Analyzing the Introduction Section of Research Articles: A Study on Indonesian RAs

In this study, we conducted a rhetorical analysis on the introduction section of research articles (RAs) in the corpus of this study. Our goal was to answer the research questions by identifying the communicative units or moves in the introduction section of the RAs. We used Safnil's definition of a communicative unit or move, which is a clause or a set of clauses or a paragraph that shows a clear indication of a specific identifiable purpose, signaled by linguistic clues or inferred from specific information in the text. We found that the smaller units in this study were considered as sub-units or steps., following Safnil's definition, is a segment of a text containing a particular form of rhetorical work necessary for realizing the purpose of a move. Steps are strategies for encoding clues in the text or are inferred from the context. The decision on whether or not a segment in the text, such as a clause(s) or a paragraph(s), could be classified as a move or a step depends on whether or not the segment had a distinct and communicative purpose or function. To identify the communicative units in the introduction section of RAs, we followed the procedures suggested by Dudley-Evans, which include looking for schematic structure by identifying clause borders, using a clause or a simple sentence as the smallest unit of analysis, and using an independent rater to validate the analysis. Our analysis process involved reading the title and sub-titles, the abstract and key terms in the RAs to get a rough understanding of the RA, dividing the whole RA into main sections, reading the introduction section of the RA to look for available linguistic and discourse clues, identifying the communicative units in the introduction of the RA by using the linguistic and discourse clues and understanding of the text, and identifying the common discourse style of the RA introduction particularly on the 'niche establishment' (to use Swales's term). Finally, an independent rater was asked to do the same procedure on samples of RA introduction sections in order to ensure correlation of analysis results. Our results show that the main units found in the introduction section of Indonesian RAs in the discipline of social sciences and humanities are as presented in Table 2 below. As can be seen in Table 2, the majority of the RA introductions in the corpus of this study have a Move 1, 2, and 4 while only some of them have a Move 3, although they vary in frequency between different disciplines. This implies that the PJP model as suggested by Safnil (2001) and used as a model in the analysis is applicable enough to the main units in the Indonesian RA. In conclusion, this study provides insights into the communicative units or moves in the introduction section of Indonesian RAs in the discipline of social sciences and humanities. Our findings contribute to the understanding of the PJP model as a useful tool for analyzing the introduction section of RAs.