SOCIO-RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE THESIS INTRODUCTION SECTION: A CASE STUDY AT THE PROFESSIONAL MASTER'S PROGRAM IN EDUCATION

Abstract

Master's theses can be presented in relatively flexible formats, given the specificities of disciplinary cultures and the diversity of institutional guidelines, with consequences for the compositional characteristics of the genre in specific situations. This situation raises questions about the diversity of forms of production of theses, in the different sections into which they are conventionally divided, in addition to the complexity that this represents for the process of academic literacy in postgraduate studies. The introduction of master's theses is a strategic section for discussing this issue. In view of this, our objective in this work is to investigate the rhetorical configuration of the introduction of master's theses produced in a professional master's course in Education at a university in Pernambuco, reflecting on the impact of rhetorical movements and steps on/for social action carried out through the genre. To develop the research, therefore, we relied on the socio-rhetorical approach to genres and, particularly, on the methodology of movement analysis, developed by Swales (1990) and adapted by Bunton (1998). This is a case study based on a corpus of 9 introductions to master's theses, the complete works of which were defended in 2023 and 2024 and are available in the institution's digital repository. The results reveal that the introductions tend to present several strategies predicted by the analysis model, such as generalizations about the research topic, mention of existing literature, indication of gaps in knowledge and explanation of the objectives and structure of the work. Less frequently, they argue about the importance of the research and anticipate the main results. We conclude that the way in which rhetorical strategies (movements and steps) are arranged on the textual surface is decisive for the achievement of the communicative purposes and social action mediated by the genre.