A Corpus-based Study of Research Grant ن

Perspectives: Working Papers in English and Communication, 17(1) Spring 2006
A corpus-based study of research grant

proposal abstracts
Haiying Feng
enfeng@cityu.edu.hk
City University of Hong Kong
ABSTRACT
In response to the recent call for development of specialized and localized corpora (e.g.,
Flowerdew, 2004), a corpus of Hong Kong Competitive Earmarked Research Grant (CERG)
proposals is now being compiled to better understand this occluded genre (Swales, 1996) in the
Hong Kong context. The present study is based on some preliminary data of 37 Hong Kong
CERG research grant proposal abstracts. The study aims to offer a generic description of this
sub-genre of research grant proposal abstracts, which has so far received little attention. By using
Wordsmith Tools (Scott, 1996), the study integrates lexical, pragmatic analysis with rhetorical
move analysis. The method used provides an example, particularly for those genre analysts who
have little computer background, of how to fully exploit computer software available to help with
pragmatic and rhetorical analysis. The results of the study may also provide some useful insights
for Hong Kong novice grant writers.

1. INTRODUCTION
This paper presents the results of a corpus-based study in which the genre of research
grant proposal abstracts is examined. The genre of research grant proposal abstracts is
one that, although small, is critical to the scholars grant applications the initial step
in the process of knowledge production (Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995). Because of
the initial location of the proposals, this genre has the urgent purposes of giving peer
reviewers and the grant committee a good first impression, of tantalizing them into
further reading, and of persuading them, although without seeming to persuade
(Myers, 1990, p. 42), that the proposed project is worth funding. This first page is
therefore more than a statement of intent, or a summary of the main text; rather, it is
like goods on display, showing the buyers the sparkling points and encouraging them
to make positive decisions. In this sense, it is a genre even more rhetorical than the
main texts of the proposals.
In spite of its importance, this genre has so far received little attention. Even Connor
and her colleagues, who have conducted quite a few studies on grant proposals (see
Connor, 2000; Connor and Mauranen, 1999; Connor and Wagner, 1999; Connor and
Upton, 2004), have neglected this sub-genre in their research. As we may note,
research grant proposal abstracts and research article abstracts are interrelated genres
belonging to the same academic genre system (Bazerman, 1994), or in Bhatias words
(2004), under the same genre colony of academic introductions. They share some
commonalities in communicative purposeto promote the researcher and the
research on the one hand, and to display professional credibility on the other.
Chronologically speaking, the act of writing research grant proposal abstracts usually
precedes the act of writing research article abstracts; however, the conventions of the
latter may greatly influence the act of the former. In this regard, a brief review of the
research on the latter genre may provide us with some useful insights for the study of
the former one.
Genre analysts have offered in recent years quite detailed descriptions of the
rhetorical structure of RA abstracts. Bhatia (1993) for instance, citing ANSI (1979)s
definition of abstractan abbreviated, accurate representation of the contents of a
document (p. 1), proposes a four-move structure: (1) introducing purpose, (2)
describing methodology, (3) summarizing results, and (4) presenting conclusions.
This I-M-R-C structure, which faithfully corresponds to the rhetorical structure of the
RA, has been widely acknowledged (e.g. Cremmins, 1982; Graetz, 1985;
Salager-Meyer, 1990, 1992; Ventola, 1997). Salager-Meyer (1990) for instance,
tested her sample Medical English abstracts strictly against this model to see if
there were any discourse flawsdeviations from this model in terms of move
selection, move organization and paragraph structuring. However, it is
counter-intuitive that writers always conform to a universal ideal of move
structuring. Variations have been found, such as the lack of the purpose move in the
biomedical texts (Huckin, 2001), and the inclusion of an extra introduction move
2

