Language Proficiency and moves in Turkish and English Research Abstracts

Abstract

The primary function of the abstract within a research article is to convince readers of the study's significance, encapsulating specific details such as its purpose, methodology, results, and discussions and/or conclusions. Notably, scholarly attention has been directed towards the rhetorical structures employed in abstracts found in scientific journals, as authors are believed to employ diverse structures to present their articles in an engaging manner that captures readers' interest. The varied rhetorical structures used in research article abstracts are often referred to as ``moves''. This study investigated the impact of language proficiency and translation on these moves. Six Ph.D. students from the Department of Turkish Language and Literature of a state university in Turkey were tasked with composing abstracts for four published articles in a social science journal in Turkish. A month later, they were requested to write abstracts for the same articles in English. Subsequent analysis compared both sets of abstracts in terms of the moves they incorporated. It was observed that the introduction, purpose, result, and conclusion sections were present in abstracts written in both languages. However, notably, the method section was absent from abstracts in both Turkish and English. Additionally, it was found that the introduction section tended to be the longest in the abstracts regardless of the language, despite no statistically significant difference in the word count between the Turkish and English versions. The findings suggested that the differences were discipline, language proficiency, and writing conventions related.