Investigating the Extent of Familiarity of Iranian ESP Teachers and ESP Course Learners with Academic Rhetoric within a Systemic Functional Grammar Based their Educational Level, Age and Gender

Publication of research articles (RAs) in English seems a challenging task for native and non-native writers. The acquisition of rhetorical structure and function grammar can be very helpful for academicians to achieve the wanted goal which is, of course, the Publication of their RAs. This study aims at investigating the effect of educational level, age and gender to the current level of familiarity to academic rhetoric within a systematic functional grammar among the Iranian ESP teachers and ESP course learners. The participants of the study consist of 10 ESP teachers and 85 learners at M.A and PhD level at Ilam state university and Islamic Azad university of Ilam. Data were collected through self-report questionnaires with 22 items. The findings of this study revealed that Iranian ESP teachers are more familiar than the learners with academic language based on their educational degrees and their experiences. The findings also indicated that educational degree and age variables have positive reciprocal relationships with each other.However gender was not an effective factor in this connection.