which provides a justificatory context for the research (Hyland, 2000). In Martin
(2003)s analysis of English and Spanish research article abstracts in experimental
social sciences, a coding scheme was used incorporating Swaless (1990) CARS
(Create-A-Research-Space) model into the introduction move of the IMRC structure.
Similarly, Samraj (2005) notices in her study that abstracts from Conservation
Biology and Wildlife Behavior, in addition to the traditional IMRC moves, also
contain moves from the CARS model, such as background information, centrality
claim and gap indication. Lores (2004)s study of abstracts from linguistic journals
further reveals that even if the majority of the abstracts display the IMRC structure
mirroring the macro-organization of RAs, about one-third of the samples display the
CARS structure, mirroring the organization of the Introductory section of RAs.
Moreover, there is a combinatory type, which mixes both types. Lores believes that
the three types fulfill three different functions: the informative (IMRC type), the
indicative (the more interactional) (CARS type), and the informative-indicative
(Combinatory type).
Feng and Shi (2004) is perhaps the first study that has offered a description of the
rhetorical structure of research grant proposal abstracts. The move-step scheme they
identified suggests that the CARS structure is also an important element of this genre,
and the whole idea of creating a research space is also a major concern of grant
writers. In addition, they noticed that the description of research method, which has
been de-emphasized or downgraded in recent years in research article abstracts
(Swales, 1990; Samraj, 2005), figured prominently in their study of research grant
proposal abstracts. Reporting the investigators own previous research and
claiming potential contribution were also given considerable space, which suggests
the need for more rhetorical work in this genre than in research article abstracts.
However, the linguistic and pragmatic features of the genre were not examined in the
study, and the sample size was quite small.
There is now an increasing interest in applying corpus linguistic techniques to text
linguistic investigations. Scholars have noted the importance of compiling specialized
corpora for understanding academic and professional language, and have called for
multi-level analysis by taking functional, rhetorical, and text linguistic aspects into
consideration instead of focusing on lexico-grammatical features only (e.g.,
Flowerdew, 1998, 2004; Connor and Upton, 2004a). Connor and Upton (2004b)s
empirical study is a good example; it investigates the genre of philanthropic grant
proposals based on the ICIC (The Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication)
fundraising corpus. In the study, the researchers first identified seven rhetorical moves,
and then applied linguistic multidimensional analysis (Biber, 1988) to the entire group
of grant proposals as well as to the individual rhetorical moves. The study has
provided useful insights for the present one on research grant proposal abstracts;
however, two concerns remain: a) the multidimensional analysis program developed
by Biber is not commercially available; b) the four dimensions described by Biber
(involved vs. informational, narrative vs. non-narrative, explicit vs. situated,
3

argumentative vs. non-argumentative), the original purpose of which was to analyze
register variation, may not be able to fully reveal the distinctive features of grant
proposals and linguistic variation of individual moves in the genre.
As Lee (1999) rightly indicates, for linguists who have a primary interest in language,
not computation, and who cannot develop software by themselves, two options
remain: either turn to computer-trained support personnel or shrug their shoulders
and find one or two particular ready-made software packages which come closest to
meeting their needs (p. 9). Although what he says is a bit pessimistic, he draws a real
picture of the present situation in corpus based studies. What makes the situation even
worse is that many corpus-based linguists shy away from discussing the technical
hurdles and problems they may encounter in computer analysis of texts.
The purpose of the study is therefore twofold: a) to present a more comprehensive
description of the genre of research grant proposal abstracts based on a multi-level
analysis; b) to illustrate, through detailed discussion of research methods, how genre
analysts who have little computer background can fully exploit
commercially-available software like Wordsmith Tools (Scott, 1996) to analyze not
only lexico-grammatical and pragmatic features, but also rhetorical structures, like
move positions and move sequences. I hope this study is able to provide some insights
not only for novice grant writers, but also for genre analysts who are new to the field
of corpus-based studies.
2. METHODOLOGY
2.1. The corpus
The data used for this pilot study consists of 37 research grant proposal abstracts
drawn from the corpus of successful Hong Kong Competitive Earmarked Research
Grant (CERG) proposals I have been compiling for my PhD thesis study. The CERG
grant is allocated by the Research Grants Council (RGC) to support research of UGC
institutions in Hong Kong. Table 1 provides a breakdown of abstracts by disciplinary
area (all names and any other information likely to identify the writer were removed).
As Flowerdew (2004) rightly points out, the size of the corpus is not only decided by
the needs and purposes of the investigation: pragmatic factors such as how easily the
data can be obtained come into play, i.e. the compiler has to fall back on
non-probability sampling techniques involving judgment and convenience (p. 18).
Right now, 19 proposal abstracts have been collected from humanities and social
sciences, and 18 from natural sciences. The years of the proposals vary, but most of
them (30 out of 37) are proposals from the last two years. The corpus of 37 proposal
abstracts comprised a total of 9,149 running words, 2,402 word types, with an average
length of 247.25 words per proposal.
Concerning the writers, except for two female scholars, all the other 35 scholars are
male. This to some extent reveals the predominance of male faculty members in Hong
4

