The Rhetorical Structure of Review Article Abstracts in Applied Linguistics Published in High-Impact International Journals

Abstract


Introduction
Article abstracts are very crucial because of their multifaceted merits.They have become increasingly significant recently because of a growing number of published academic articles and the demand for accessibility to researchers' findings available on the internet (Doró, 2013).Similarly, abstracts can spread new knowledge and intellectual discoveries and determine the value of the article, whether or not it is a better one (Saeeaw & Tangkiengsirisin, 2014;Viera, 2019).Likewise, abstracts are also effective gateways to promote the article to potential readers while their proper construction is required since it may result in either reducing or increasing the opportunity for being indexed or cited (Sidek et al., 2016;Sedan et al., 2016).In addition, abstracts can help conference organizers choose papers to be presented, journals screen articles to be reviewed, and readers make decisions about whether or not to read the entire article (Lorés, 2004;Doró, 2013).Strategically, influential manipulation of rhetorical and linguistics features that comply with the required criteria will increase the possibility of publication (see Saeeaw & Tangkiengsirisin, 2014).Therefore, writing a well-constructed abstract is a must for writers to communicate successfully in a specific discourse community.
There are many possible challenges in writing a better abstract to fit a discourse community.In almost all writing genres, including abstract writing, writers, especially inexperienced writers, may face a lot of challenges when writing in English as L2 since they must consider the disciplinary discourse as well as the application of rhetoric elements that can be distinct between L1 and L2 (Ren & Li, 2011).For instance, it is believed to be difficult for Indonesian graduates and faculty members to get their research published in prestigious international journals because most of their English abstracts have only three moves, while international authors may have four or five moves.(Arsyad, 2018).Similarly, Pakistani students in the field of TEFL have also faced the problem of writing their M.A. thesis abstracts because most of those abstracts do not comply with the model, as the rhetorical moves were not organized properly (Aziz et al., 2021).In another similar case, two aspects of mistakes were found when the students in the Czech Republic wrote the abstract in English.The first aspect is formal aspects that are relevant to the problem in terms of the format of the text and the word limitation within the abstract.Another aspect is linguistic-stylistic aspects that are related to the problem of language use (Klimova, 2013).In short, writing a good abstract is not easy, and it requires better solutions.
Solutions should be provided to help writers overcome challenges in writing the article abstract.Obviously, there are many aspects to consider in order to assist writers, especially non-native and novice writers, in dealing with the problems in their writing.Having comprehension beyond the understanding of grammar within the clause is a point, but it is not enough for non-native speakers.Therefore, knowing discourse grammar, including its explicit rules, is necessary if they want to produce better academic writing (Arizavi et al., 2013).Likewise, making knowledge of writing explicit to writers through genre analysis is another important point to consider (see Ren & Li, 2011).Through genre analysis, the rhetorical moves and writing instructions play a vital role in equipping authors with lexicalgrammatical options and suitable discourse structures as criteria for constructing highquality abstracts (see Viera, 2019).Hence, obtaining the knowledge to produce good abstracts is crucial for writers to fit into a discourse community of a specific discipline (Pho, 2008).
It is unfair to abandon the abstract of the review article because this abstract can sell the whole review article, which is vital in the academic and research field.Palmatier et al. (2018) clarified that the review article is important for (1) settling ambiguous definitions and defining the scope of the study; (2) offering integration and synthesis of the summary of the recent knowledge; (3) pointing out the inconsistent findings with key rationales; (4) evaluating approaches in research methodologies and distinctive insights; (5) developing a conceptual framework and expanding previous studies; and (6) revealing research gap, insights, and future research directions.Given this importance, the current study aims to investigate the rhetorical structure of review article abstracts in applied linguistics published in high-impact international journals.
Specifically, this study contains three objectives.The first objective is to discover the type of moves within review article abstracts and whether each move is obligatory, conventional, or optional.The second objective is to identify how each move in the abstract is constructed in order to see its communicative function and linguistic features employed.The third objective is to explore the common move pattern of the abstract.The common pattern is the one that has the highest proportion in terms of frequency among other move patterns.
To frame this study, the following research questions are used: 1.What rhetorical moves are found in the review article abstracts?2. How is each rhetorical move in the review article abstracts constructed?3. What is the common move pattern in the review article abstracts?

