“Establish a niche” vianegation: A corpus-based study ofnegationwithin the Move 2 sections of PhD thesis introductions

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Abstract
The past few decades have witnessed an upsurge of scholarly interest in the generic descriptions of PhD theses following Swales’ seminalGenre Analysis. Fitted within the Create A Research Space (CARS) model, the thesis introduction plays a key role in justifying research originality/significance, where novice writers engage with academic communities through “establishing a research territory” (Move 1), “establishing a niche” (Move 2), and “occupying the niche” (Move 3). As the hinge of the CARS model, Move 2 (hereinafter EN) is of strategic importance as it enables writers to “sell” their ideas by pointing to the gap/niche in the “marketplace” of previous research, which is typically realized through the co-occurrences ofnegationalongside other interpersonal language resources.Negation, as adisclaimmarker within Martin and White’sappraisalframework, is a prominent linguistic indicator of EN. Nevertheless, little research has systematically examined the use ofnegationin ENs of PhD thesis introductions. Accordingly, the study investigatednegationvia theappraisalframework addressing subtypes ofnegation(disalignment,cautious detachment,unfulfilled expectation) within ENs in the introduction sections of 120 PhD theses. The results showed thatdisalignmentis the most frequent subtype ofnegation, while “not” and “no” are commonly used as indicators ofnegation. Our findings also revealed intriguing co-occurrences ofnegationsub-categories alongside other relevantappraisalresources. The corpus-informed results are expected to shed light on the nature and practice of PhD theses that educators may take into account during thesis writing instruction.

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