Kong universities. Regarding their professional status, 5 of the scholars are chair
professors, 8 professors, 18 associate professors and 6 assistant professors.
Year of
Disciplinary Area
Position
Gender
Administrative, Business & Social Studies
Prof.
2003-2004
228
Prof.
2003-2004
198
Chair Prof.
2003-2004
275
Assist. Prof.
2003-2004
179
Assoc. Prof.
2003-2004
143
Assoc. Prof.
2003-2004
195
Assoc. Prof.
2003-2004
194
Assist. Prof.
2004-2005
184
Assoc. Prof.
2004-2005
301
10
Assoc. Prof.
2004-2005
235
11
Assist. Prof.
2003-2004
230
12
Assist. Prof.
2001-2002
364
13
Assoc. Prof.
2004-2005
150
14
Arts and Language
Assoc. Prof.
2003-2004
407
15
Arts and Language
Assist. Prof.
2003-2004
452
16
Arts and Language
Chair Prof.
2003-2004
239
17
Arts and Language
Assoc. Prof.
2003-2004
232
18
Arts and Language
Prof.
2004-2005
250
19
Biology & Chemistry
Assoc. Prof.
2004-2005
315
20
Biology & Chemistry
Assoc. Prof.
2003-2004
200
21
Biology & Chemistry
Prof.
1998-1999
284
22
Computing Science & Information Technology
Assoc. Prof.
2004-2005
391
23
Education
Assist. Prof.
2003-2004
204
24
Electrical & Electronic Engineering
Assoc. Prof
2004-2005
169
25
Chair Prof.
2001-2002
220
26
Prof.
2003-2004
199
Proposal
Length

27
Assoc. Prof.
1998-1999
224
28
Chair Prof.
2004-2005
374
29
Assoc. Prof.
2004-2005
279
30
Prof.
2002-2003
227
31
Assoc. Prof.
2004-2005
394
32
Mathematics
Assoc. Prof.
2003-2004
97
33
Mathematics
Chair Prof.
2001-2002
174
34
Mathematics
Assoc. Prof.
2004-2005
90
35
Mathematics
Assoc. Prof.
2003-2004
78
36
Physical Science
Prof.
1998-1999
489
37
Physical Sciences
Prof.
2004-2005
285
Table 1: Profile
2.2 Moves analysis
Following Swales (1990) and Bhatia (1993), a move analysis was performed on the
corpus of proposal abstracts. The purpose of the move analysis is to identify the
semantic/functional units of texts moves and steps (sub-units under the unit of
move). In order to increase the reliability of the analysis, I approached the texts
recurrently. Based on the move structure I developed in my previous study on the
Canadian SSHRC research grant proposal abstracts, I read and hand tagged the texts
for the first time. Areas of difficulty and fuzziness were noted down and used for
reference in further revision. After tagging and retagging three times, I decided on a
coding scheme which covers all the semantic/functional units that appeared in the data
(see Figure 1). The scheme consists of 6 moves, and the only move I had not
categorized as an independent move in my previous study of SSHRC proposal
abstracts is the move of Explanation and Justification. In the present data however,
the move seemed to be used quite frequently to explain the rationale or the basic
principles of the proposed research, or justify the validity and feasibility of the
proposed objective.