Research Design
This study was designed in the form of the qualitative method by selecting 50 abstracts of the review articles from four international journals to analyze.The qualitative method was employed because Wang (2018) claimed that the qualitative method has three main merits.Firstly, it deeply explores personal experiences, perspectives, opinions, or pearls of wisdom.Secondly, it suits interpretationbased research, which can deal with complexity within various contexts.Thirdly, it gives researchers opportunities to experience the problem they are investigating in different settings closely.
Content analysis (CA) was applied in this study.Among many research approaches, it is considered a suitable technique to systematically interpret or draw conclusions from texts or other means of interaction with validity, credibility, and replicability (Drisko & Maschi, 2016).Similarly, content analysis is preferred thanks to its benefits and flexibility.This method consists of a systematic procedure that can be employed to validly infer not only texts and transcripts of human interaction but also classifies texts into applicable and controllable data.(Li, Dong, & Duan, 2019).For these reasons, content analysis is considered the appropriate approach for interpreting the text.
Although this study was conducted qualitatively, the level of agreement between the researchers and the co-rater was calculated quantitatively using a specific formula.The involvement of the independent co-rater is believed to have made the data valid and reliable.In addition, the frequency of the moves was counted and presented in the form of percentages.In short, move identification and move patterns were presented using tables and percentages.

Research Instrument
Since this is a new study, there is no existing model checklist to analyze the data.Therefore, a pilot study was conducted by taking two abstracts from each journal to analyze the rhetorical move in order to obtain the checklist for analyzing the whole corpus.The content analysis (CA) approach was employed to name each move based on its linguistic features and express its move functions to get the checklist.In addition, the example of each move was included to offer more clarification.Five moves, namely Background, Objective, Method, Synthesis of Discussion, and Conclusion, were found based on the pilot project results.Following the pilot study, this checklist was used to analyze all abstracts of the review article.The detailed information on the checklist is in Table 1.The rise of English as a global language has led scholars to call for a paradigm shift in the field of English language teaching (ELT) to match the new sociolinguistic landscape of the twenty-first century.

2
Objective It reveals the intention of the review or highlights the purposes of the review.
In this systematic review, we synthesize research on this topic and provide an overview of the current state of the field.

3
Method It indicates detailed information on the review design, including the step of the review.
The article starts with an overview of established experimental paradigms based on morphological priming, discusses a number of basic methodological pitfalls with regard to experimental design and materials, then reviews previous L2 morphological priming studies, and concludes with a brief discussion of recent developments in the field as well as possible future directions.4

Synthesis of Discussion
It combines or summarizes what the review discussed in response to the objectives of the review.
We propose that cultural transmission of vocal repertoires is a natural consequence of the evolution of vocal learning and that at least some species-specific universals, as well as species differences in cultural transmission, are due to differences in vocal learning phenotypes, which are shaped by genetic constraints.We suggest that the balance between these constraints and features of the social environment allows cultural learning to propagate.We describe new opportunities for exploring meaningful comparisons of birdsong and human vocal culture.

5
Conclusion It explains and expands the discussion of the review in a larger scope, infers from the discussion, provides suggestions, and directs broader implications.
Overall, using artificial linguistic systems seems an effective and productive way of developing knowledge about L2 neural processes and correlates.With further validation, artificial linguistic system paradigms may prove an important tool more generally in understanding how individuals learn new linguistic systems as they become bilingual.
The researchers categorized the linguistic features based on their group to identify how review article authors construct their abstracts.The researchers scanned the function of each move as well as the linguistic features in each move and then compared them to those in research article abstracts to see how both types of authors involve the rhetorical function and linguistic properties to construct their abstracts.

