Writing Titles in Applied Linguistics: A Comparative Study of Theses and Research Articles

Alireza Jalilifar

《Taiwan International ESP Journal》 2卷1期 (2010/06) Pp. 27-51

https://doi.org/10.6706/TIESPJ.2010.2.1.2

並列摘要

Title is the proof of identity of any academic work without which the work would hardly find space in the intended discourse community. Despite studies on their nature, the generic characteristics of titles have not been adequately considered. Realizing the need for more empirical investigation, this study focused on the titles of theses and articles in Applied Linguistics. Assuming that titles of theses and articles have little in common as far as their communicative purposes are concerned, the study took into account as many as 1871 thesis and article titles. The titles were categorized according to their varying structural constructions and informativeness. The thesis titles appeared to be more informative while the article titles demonstrated greater variation in their structures. The marked differences in writing titles and the dearth of accepted norms for title writing suggest provision of more comprehensive guidelines would be of benefit to researchers.

並列關鍵字

thesis ； research article ； title ； informativeness ； scope

參考文獻

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