Figure 1
A Move-Step Analysis Model for Research Grant Proposal Abstracts
Move 1: Establishing a Territory:

Step 1: Centrality claim (TCC)
Step 2: Topic generalization (TTG)
Step 3: Reporting the proposers own previous research (TRP)
Move 2: Establishing a niche
Step 1A Counter-claim (NCC)
Step 1B Indicating a gap (NIG)
Step 1C Question-raising (NQR)
Move 3 Outlining research objectives (OB)
Move 4 Describing research means (RM)
Move 5 Explanation and justification (EJ)
Move 6 Claiming potential contributions (achievement and benefit claimss) (AB)
The sequence of move and strategy of each text was then saved respectively as a .txt
file, with moves simplified in a code. For instance, the move sequence of the first PA
is as follows:
Territory (Centrality Claim) Niche (Indicating a GAP) Niche (Question-Raising)
Objective Achievement and benefit claims
It was saved in a .txt file as follows:
TCC NIG NQR OB AB
The move sequence of each text was also saved in a simplified form where steps are
not taken into consideration. In the case of the above example for instance, it was
saved in another .txt file as:
T N OB AB
I then used the Wordlist function of Wordsmith Tools (Scott, 1996) to calculate the
frequency of the moves, and the Concord function to see the co-occurrences and
relative positions of the moves, which I termed move collocations and move
clusters.
2.3 Linguistic and pragmatic analysis
All the proposal abstracts (PA) were saved in a .txt file. Following Henry and
Roseberry (1996, 2001), a separate .txt file was also created for each move of the PAs.
7

The wordlist function of Wordsmith Tools was then used to run the word frequency
counts on all of the PAs and each of the moves. Then these frequency wordlists were
compared with the frequency wordlist of the Cobuild general English corpus (Sinclair,
1991, p. 143). Keyword analysis of the individual moves was also done by comparing
the wordlists of each individual move to the general wordlist of the PA corpus.
In addition, the use of hedges and boosters, a prominent pragmatic feature in
academic writing (see Hyland, 1996, 1998a, 1998b, 2000; Feng, 2002), was examined
in the genre as a whole and in the individual moves. A list of hedges and a list of
boosters was developed, and the lists were saved respectively as two search-word files.
The concord function was used, and pseudo hedges or boosters could be easily deleted
through its interactive functions.
3. RESULTS
In this section, the rhetorical structure of the genre is first described, including the
move frequencies and move positions. The linguistic and pragmatic features of the
genre as a whole are then examined. Finally I look at the linguistic, pragmatic and
rhetorical features of each individual move.
3.1 The rhetorical feature of the grant proposal abstract
3.1.1 Move frequencies
The following two TablesTable 2 and Table 3reveal the occurrences of the
rhetorical functional units in the corpus of 37 research grant proposal abstracts at two
levels: move level and step level. At the move level, as we can see in Table 2, the
most common move was OB (objectives), with 57 occurrences. It existed in all the 37
proposal abstracts, with an average rate of 1.54 occurrences per text. The average
length of OB 75.2 words per occurrence was, however, not the longest. The move
T (territory) is by far the longest move in this sub-genre, averaging 104.9 words per
occurrence. With altogether 48 occurrences in 31 abstracts (83.4% of all abstracts), T
was the second most common move. N (niche), RM (research methods) and AB
(achievement and benefit claims) have similar frequencies of occurrences. They all
appeared in over half of the proposals (N appeared in 51.4% of proposals, RM also
51.4%, and AB 54.1%). N appeared 26 times in 19 abstracts, RM 24 times in 19
abstracts, and AB 21 times in 20 abstracts. EJ (explanation and justification) is the
least common move of the sub-genre, representing only 4.3% of all the moves
occurring in the corpus. However, it appeared in 8 abstracts (21.6% of all abstracts)
with an average length of 78 words per occurrence, longer than the average length of
OB, N, RM and AB.
Table 2: Move length and move occurrences in 37 proposal abstracts

