An Analysis of Methods Section of Research Reports in Applied Linguistics

Abstract

This work aims at identifying analytical categories and research procedures adopted in the analysis of research article in Applied Linguistics/EAP in order to propose a systematization of the research procedures in Genre Analysis. For that purpose, 12 research reports and interviews with four authors were analyzed. The analysis showed that the studies are concentrated on the investigation of the macrostructure or on the microstructure of research articles in different fields. Studies about the microstructure report exclusively the analysis of grammatical elements, and studies about the macrostructure investigate the language with the purpose of identifying patterns of organization in written discourse. If the objective of these studies is in fact to develop a genre analysis in order to contribute to reading and writing teaching in EAP, these studies should include an ethnographic perspective that analyzes the genre based on its context.