VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES HOANG THI NGỌC DIỆP GENRE ANALYSIS OF PHD THESIS LITERATURE REVIEWS WRITTEN IN ENGLISH BY VIETNAMESE LEARNERS luận an tiên sĩ của người Việt Nam viet băng tiêng Anh A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics Major: English Linguistics Code: 9220201.01 HANOI, 2024 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES HOANG THI NGỌC DIỆP GENRE ANALYSIS OF PHD THESIS LITERATURE REVIEWS WRITTEN IN ENGLISH BY VIETNAMESE LEARNERS Phan tích thể loại các chương tong quan nghiên cứu trong các luận Gn tiên sĩ của người Việt Nam viêt băng tiêng Anh Major: English Linguistics Code: 9220201.01 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics HANOI, 2024 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my greatest gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Hoang Văn Vân, for providing me with support and encouragement during a frustrating period. His encouragement to bring me back on track in difficult times has been a godsend. I am very grateful for his careful reading of and professional comments on my thesis throughout the process.
Without his guidance, I would not have completed this thesis. Secondly, my sincere thanks also go to Dr. Huynh Anh Tuan, the Dean, as well as the staff members of the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS), Vietnam National University (VNU) for their generous help during my study time. Thirdly, I am also grateful to all of the examiners: Prof.
Lê Hùng Tiến, Dr. Huỳnh Anh Tuan, Dr. Nguyễn Thi Minh Tam, Prof. Phan Van Qué, Assoc.
Pham Thi Héng Nhung, Assoc. H6 Ngoc Trung, Assoc. Nguyén Tat Thang, Assoc. Nguyén Thúy Nga, Dr.
Nguyễn Thị Huong Lan, Dr. Nguyễn Trọng Du, and Dr. Ngũ Thiện Hùng who commented on my qualifying papers and my final thesis. Their challenging questions and perceptive remarks helped me to focus my thinking and gave me a lot of ideas to get my research developing on the right track.
I am also indebted to Vietnam Maritime University, which permits me to do this current study at the University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS). I would like to express my special thanks to my PhD fellow students, Ms. Đỗ Thi Anh Thu, Ms. Lé Thi Minh Phuong, and Ms.
Pham Thi Tam, for their great care and encouragement during our long PhD journey. Finally, I deeply thank my parents, my husband Lé Manh Toan, and my two daughters, Nhat Mai and Nhat Minh, for their constant companionship, love, and support. ABSTRACT GENRE ANALYSIS OF PHD THESIS LITERATURE REVIEWS WRITTEN IN ENGLISH BY VIETNAMESE LEARNERS Vietnamese PhD candidates often have difficulties writing their theses in English because they are not native writers. Besides, there is a lack of instructions on how to write the literature review chapter of a PhD thesis in comparison with other parts such as the introduction, methodology, or discussion.
The perceived lack of importance of the thesis literature review can be seen in the paucity of research and publications devoted to understanding it. Doctoral students seeking advice on how to write their literature review chapters correctly linguistically and appropriately generically will find little published guidance worth noticing. Therefore, this thesis attempts to explore what characterises the genre of the thesis literature review chapter written in English by Vietnamese PhD students to highlight the issues in light of general academic convention to help improve the quality of literature review writing among PhD students. In this study, mixed- methods research employs the exploratory sequential approach to explore and understand the generic structure and the typical linguistic features of 30 doctoral literature review chapters written in English by Vietnamese writers in the field of the humanities and social sciences.
The result shows that many of the literature review chapters comply with the rules of good writing, which display a clear organizational structure with an introduction, a conclusion, and a transition between sections. In addition, the body part of the literature review chapters consists of different thematic units made up of recursive moves and strategies that are identified as optional, and there are no fixed ways to organize the moves and strategies. The most popular moves and strategies in the thesis literature review chapter are surveying the non-research-related phenomena and surveying the research-related phenomena in Move 1, announcing the adoption of terms or definitions of terms, and announcing the aims of the investigation in Move 3. As a result, this study will provide a basic template for writing a thesis literature review, identify sets of language features commonly used to operationalize certain communicative functions, and finally facilitate the scientific research process in an English-speaking professional setting.
ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. - HH HH TH HH HH Tnhh nh nành 1. 1 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. HH HH TH HH ưệt vi LIST OF TABLES 1157.
Vii LIST OF EIGUIRES. - LH TH TH HH HH ni 1X CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.- Gà HH HH HH ng nưệt 1 1.2 Aim and objectives of the SUỈy.3 Scope of the S{UY.- SH HH HH HH HH Hhh 6 1.4 Significance of the Study 1.5 Structure of the tÏ€S1S.-- eseccscssecseeseessecssecscesseessecssesseeseesseesseseesseesseeseees 7 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEẨW.1 The notion Of genre .-- 5 + t1 1 TT HH Tnhh nhờ 9 2.2 Approaches fO Ø€TIT€. 5 s10 HH ng nh rưy 12 "C2 0n ố .3 Doctoral thesis literature review Chapter .1 What is a doctoral thesis literature review chapf€r ?.2 The functions of a thesis literature T€VICW.3 Standard convention of a literature review Chapter .4 Typical lexicogrammatical featurers of a thesis literature review chapter .4 A review of the Creating a Research Space (CARS) modelL.1 The original Creating a Research Space (CARS) model.2 Bunton’s (2002) modified CARS model .3 Kwan’s (2006) modified CARS model.4 Definition of a move, a step, a strategy, and a thematic unIt.5 Previous studies in literature review sections of doctoral theses.1 Studies focusing on PhD thesis generic SfTUCfUTC€.2 Studies focusing on literature review teXts .3 Previous studies from Vietnamese authors. eee eeeeseeseeeeeeneessecseceseeeneenes 50 iii 2.
55 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .4 Data analysis procedure .-- - Gv HH gi, 65 3.5 Examples Of COCInE.1 Gaining a macro view of the theses and the literature review (LR) texts.2 LR chapter structure a71aÏS1S.3 Identifying thematic UNItS .4 Move-coding and strategy-coding of thematic UMItS .6 Examples of quantifying a search word in an LR chapter. 84 CHAPTER 4: THE GENERIC STRUCTURE OF THE PHD THESIS LITERATURE REVIEW CHAPTERS.1 Introduction and conclusion texts of the LR chapters .---‹- --«+<<« 85 CAN Introductory texts Số ae e.- c1 HH HH TH TH HH 88 4.2 Thematic rhetorical structures in the body parts of the LR chapters.3 Move structures in the thematic units of the LR chapters .1 Move 1: Establishing one part of the territory of one's research .2 Move 2: Creating a research nICe.3 Move 3: Occupying the research nIche.4 Generic modeling for a thesis literature review written in English by Vietnamese doctoral candidates in social sciences research.1 Chapter OrØa'1Zf1OT.2 Move structures in thematic UMItS. 132 CHAPTER 5: THE TYPICAL LEXICOGRAMMATICAL FEATURES OF THE PHD THESIS LITERATURE REVIEW CHAPTERS.1 Reportings verbs in the present COTDUS .1 Citation 1dentIÍICAfIOII.- 5s 1n TH HT HH ng 133 1V 5.2 Reporting verb (RV) classification in the present COFDUS.3 Reporting verb forms. --- -s- 5 + TT HH Tu nh HH Hư 141 5.4 Tenses and voice of reporting Verbs .- - -- -- ss HH Hiệp 145 hp on.1 Modal verbs in Vietnamese PhD LR chapt€rs .2 Modal use in different rhetorical MOVES.
ng HH nh ht 171 6.1 Summary Of ÍIndITIỡS.1 How the schematic patterns of LRs can be applied in PhD LR writing 0081/0100.2 Writing courses for novice non-native writers in English .3 Limitations of the Study. HH TH TH gệp 179 6.4 Future research recommendations. - --- -- - 5 + + £+kE+vkEkeeeeessereeeree 180 W) v0 90)00ììï10i1 c1 nh. 181 RELATED PUBLISHED PAPERS.-- LH ng ru 183 REFERENCES 0.