Data collection and analysis
The distribution of the analyzed abstracts as the corpus of this study is presented in Table 2.The criteria for the abstract selection are as follows: (1) the abstracts have to be in the field of applied linguistics; (2) the abstracts have to be collected from international journals; (3) the journals have to have a high impact factor; (4) the abstracts have to be published in the last five years period, ranging from 2017 to 2022.The criteria above attempt to reflect the most recent information on the items in the field of applied linguistics published within global and prestigious organizations that have large citations and universal audiences.Based on these reasons, an inference can be made that the current study has explored the ignored items in a popular field using valid and high-quality data.
Unlike other studies, in this study, the number of the analyzed abstracts in each journal is not equal because it is difficult to find the abstracts of the review article as some target journals neither include them much nor have recent publications.It does not matter, although the number of the analyzed abstracts in each journal is not equal because all abstracts are in the same field, and the study does not intend to examine the differences or similarities of the rhetorical structure across disciplines.Furthermore, there is no significant scholarly justification for choosing a certain number of abstracts, but as they were selected from the most recent publications, it is considered to be the representatives of others in the journals.
To collect and analyze the data, many steps were involved.First, the researchers searched for international journals with high impact factor (IF), looked for abstracts of the review article in them, and downloaded those abstracts.Then, the researchers conducted a pilot study by analyzing several abstracts from those journals in order to obtain a checklist for analyzing the rest of the data.Next, the researchers and the independent co-rater used the checklist to analyze twelve abstracts individually and compared them in order to ensure the validity of the study.After reaching an agreement on the move analysis results, the researchers started to analyze the rest of the data.The content analysis technique was involved in identifying the type of moves, function, and linguistic features in each move within the abstract.After that, the researchers coded 50 abstracts from four journals orderly.Then, the researchers carefully read and identified each move.Finally, the researchers inputted the data and presented the findings.In addition, moves were classified into three categories based on Kanoksilapatham (2005).The move is considered to be obligatory if its frequency is 100%, conventional if its frequency is between 60-99%, and it is regarded as optional as long as its frequency is less than 60%.

Reliability
To obtain the accuracy and reliability of the research data, an independent co-rater was asked to analyze the moves within the randomly chosen abstracts.The independent co-rater for this research holds a master's degree graduated from the English study program of the University of Bengkulu.The independent co-rater graduated with the highest GPA and fruitful thesis completion.Her thesis is also related to discourse analysis, and it was published in an international journal accredited as quartile 2 (Q2).Recently, the independent co-rater has been working as a teacher of English at the National University of Battambang (NUBB), Cambodia.
The researchers and the independent corater discussed how to use the research instrument to analyze the move within the sampled abstracts before the individual coding process was conducted.Next, the co-rater was assigned to analyze the move arrangement in a sample of twelve abstracts (three from each journal).After that, the researchers and the corater compared the results to see if there were any mislabeling or inconsistent coding results took place.Finally, there was an agreement between the independent co-rater and the researchers.
Since the data was analyzed by an individual researcher, there would be the possibility of subjective judgment or analysis.This subjective judgment could make the results of the analysis unreliable and invalid.Hence, an independent co-rater was involved in comparing the degree of agreement between the results of the researcher to the results of the co-rater.Validity and reliability could be reached through a certain value of agreement level.The agreement level score was obtained using Cohen's Kappa statistical analysis.According to Brown (as cited in Kanoksilapathan, 2005), the minimum value of Cohen's Kappa is 0.00, while the maximum is 1.00.
Based on Kanoksilapathan (2005), as long as Cohen's Kappa is less than 0.40, the degree of agreement is deemed 'poor', 0.40-0.59'medium', 0.60-0.74'good', and 0.75 or above are regarded as 'excellent'.To calculate it, the following formula was employed.

