The Frequency and Function of Reporting Verbs in Research Articles Written by Native Persian and English Speakers

Abstract

Writing as a means of assessing and awarding admission to the writers’ disciplinary discourse communities is the most prominent learning activity. Learning to write academic genres involves students being familiar with its key features such as form and function. Citation as a rhetorical device of academic writing indicates authors’ understanding of the previous works. Reporting verbs is one of the most important aspects of citation in academic writing which non-native students often fail using them appropriately. Accordingly, this study investigated the frequency of the most used reporting verbs and their function in the Introduction and Literature Review sections of research articles (RAs) written by native and non-native writers. In so doing, a corpus of 60 articles in the field of SLA, 30 by native English authors published in International Journals and 30 by Persian authors published in National Journals, were selected and analysed. The results indicated that there are some differences in the use of reporting verbs between the two corpora. The attained results can be used to design tasks and materials for teaching writing focusing on not only grammar but also rhetorical structures as well as other genres of writing.

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