I APPENDIX 1: Boote & Beile’s (2005) Literature Review Scoring Rubric. I APPENDIX 2: Reporting verbs classification by Hyland (2002) .- IH APPENDIX 3: The source of the PhD literature review chapters written in English by Vietnamese authhOTS.- - --- «+ + 13k TH TH HH Hà IV APPENDIX 4: Move analysis of Theme 1.- 6 «csxcseceseesessesse VI APPENDIX 5: Move analysis of Theme 1.---- «<5 +5 <++seesseesseees XI APPENDIX 6: The semantic scheme for move/ strategies coding.--- XV APPENDIX 7: Reporting verbs in the COTDUS .-- -- 5 55 + s+vsseerseees XX APPENDIX 8: Categories of reporting verbs according to their denotative and ©valuafIV€ II€ATIITIĐS.- - - G5 11019930 1911119101191 1 nh re XXII LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CARS: Create a Research Space EAP: English for Academic Purposes EL: English Linguistics ELT: English Language Teaching ESL: English as a Second Language ESP: English for Specific Purposes LI: First Language L2: Second Language LR: Literature Review NNS: Non-native English speakers RA: Research Article RGS: Rhetorical Genre Study RV: Reporting Verb SFL: Systemic Functional Linguistics ULIS: University of Language and International Study VI LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Perspective on genre from various linguistic traditions .2: Bunton’s modified CARS model for thesis Introductions.3: The modified CARS model for the thematic units in LR chapters .4: Chen and Kuo’s (2012) revised framework for the LR chapter.1: Background information of the 30 PhD theses in this study .2: Semantic features of Segments 1 and 3 of Theme I.3: Semantic features of Segment 2 of Theme Ì.4: Semantic features of Segments 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 of Theme 1.5: Semantic features of Segments 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19 of Theme 1.6: Semantic features of Segment 20 of Theme I.7: Semantic features of Segment 1 of Theme Ì.8: Semantic features of Segments 3 and 5 of Theme T6 .9: Semantic features of Segment 7 of Theme Ì.10: Semantic features of Segment 9 of Theme Ï.11: Semantic features of Segments 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 of Theme 1.1: The frequency distribution the realizations of introduction texts.2: The frequency distribution of the realizations of conclusion texts.3: Frequency counts of the three moves in the LR chapters.4: The configurations of moves in the thematic units in the corpus.5: Frequency counts of Move | strategies (Total counts: 463).6: Distribution of strategies in Move | (Total counts of Move 1: 354).7: Frequency counts of the various Move 2 strategies (Total counts: 324) .8: Distribution of strategies in Move 2 (Total counts of Move 2: 276).9: Frequency counts of Move 3 strategies (Total counts: 70).10: Distribution of strategies in Move 3 (Total counts of Move 3: 65).11: A generic structure posited for a thesis LR written in English by Vietnamese doctoral candidates in social sciences research.1: Citation distributions in each move across of the €OTpuS.2: The integral citations (ICs) to non-integral (NC) citations in the corpus.3: Distribution of reporting verbs in process categories in the corpus .4: Overall distribution of reporting verbs in the corpus.5: Reporting verbs in Vietnamese PhD LR chapters .6: Top ten reporting verbs in Vietnamese PhD LR chapters .7: Occurrence of the modal verbs in the COTDUS .8: Relative occurrence of 8 modal verbs per 1,000 words in the corpus.9: Modal verbs per 1,000 words in each move in Thesis T20.10: Occurrence of the eight modal verbs per 1,000 words in the corpus .11: The functions of the modals in the €OTDUS .1: The suggested generic structure of a thesis LR written in English by Vietnamese learner .ccccccccccccccccccccsssessssssssssssscssceesssssssceccesseessesesseeeeessessssteasseeass 172 Vili LIST OF EIGURES Figure 2.1: Categories of reporting Verbs. 5 5 1n ng ng iệt 31 Figure 2.2: The 4-move model of research article introductions from Swales (1981) .3: A CARS model for article introductions from Swales (1990).1: The research DTOC€(UTC.