Results and Discussion
This section responds to the objectives of the study, which aim to find out the type of moves, notice the communicative function and linguistic features in each move, and explore the common move structure of the review article abstracts.Also, to ensure reliability, the result of the agreement between the co-rater and the researchers is revealed in this part.According to Table 3, thirty-six moves are found in the analyzed abstracts.The random disagreement data could not be found (Pr(e)= 0% or 0.00), whereas 36 data are categorized as the same agreement data (Pr(a)= 100% or 1).The following is a breakdown of Cohen's Kappa value: Since Cohen's Kappa value is 1 (100%), it can be concluded that the level of agreement in terms of move analysis results between the researchers and the co-rater is excellent and reliable enough.Hence, the researchers can draw conclusions about the research regarding the data because it has been proven to have high reliability.

The rhetorical moves in the abstracts of the review article
The first objective of this study is to discover the type of moves within the review article abstracts.Furthermore, it intends to clarify whether each move is obligatory, conventional, or optional.Using the model obtained from the pilot study as a checklist, the results are shown in Table 4.As shown in Table 4, the current study found five rhetorical moves.Move 1 and Move 2 are regarded as conventional, while the rest are considered to be optional.
Move 1 is known as Background.It is the starting point that generates the context of the review and provides an introduction to the review.In addition, it motivates the review and inspires further discussion.Also, this move is used to capture readers' attention, show the current state of topics being reviewed, indicate a research gap, or reveal the rationales behind the review.This move is a short summary as a response to the objectives of the review.Move 5, the last move is Conclusion.It wraps up, explains, expands the discussion of the review into a larger scope, infers from the discussion, provides suggestions, and directs broader implications.
Unlike research article abstracts, review article abstracts seem to focus mainly only on the first two moves.First, most authors begin their abstract writing by establishing the context of the review, inspiring further discussion, indicating the present state of themes being reviewed, expressing a study gap, or showing the reasons for the review.Then, they put the main emphasis on highlighting the purposes of the review.Briefly, it can be assumed that most authors of the review article primarily write the abstract by directing readers to the background and especially to the objectives of the review, maybe because they want to attract their readers' attention and then inform them directly about what topics or sub-topics will be discussed specifically in the whole article.
Having been compared to research article abstracts, five moves found in the abstracts of the review article, which is one form of nonresearch article, share similar constituents of other five-move theories.Each move in this study has different rhetorical functions and linguistic features from those of other fivemove theories.It shares the same functions or linguistic properties to some extent, but it just appears in different terms.For instance, in Santos's (1996) Tamela, 2020;Utomo et al., 2022), M1 is the introduction to the study; M2 is the research objective; M3 is the rationale behind the research; M4 is the study design, and M5 is the findings.Despite different genres, the outcomes of this study are in line with a study by Doró (2013) in which Move 2 appeared most frequently, whereas Move 5 presented least frequently.The consistent results of move identification in the abstracts between the review article and research article above happen probably because the authors of both types of articles have similar writing experiences, sociocultural environment, background knowledge, and educational level, or they follow the same guideline set by a discourse community.

How each move in the review article abstracts is constructed
As stated in the second research objective, this section indicates how authors involve the rhetorical function and linguistic utilization in each move.
Move 1 (Background) in the abstracts of the review article has a variety of language use.Therefore, it is difficult to recognize common linguistic features because there are too many possibilities.However, people can notice it by its function.It generalizes or contextualizes the topic of the study.An example of Move 1 can be shown as follows: Ex (1): "Many human infants grow up learning more than one language simultaneously but only recently has research started to study early language acquisition in this population more systematically." Move 2 (Objective) in the abstracts of this study is constructed using specific linguistic features and functions.Its function is to inform readers what topics or sub-topics will be discussed in the review.Related to linguistic features, people can identify this move by the use of nouns or subject pronounces and verbs employed.For the subject of the sentence, authors mostly use the subject pronoun "I" or "We" and sometimes the noun "paper", "article", or "review" as the subject of the sentence.For verb utilization, they generally employ verbs such as "discuss", "review", "present", "highlight", "outline", "offer", "provide", "describe", "define", or "summarize".The example below embeds Move 2.

