A Comparison of Indonesian and English Research Articles Written by Indonesian Academics: Integrating Perspectives on Genre and Rhetorical Diversity

Abstract

This study is an investigation of the rhetorical features of research articles (RAs) written by Indonesian academics in the Applied Linguistics discipline. This contrastive rhetoric study addresses the question of whether Indonesian academics have the same or different communicative purposes and use the same or different rhetorical organisation when they write RAs in English and in Indonesian. The analysis focuses on the Introduction and the Discussion sections. The investigation reveals that the majority of RAs published in national accredited Indonesian journals consistently employ the conventional format of English RAs written by native speakers. RAs written by Indonesian academics have similar communicative purposes and use the same rhetorical features whether they write in Indonesian or in English. The comparison demonstrates a relatively consistent realisation of rhetorical organisation between RAs written in English and in Indonesian.