“I would like to thank my supervisor”. Acknowledgements in graduate dissertations

Abstract

While acknowledgements have been largely neglected in the EAP literature, they are almost universal in dissertation writing, where they offer students a unique rhetorical space to convey their genuine gratitude for assistance and to promote a favourable social and scholarly character. This article explores the importance of this genre and examines the generic structure and linguistic patterns used to express thanks. The study is based on analyses of the acknowledgements accompanying 240 Masters and PhD dissertations in six academic disciplines written by students at five Hong Kong universities, and on interviews with postgraduate writers. The results confirm the importance of this genre, with around 90% of the texts containing this section and some 1400 separate acts of acknowledgement. Genre patterns reveal a three‐move structure sub‐divided into a number of steps realised by a relatively restricted range of lexico‐grammatical patterns. The analysis also shows that PhD students, particularly those in the “soft” sciences, tended to construct generically more complex acknowledgements with a greater variety of patterns. It is argued that the unexamined nature of acknowledgements may disadvantage non‐native writers, and the authors suggest that EAP teachers assist their students by raising their awareness of the ways they can structure their acknowledgements to promote a competent academic identity.

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