Ex (2):
"In this review, we discuss the empirical landscape of degree constructions cross-linguistically as well as the major analytical avenues that have been pursued to account for individual languages and cross-linguistic variation." Move 3 (Method) in the abstracts can be identified by virtue of language use and its role.This move mostly reveals the steps or procedures of the review.Relevant to linguistic properties, authors involve the same subject and verb used in Move 2, but they just add transition words.Generally, this move can be simply recognized by the phrase such as "I begin by…", "This article starts with…", "First, we define…", "Then, this paper summarizes…", "Next, it highlights…", "After that, we synthesize…", or "Finally, we discuss…" The following example includes Move 3.

Ex (3):
"I begin by considering some fundamental differences between music and language...I then discuss... Next, I consider... Finally, I discuss some parallels regarding the use of repetition in music and language, which until now has been a little-explored topic." Move 4 (Synthesis of Discussion) is constructed with a particular function using notable linguistic features.This move summarizes the discussion of the topic or subtopics of the review.People can notice how writers use language in this move.Mostly, they use the personal pronouns "I", "It" or "We" as the subject of the sentence.Related to the verb use, it can be shown in the following clauses.Generally, the clause that indicates this move is the noun clause such as "It is argued that…", "It appears that…", "Our view is that…", "I suggest that…", "I speculate that…", "I contend that…", or "We propose that…" The following example involves Move 4. Ex (4): "It is argued that WM and language aptitude play different but complementary roles at each of these stages, reflecting the various linguistic and psycholinguistic processes that are most prominent in other aspects of language learning.Though both perspectives posit that WM and language aptitude have equal importance at the input processing stage, they exert greater influence at each of the remaining stages.More traditional views of aptitude dominate at the pattern identification and complexification stage and WM with the feedback stage." Move 5 (Conclusion) rarely presents in the abstracts of the review article.Hence, it is difficult to generalize the function of the move and how writers use certain types of linguistic properties to construct it.However, this study evidences the use of the adverb "Overall" at the beginning of the paragraph to show the conclusion.One function of this move found in the current study is to discuss the importance of the implication of the topic being discussed.An example of Move 5 can be seen as follows: Ex (5): "Overall, using artificial linguistic systems seems an effective and productive way of developing knowledge about L2 neural processes and correlates.With further validation, artificial linguistic system paradigms may prove an important tool more generally in understanding how individuals learn new linguistic systems as they become bilingual." Although the article in this study is one type of non-research article, the presence of the number of moves (five moves) in the abstracts is the same as the criteria of other five-move theories of the abstracts of the research article proposed by Santos (1996), Paltridge & Starfield (1997), Hyland (2000), and Swales and Feak (2004) (see in Tamela, 2020;Utomo et al., 2022).Despite the same move number, some moves in the abstracts of both kinds of articles are different in terms of function, content, and structure, especially the linguistic features employed.The following explanations indicate how each move in the abstracts of both groups of articles in applied linguistics are the same and how they are different.
Move 1 in the abstract of this study is constructed in the same way as Move 1 in the research article abstract in terms of language use and function.It captures audiences' interests by mentioning the general overview of the topic, inspiring further discussion, indicating the present state of the topic, expressing a study gap, or showing the reasons for the study.In other words, it generalizes or contextualizes the topic of the article.However, the common language use cannot be shown because it is difficult to group the language use based on common linguistic features since there are too many possibilities for linguistic application.
Move 2 in the abstract of both types of articles shares the same function, but it is constructed using different linguistic properties.Its role is to inform the goals or intentions of the article to readers.For linguistic application, in the sentence, the authors of the research article use the noun such as "article" or "study", and the verb such as "explore", "investigate", "identify", "analyze", "determine", "compare", or "examine" to indicate Move 2. However, the authors of the review article employ the noun such as "paper"/ "article"/"review", and the verb such as "discuss", "review", "present", "highlight", "outline", "offer", "provide", "describe", "define", or "summarize" to indicate this move.
Move 3 in both groups of abstracts is constructed differently.In this move, most authors of the research article attempt to illustrate the research instrument or/and the object of the study.They also employ nouns such as "study" or "research" as the sentence's subject.For example, "This study used Hyland's (2000) model to analyze the rhetorical moves in abstracts of international journals by Malaysian authors in the field of accounting".In contrast, to indicate the Method move in the abstracts, most authors of the review article generally reveal the procedures of the review.They point out the steps of the review from the beginning to the end.For linguistic features, they use a noun such as "review", "paper" or "article", and sometimes the subject pronoun "I" or "We" as the subject of the sentence.They use the same verb as in Move 2 in review article abstracts but just add transition words.Combining the verb with transition words, they come up with phrases such as "I begin by…", "This article starts with…", "First, we define…", "Then, this paper summarizes…", "Next, it highlights…", "After that, we synthesize…", or "Finally, we discuss…" Move 4 in the abstract of this study is known as Synthesis of Discussion.For the research article, this move in the abstract is called "Result", "Outcome", or "Finding".It states explicitly what the study has found.Generally, it can be identified by way of a noun such as "result/finding/study/outcome", and a verb such as "indicate", "show" or "reveal".The combination between the noun and verb results in noun clauses such as "The results indicate that…", "The outcomes show that…", or "The findings reveal that…" On the other hand, for the review article, the term "Synthesis of Discussion" is preferred because it combines or summarizes the whole discussion of the review into a brief section.Still, it does not state the explicit results as the research articles do.Mostly, this move embeds the personal pronouns "I", "It" or "We", and the verb such as "argue", "appear", "make", "suggest", "speculate", "contend", or "propose".Generally, Move 4 in the review article abstracts can be noticed by virtue of the noun clause such as "It is argued that…", "It appears that…", "Our view is that…", "I suggest that…", "I speculate that…", "I contend that…", or "We propose that…" Move 5 in the abstract of the current study rarely appears.Thus, it is difficult to compare this move between both kinds of article abstracts.For the research article, this move indicates the implication, significance, suggestion, or recommendation.Concerning linguistic features, this move can be identified by way of the noun clauses such as "The study/findings/results suggest(s) or recommend(s) that… ", "It is suggested/concluded/recommended that…", or "As the pedagogical implication…" For the review article, it does not seem easy to generalize the function and linguistic properties used in the abstracts because this move presents too little in the study.However, one function of this move in this study shares the common function of Move 5 in the research article abstract to the extent that it indicates the significance of the implication of the study.Additionally, one linguistic property that can be remarked on is the use of the adverb "Overall" at the beginning of the paragraph.
The finding of the same move number in this study is in line with the studies by Abdollahpour & Gholami (2018), Amnuai (2019), andViera (2019).The consistent results in terms of the number of moves between both types of article abstracts above happen probably because the authors of both groups of abstracts are influenced by popular five-move theories proposed by different wellknown experts.Another possibility is that the authors of both types of articles have similar writing experiences and sociocultural environments, or they follow the same criteria indicated by a discourse community.
Despite the same number of moves, some linguistic features employed within the research article abstract and the review article abstract are not the same.The differences in linguistic application between both groups of articles take place probably because the authors of the research article adopt both key terms and the linguistic features from the fivemove theories.In contrast, the authors of the review article only take the same terms of those five moves.Still, they convent or adjust the language utilization by themselves to fit the content and structure of the review article.

