Replication research in comparative genre analysis in English for Academic Purposes

Abstract

In recent years a number of comparative studies based on an established approach to genre analysis have been published in the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) literature. Studies in this emerging strand of research typically aim to identify how the rhetorical structure of a particular genre (a text type) or part of a genre may vary across different disciplines or groups of writers. The first part of this article makes a case for replication in this strand of research, arguing that replication would be timely and suggesting the advantages that it could offer to the field of EAP. The second part focuses on three key studies, and suggests how each one might be replicated and the potential benefits of doing so.