ed.),Academic discourse (pp.57–75).London:Pearson Education]that has been posited for thesis introductions.The corpus examined is drawn from 20doctoral theses produced by native English speaking students of applied lin-guistics.The findings reveal that many of the LR chapters display an Introduction–Body–Conclusion structure.Within the body part,the discussion is divided into thematic sections,each of which displays recursive move structures that are similar to those found in thesis intro-ductions.Of three moves identified,Move 3appears least frequently.Although most of the steps in Bunton Õs revised CARS model are present in the move structures,some new steps are also distinguished.The findings suggest that LRs and introductions may not be structur-ally entirely the same.

Ó2005The American University.Published by Elsevier Ltd.All rights reserved.

0889-4906/$30.00Ó2005The American University.Published by Elsevier Ltd.All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.esp.2005.06.001

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English for Specific Purposes 25(2006)30–55NGLISH FOR S PECIFIC P

B.S.

C.Kwan/English for Specific Purposes25(2006)30–5531

1.Introduction

The past two decades have seen an increasing amount of research into various as-pects of the post-graduate thesis(e.g.,Belcher,1994;Bunton,1998,1999,2002;Dong, 1996,1998;Dudley-Evans,1999;Hocking,2003;Ridley,2000;Turner,2003).This in-crease has contributed significantly to our understanding of the genre and its compos-ing process.However,despite the volume of work that has been undertaken,research on the literature review(LR)chapters in theses that are organized in the traditional Introduction–Literature review–Methodology–Discussion1(I(Lr)MRD)format re-mains rather limited.This is surprising given that reviewing the literature is an indis-pensable and notoriously difficult task in the writing of post-graduate theses(Cooley &Lewkowicz,1995,1997;Meloy,2002;Shaw,1991),a view that is also shared by novice researchers(see Flowerdew,2000).One possible reason for the lack of atten-tion to this crucial part of the thesis is captured wittily and quite rightly by the remark of Swales and Feak(2000)in their volume English in TodayÕs Research World: The LR as part of a research paper,proposal,thesis,or dissertation is often thought of as being a boring but necessary chore.Such LRs are often criticized but are rarely praised.After all,one rarely hears comments such as‘‘The most bril-liant part of your thesis was the literature review’’!(Swales&Feak,2000,p.116) The scarcity of research on LRs can also be attributed to their length,which is always a central concern in thesis studies(Bunton,2002).This work is an attempt tofill the research gap,which aims to characterize the rhetorical movements in LR chapters in theses that are organized in the ILrMRD format.

2.LRs,introductions and the CARS model

2.1.Rhetorical purposes of LRs

A crucial starting point for a move analysis is to consider the purposes of the tar-get genre,which regulate its propositional contents,schematic pattern,and choice of register(Swales,1990).To identify the move structure of a genre,the analyst needs

1So far,three major formats of thesis have been identified.One is the traditional ILrMRD format.The second is the article-compilation format which is basically an anthology of individual publishable research papers that contains its own introduction,methodology,results and discussion sections.The third type is the topic-based format.A topic-based thesis is one that begins with a chapter that is headed ‘‘Introduction’’and ends with a chapter headed‘‘Conclusion’’.The chapters in-between are headed according to the topics and sub-topics of the writerÕs investigation.The structure of the topic-based thesis, however,does not mean that it carries no stand-alone literature review chapters;it is just that these chapters are headed using titles other than the generic name of‘‘literature review’’.Thus,strictly speaking the topic-based thesis may be a different realization of the ILrMRD format.Although it has been found in some studies that the article compilation format is becoming more frequently adopted,there are still a great number of theses that are organized using the ILrMRD format(see Dong,1998;Dudley-Evans, 1999).This was also observed in this study.In the initial round of thesis collection,which netted23theses, 18were found to be in the ILrMRD format.