The Status of Theme in Research Article Abstracts in Seven Dentistry Subdisciplines: A Text-Based Study of Intradisciplinary Variations and Similarities in Thematic Choices and Thematic Progression Patterns
A research article (RA) abstract provides an overview or summary of the whole research. It is
one of the most important sections in an RA since it is the first section researchers read to
decide if the article is relevant to their research or not. Researchers need to know the
intradisciplinary (within the same discipline) variations and similarities in the choice of
Theme1 and thematic progression (TP) patterns in RA abstracts in their discipline. Several
studies have investigated variations and similarities in the use of Theme across disciplines. To
the best of our knowledge, there is a lack of studies investigating intradisciplinary variations in
the use of Theme in RA abstracts of dentistry subdisciplines. As epistemological differences
exist between the various dentistry subdisciplines, it is pertinent to examine if there are
intradisciplinary variations in the construction of Theme in the subfields of dentistry. The
present study aims to investigate if there are any intradisciplinary variations and similarities
in the use of Theme and TP patterns across seven dentistry subdisciplines: oral sciences,
periodontics, endodontics, operative dentistry, prosthodontics, oral and maxillofacial surgery,
and orthodontics. The study is framed by Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics’ approach
to language and Daneš’s model for TP patterns. The findings revealed intradisciplinary
significant differences between the subfields of dentistry in terms of the use of Theme types at
p < .05 (p-value=0.0294), while there were no significant differences in the use of TP patterns
and thematic markedness. Various interesting linguistic features characterizing the
subdisciplines were found, although no significant interdisciplinary differences were found
between dentistry RA abstracts and the findings reported in the literature of other disciplines.
Finally, implications for novice dental researchers attempting to write an RA abstract are
presented.
This paper illustrates the value of Engagement as a subsystem of Martin
and White’s (2005) Appraisal framework in studies on IGCSE English
reading assessments. The study focused on how…
Introduction: Political speech plays an important role in connecting various segments of society and fostering a sense of unity. This study aimed to investigate thematic…
The analysis of courtroom trials has attracted considerable scholarly attention. However, studies performing SFL analysis of legal texts and speeches are rare. The up-to-date published studies…