The schematic structure of literature reviews in doctoral theses of applied linguistics

In thesis manuals and writing programs, the notions of “introduction” and “literature review” (LR) are often used interchangeably to refer to the beginning chapters of a thesis. Samples of introductions from research articles and theses are sometimes employed to illustrate the structure and other features of an LR, which suggests that the introduction and the LR chapters belong to the same category of text. However, little work has been undertaken to confirm whether this is the case. This study seeks to identify the rhetorical structure of the LR chapter and compare it with the revised CARS model [Bunton, D. (2002). Generic moves in Ph.D. thesis introductions. In J. Flowerdew (Ed.), Academic discourse (pp. 57–75). London: Pearson Education] that has been posited for thesis introductions. The corpus examined is drawn from 20 doctoral theses produced by native English speaking students of applied linguistics. The findings reveal that many of the LR chapters display an Introduction–Body–Conclusion structure. Within the body part, the discussion is divided into thematic sections, each of which displays recursive move structures that are similar to those found in thesis introductions. Of three moves identified, Move 3 appears least frequently. Although most of the steps in Bunton’s revised CARS model are present in the move structures, some new steps are also distinguished. The findings suggest that LRs and introductions may not be structurally entirely the same.