MOVES
total number
% of total number
PAs 1 occurrence
% of total
Avg. length/occurrence
T
48
26.1%
31
83.8%
104.9
N
26
14.1%
19
51.4%
49.7
OB
57
31.0%
37
100.0%
75.2
RM
24
13.0%
19
51.4%
59.1
Table 3: The occurrences of the steps in 37 proposal abstracts

Steps
TCC
TTG
TRP
NIG
total number
13
35
15
25
1 occurrence PAs 13
25
13
18
% of total
35.1%
67.6%
35.1%
48.6%
AB
21
11.4%
20
54.1%
52.7
NCC
3
3
8.1%
EJ
8
4.3%
8
21.6%
78
NQR
1
1
2.7%
Now lets turn to the occurrences of the steps (see Table 3). Among the three steps of
the move Territory, not surprisingly, TTG (topic generalization) occurred most
frequently 35 times in 25 abstracts. Both TCC (centrality claim) and TRP (reporting
the proposers own previous research) however, also appeared in 35.1% of proposals.
These two steps serve the purpose of promoting the importance of the proposed
project and establishing the credibility of the proposer(s). One interesting point we
need to note is the existence of reporting the proposers own previous research
instead of reporting items of previous research. This vividly revealed the
differences in communicative purposes between the genre of research article
introductions and research grant proposal abstracts. Another interesting point I would
like to discuss here concerns the three sub-strategies of TTG (topic generalization),
which are research territory, real-world territory and introducing background
knowledge. We noticed that, among the 35 occurrences of TTG, there were 17
instances of introducing background knowledge, 12 instances of research territory,
and 6 instances of real-world territory. This suggests that grant writers are more
inclined to provide readers with contextual information and set the scene for them,
rather than discussing previous research in the subject area. This is mainly due to the
fact that the readers of proposal abstracts are usually grant committee members who
might or might not be engaged in the same research area. The writers expectations
about the readers determine the strategies they adopt in establishing a territory.
Among the three steps of the move establishing a niche, NIG (indicating a gap)
played a dominant role: 86% of the occurrences of the niche were in the form of
indicating a gap.
3.1.2. Move positions
Using the Concord function of Wordsmith (Scott, 1996) by searching on the tags, the
positions of the moves were also examined. Of the 37 abstracts, 26 began with the
move establishing a territory, 9 began with the move outlining research objectives,
and 2 with the move establishing a niche; 19 ended with the move of achievement and
9

benefit claims, 12 ended with outlining research objectives, 4 ended with describing
research means, 1 ended with explanation and justification and 1 with reporting the
proposers previous research. As can be seen, the writers tended to begin with
territory and end with achievement and benefit claims. Although TCC (centrality
claim) only occurred in 13 abstracts, it occurred as the initial move 12 times of those
13 times. Similarly, AB (achievement and benefit claims) appeared 21 times in 20
abstracts, 19 times as the final move. The move of outlining objectives did not always
come first, as Swales (1996) had anticipated; rather, it has a quite flexible position and
high recurrence rate. There are actually two abstracts one in soft disciplines (No. 25)
and one in hard disciplines (No. 22) consisting of the sole move of outlining
objectives. Not surprisingly, the only move that never appeared at the end is the move
of establishing a niche. An interesting feature is that one abstract ended with TRP
(reporting the proposers own previous research). This to some extent implies that this
step, although it in most cases serves the purpose of helping establish the territory in
which the proposed project is situated, in some cases may only serve the purpose of
promoting the track-record of the proposer(s).
To investigate the relative positions of the moves, 2-move collocations1 and 3-move
clusters were examined (see Table 4) using the Concord function. When the steps are
taken into consideration, there are altogether 10 functional units, and therefore the
total number of the possible collocations of 2 functional units is 90. I compiled the 90
unique collocations as a search-word file, and the results of the Concord function
show that 32 of the 90 permutations occurred in the texts (see the left column of Table
4). When only the moves are considered, the total number of possible 3-move clusters
is 120, and 29 of them actually occurred in the corpus (see the right column of Table
4). By reading the left column and the right column together, we can see that the basic
rhetorical structure of this sub-genre is T N OB, which has 12 occurrences; if we do
not consider OB, the collocation of TTG NIG then has as high as 20 occurrences. We
can also note that OB and RM often go together, either in the order of OB RM (15
occurrences) or in the order of RM OB (12 occurrences), or interwoven. When
establishing a niche does not occur, T OB RM is the skeletal structure.
If we look at the relative position of TRP, we can see that it only occurred once as the
initial move. It occurred 4 times after other territory steps, 3 times after OB, 2 times
after NIG, and 1 time after RM. When it occurred after other territory steps, the
purpose of the writers is usually to locate their previous studies as part of the territory.
When it occurred after OB, the purpose is to provide the grant committee with
information about what work the researchers have done towards the achievement of
the objective. When it occurred after the NIG, it is usually in the pattern of a
niche-centered tide-like structure (T N T N OB) (see Feng and Shi, 2004) to express
how their previous studies partly occupy the foregoing niche. In most cases, it
appeared before OB, since the writers tended to propose their objectives on the basis
of their own previous research.
1
Since the relative position is important, I used the term move collocation instead of move pair.
10
Table 4: Move collocations and move clusters in the proposal abstracts