Move Patterns
This part attempts to reveal the total move patterns in the studied abstracts in response to the third research objective.The move pattern refers to the contribution of each move in a structure.In other words, it can be simply called the move structure or move model that authors employ each move in an abstract.For detailed information, Table 5 can illustrate the frequency of the presence of the move models in the abstracts.Table 5 presents the frequency of the occurrences of move patterns found across the abstracts.The results show two 4-move models, six 3-move models, four 2-move models, and one single-move model.From the data, B-O-SoD (f=13, 26%) is the pattern that appeared most frequently.From Table 5, it can be revealed that there are up to 13 different move patterns, and those patterns fall into four different types of move models that are 4move, 3-move, 2-move, and single-move models.
In terms of move patterns, the maximum number of moves in one structure is only four, although five moves are found in this study.It means that each move contributes separately to each pattern.Furthermore, this study points out a variety of occurrences of move patterns within the abstracts of the review article.However, the common move pattern that occurred frequently is Background-Objective-Synthesis of Discussion (B-O-SoD).The predominance of the three-move model over other structures in this study, to some extent, is similar to two different studies by Arsyad (2014) and Kafes (2015).It is in line with these two studies to the extent that the dominant presence of the three-move structure over others, but it is in contrast to both studies regarding move differences and reverses move order.This study adheres to the M1-M2-M4 structure (B-O-SoD).In contrast, the study by Arsyad (2014) focuses mainly on M2 (Purpose), M3 (Methodology), and M4 (Results), and the study by Kafes (2015) is predominantly conforming to the M2-M3-M4 structure, namely Presenting the research, Method, and Findings.The same presence of the number of moves within these models is probably because the abstracts are in the discipline of applied linguistics the same.However, the discrepancy in terms of move differences and reverse move order takes place maybe because of different genres since one type of abstract is from a research article.In contrast, another one is from a review article that is a sort of non-research article.Another possibility of the inconsistent findings is maybe because the writers of both groups of abstracts are from different sociocultural backgrounds or they are influenced personally by the communicative roles of the discourse community they follow.

