مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - Rhetorical Structure Features With Respect To Method Sections of Master Theses in the Field of Turkish Language Education

Abstract :

The aim of this study is to determine the frequencies and sequences of rhetorical move and steps with respect to method sections of applied/descriptive master theses in the field of Turkish language education. The population of the study is 339 applied/descriptive master theses in the field of Turkish language education which were scanned in the National Thesis Center of Higher Education Council. Ten percent (f=34) of the theses were evaluated with the method of systematic sampling. In the study, primarily, move and steps which can occur in method sections were identified. In this identification, for method section, there is not a model that widely accepted -as Swales (1990) model for introduction- in the literature. For this reason, by considering the models in the literature (Kanoksilapatham, 2005; Lim, 2006; Nwogu, 1997), framework rhetorical move and steps list was constituted and it was presented three faculty members who are experts in the field of textlinguistics. After taking experts opinions, theses were examined according to rhetorical move and steps list. In the study, content analysis was used. Expertisation method was used for providing the study s persuasiveness. These are the basic results obtained in the study: With respect to method, Giving information about research model, Describing population and sample/study group, Describing data-collection procedures and Describing data analysis are conventional moves; Describing data-collection tools and Indicating the chapter structure are optional moves. It was obtained that in method sections linear presentation was not preferred and there wasn t a dominant sequence. In addition to this, it was seen that there was a tendency at the closing moves.