Move collocations
TTG NIG
OB RM
OB AB
RM OB
TRP OB
NIG TTG
NIG OB
OB EJ
TCC TTG
RM AB
OB TTG
TCC OB
OB TRP
EJ RM
TTG OB
TTG RM
TTG TRP
TCC NIG
EJ AB
EJ OB
NIG RM
NIG TRP
AB EJ
AB OB
OB TCC
TCC TRP
NIG AB
NIG NQR
NQR OB
RM EJ
RM TRP
TRP TTG
Sum
Occurrences
20
15
12
12
11
9
8
6
6
6
4
4
3
3
3
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
148
Move Clusters
T N OB
T OB RM
RM OB AB
T OB EJ
N OB RM
N T OB
T OB AB
OB RM AB
OB T N
N OB AB
OB T RM
T RM OB
N RM OB
OB EJ AB
T RM AB
T N RM
AB EJ RM
AB OB RM
EJ OB AB
EJ OB RM
EJ RM AB
EJ RM OB
N AB EJ
N OB EJ
OB EJ RM
OB RM EJ
OB RM T
RM T OB
T N AB
Sum
Occurrences
12
5
5
4
4
4
3
3
3
3
3
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
71
As far as the move EJ is concerned, it occurred after OB 6 times, AB one time and
RM one time. The purpose of the move is to explain and justify the feasibility and
validity of the proposed objective, anticipated achievement, or pre-designed methods.
3.2 Linguistic features of the genre as a whole
11
Compared with the frequencies of the Cobuild general English corpus, the PA corpus
has a number of distinctive features (see Table 5). First, considering that the focus of
proposal abstracts is the present and the future, it is not surprising to see that the
present tense words is and are, and the future tense word will are listed in the
PA corpus as high as the 7th, 19th, and 9th respectively, while only as the 11th, 28th, and
79th in the Cobuild corpus. Even in reviewing the previous research, present perfect
was usually used by authors to show the link with the present proposed project, and
we can see that has and have appear as the 20th and the 22nd respectively in the PA
corpus whereas was is not found, and had is listed as the 231st.
Second, some word frequencies reflect the use of voice. We note that the words be
and been were used more frequently in the PA corpus than in the Cobuild corpus.
Be is the 12th most frequently used word in the PA corpus, whereas the 19th in the
Cobuild corpus. Been, which is the 25th in the PA corpus, is the 52nd in the Cobuild.
The differences suggest the more frequent use of passive voice in the proposal
abstracts than in the general corpus.
Third, the use of pronouns differs. As indicated in Table 5, among the top 35 words in
the PA corpus, there is only one personal pronountheir. Since the genre of
proposal abstract is non-conversational, and non-narrative, it is not surprising to see
the relative lack of use of personal pronouns in the PA corpus. By searching the
concordance of the word their in the PA corpus, it is revealed that this possessive
determiner is used primarily in anaphoric reference, and the endophoric referents are
