Abstract

This study explores how PhD students of applied linguistics relate sentences to be coherent in the process of realizing a communicative move of the PhD thesis introduction genre called Move 2 or “establishing a niche” (Swales, 1990). The analyzed data includes 300 excerpts extracted from 300 thesis introductions, each consisting of sentences used by the thesis writer to establish their research niche. The “Create A Research Space” model (Swales, 1990) was used to identify sentences used to establish a niche, and rhetorical structure theory (Mann & Thompson, 1988) was used to analyze how these sentences are related to each other in this process. The study sought to identify the types of coherence relations utilized to realize Move 2 and the frequency with which they occur. The findings revealed that the use of coherence relations varied across the different rhetorical steps. In Step 1B (Indicating a gap), Elaboration was the most common, followed by Contrast and Concession. For Step 1C (Question-raising), Elaboration was again the most common, followed by the List relation. In Step 1D (Continuing a tradition), Contrast, Elaboration and Motivation were frequently used. These findings may have implications for teaching academic writing to PhD students and for the ways novice researchers use to situate their work within the existing literature.

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