Conclusion
In conclusion, this study attempts to discover the rhetorical moves, rhetorical roles and linguistic application in each move, and the common move structure in the review article abstracts.Similarly, three major findings can be noticed.First, there are five moves that can be taken into account when constructing the abstract.Among all moves, Move 1 and Move 2 are necessary, while Move 3, Move 4, and Move 5 are not compulsory.Second, with the existence of these five moves, there are a lot of move patterns, but the M1-M2-M4 structure should be a model to follow as it presents most frequently.Third, although the review article abstract and the research article abstract contain five moves the same, people should identify the similarities and differences in terms of the content and structure, including the rhetorical functions and language application in the abstract of both types of articles.
The limitation of this study is that the sampled abstracts in this research seem to be not enough.Another limitation is that the findings of this study cannot be utilized to generalize other text types (genres) or other fields (disciplines).According to the research limitations, future studies should consider more numbers of sampled abstracts.Additionally, as this study focuses only on the rhetorical move structure of the review article abstract in the field of applied linguistics, future research should conduct a comparative study to investigate the move structure of the abstracts of the review article across disciplines.
For writers, especially inexperienced writers, the common rhetorical structure and linguistic features shown by this study should be taken into account when writing the review article abstract.Moreover, university lecturers can use this model together with its linguistic properties as a teaching material when teaching their students to write the review article abstract.Also, future studies can use these findings as theoretical support.
Move 2 is identified as Objective.It reveals the intention of the review or highlights the purposes of the review.It can tell readers what the review is going to discuss.Readers can decide if they should continue to read the whole article because this move can inform them whether the article that they are reading is relevant to what they expect to find out.Move 3 is termed Method.It indicates detailed information on the review design, including the step of the review.It states the procedure of how the review is conducted.Specifically, it tells how the review starts and ends.It clearly shows the flow of information, including sub-topics discussed in the review.Through this move, readers can realize to what extent the article they are reading is related to what they intend to look for.Move 4 is called Synthesis of Discussion.It summarizes and combines what the review has discussed into a brief coherent section.
model, M1 situates the research; M2 presents the research; M3 clarifies the methodology; M4 summarizes the findings, and M5 discusses the findings.Another model by Hyland (2000) employed the structure Introduction-Purpose-Method-Product-Conclusion.Similarly, the model of Swales and Feak (2004) utilized the structure Background-Aim-Method-Result-Conclusion.Likewise, in the model of Paltridge & Starfield (2007) (see Background, O = Objective, M = Method, SoD = Synthesis of Discussion, C = Conclusion.

Table 1 .
The rhetorical move checklist

Table 2 .
The corpus of the study

Table 3 .
Co-rater agreement result

Table 4 .
The distribution of the moves

Table 5 .
The occurrence of move patterns