Conciseness and Persuasion in Academic Writings of Native and Non-native Writers: A Comparative Grammatical Metaphor Analysis

Abstract

Academic writing is an integral part of academic success and international demands. It requires concise, persuasive, and contextual construction of sentences. This study aims to investigate the construction of concise, persuasive and generic patterns in twenty-five native and twenty-five Pakistani research articles’ abstracts.  Using a mixed-method approach, fifty articles have been collected through a stratified random sampling technique. Five native journals (American Journal of Education, Applied Linguistics Journal, British Journal of Learning Disabilities, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, and British Journal of Educational Studies) and five Pakistani journals (Pakistani Journal of Language and Translation, Al-Qualm, Humdard Islamic us, NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry, and Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences) are used for data collection. The instruments for analysis include percentages, qualitative analysis, Bitchener’s move model (2010), and AntConc. The study showed that the native and Pakistani writers equally used move structures, but differences occurred in the application of grammatical metaphor (GM) that was high in native writings. The study has provided insights into better and improved writing techniques that are required for concise and formal writing.  These implications serve as a useful guide for English teachers and syllabus designers to include GM in course content for better writing skills.