universidade federal de santa catarina pós-graduação em letras ...

222The analysis of BR introductions shows that, while linguistics and economics tendto have more complex structures in Move 1, chemistry reviewers prefer to use extremelysynthetic introductions with only one sub-function. Certain variable features of researcharticles have been associated with different disciplinary configurations by researchers.According to Swales (1990:159), for example, the choice of the rhetorical structures inacademic writing is likely to be determined by the way the research field is perceived:If the relevant research tradition is viewed as linear and cumulative, then acomposite arrangement may work well. However, if the field is viewed asbranching – consisting of several loosely-connected topics – then a cyclicapproach may be preferred. The combination of length and divergence maycontribute to the cyclicity more evident in the social sciences, and brevity andlinearity to the compositeness more characteristic of the natural and life sciencesand of engineering.Thus, in fields such as chemistry, knowledge is atomistic in the sense that it can befractionated into small pieces so that each researcher is able to bend over an independentset of theoretical questions to be studied in order to contribute to the advance of the fieldin a linear, cumulative way (Becher, 1987). In this kind of research tradition, a‘chunked’ structure is more characteristic, where moves follow each other in a sequence.Conversely, in the social(and probably the human) sciences where knowledgeproduction is non-linear and there is reinterpretation and criticism of knowledge (insteadof accretion of knowledge as in the natural sciences) (ibid.), cyclic structures are morecharacteristic.