Abstract

The classes, purposes and characteristics associated with the review article in the field of applied linguistics were analyzed. The data were collected from a randomly selected corpus of thirty two review articles from a discipline-related key journal in applied linguistics. The findings revealed that different sub-genres can be identified within the applied linguistic review article genre. Three main types of review articles were therefore identified based on the analysis of linguistic devices often used by the authors, their communicative purposes, and the specialist informants’ feedback: (1) the bibliographic review article which gives readers a comprehensive and descriptive record of annual works and it encompasses the literature-oriented approach, (2) the critical evaluative review article which encompasses subject-oriented approach, that is to say it identifies an idea or raises a research problem, then gives its solution by analyzing and evaluating the selective works done before in the related field, and finally it suggests a new direction, and (3) the mixed-mode review article which has the twin roles and encompasses both literature-oriented and subject-oriented approaches. A possible colony of review genre was suggested and this study further examined some of the characteristics and purposes associated with the review articles. The classification continuum, purposes, characteristics, and linguistic devices of the review articles proposed thus provide useful guidance for graduate EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students and novice writers how to monitor and make use of the review articles during their research writing.

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