A Comparative Study of Introduction and Discussion sections of Sub-disciplines of Applied Linguistics Research Articles

Much has been written in the past few decades about the reasons why many research articles (RAs) do not find their ways into well-established academic journals. While some doubt viable comparison between "big" English-language journals (to use Swale's 2004 words) or international journals (IJs) and "small" ones published in other local languages, there is still a good many reasons to hope for the development of a typology of factors that cause these discrepancies. Among some possible factors, one of the main reasons,, as Yakhontova (1997) notes is the writer's unawareness of the generic structure of international RAs. Having this in mind, and drawing on Kanoksilapatham (2007), Nwogu (1991), and Swales's (1990) models and using top-down and bottom-up analytic procedures, effort was made to compare the generic structure of Introduction and Discussion sections of international and Iranian local (IL) RAs in sub-disciplines of Applied Linguistics. The findings showed no significant differences regarding the obligatory Moves of Introduction section across the two corpora; however, significant differences in the Discussion section were revealed. The obtained results can help both experienced and novice researchers in order to report their research findings in a more permissible style. Moreover, this study provides researchers with better analytical tools for use in academic writing.