more often than not impersonal. Another interesting point to note is the difference in
the use of demonstrative reference items. In the Cobuild corpus, that is used more
frequently than this (the 7th vs. the 27th) whereas in the PA corpus, the opposite is
the case this is the 11th and that is the 17th. This could be accounted for by the
fact that, in addition to the normal use of this as an anaphoric reference, this is
also frequently used in the PA corpus as a cataphoric reference, as in the case of In
this proposed project/research, to indicate that more about this referent is to come.
Fourth, the use of the modal verb can differs. It was the 24th most frequently used
word in the PA corpus, whereas in the Cobuild corpus, it was only the 62nd most
frequently used word. Can, according to Halliday (2004, p.621), is a special
category on the fringe of the modality system expressing ability/potentiality. It has the
different orientations of subjective (implicit only) realized by can/cant, objective
implicit by be able to, and objective explicit by it is possible (for) to. Because of the
comparative paucity in the modality system of Chinese, it may be difficult for Chinese
12
Table 5: Frequency lists of the Cobuild general English corpus, the PA corpus, and the corpora of six moves of the PA genre
Cobuild
PA
OB
RM
EJ
AB
Word
Freq.
Word
Freq.
Word
Freq.
Word
Freq.
Word
Freq.
Word
Freq.
Word
Freq.
Word
Freq.
THE
309497
THE
552
THE
197
THE
40
THE
163
AND
53
THE
49
THE
73
OF
155044
OF
422
OF
153
OF
38
AND
130
THE
53
OF
27
OF
53
AND
153801
AND
350
AND
104
34
OF
120
OF
45
IN
16
AND
38
TO
137056
TO
244
IN
99
AND
32
TO
93
WILL
32
TO
16
TO
35
129928
IN
231
74
IS
22
61
31
AND
14
IN
25
IN
100138
184
71
TO
19
IN
55
BE
29
WAVEGUIDE
12
22
THAT
67042
113
TO
65
IN
18
48
TO
29
THIS
11
WILL
21
64849
IS
104
IS
52
14
WILL
40
27
IS
10
18
13
IT
61379
WILL
97
HAS
35
ON
13
PROJECT
34
IN
26
IS
10
WAS
54722
ON
87
FOR
29
HAVE
11
THIS
32
AS
14
CAN
ON
13
11
IS
49186
THIS
84
AS
26
HOWEVER
10
FOR
28
ON
12
THIS
13
12
HE
42057
BE
83
BY
25
NOT
10
ON
27
BY
11
BE
RESEARCH
12
13
FOR
40857
FOR
76
BEEN
24
THAT
10
BE
26
FOR
ON
PROJECT
14
YOU
37477
AS
72
ARE
23
THIS
AS
25
THIS
ARE
IT
15
ON
35951
BY
58
ON
23
ARE
WITH
22
WITH
LAMP
STUDY
16
WITH
35844
WITH
57
HAVE
22
RESEARCH
WE
20
FROM
OPTICAL
FOR
17
AS
34755
THAT
52
WHICH
21
FOR
IS
19
THEIR
THAT
HONG
30952
PROJECT
51
AN
19
BE
BY
18
DATA
SILICA
KONG
19
BE
29799
ARE
48
WITH
19
BEEN
HOW
16
DIFFERENT
CONTROL
NEW
20
HAD
29592
HAS
47
THAT
17
BUT
AN
15
LINE
POLYMER
ALSO
21
BUT
29572
AN
46
THIS
17
ARE
13
BASED
SIGNAL
CAN
22
THEY
29512
HAVE
41
CAN
16
IT
THAT
13
HYPOXIC
AN
HELP
23
AT
28958
RESEARCH
39
BE
15
PRODUCT
BASED
12
IS
AS
IMPORTANT
24
HIS
26491
CAN
38
SUCH
14
THERE
CAN
11
NEW
DIFFERENT
THAT
6
5
18
25
HAVE
26113
BEEN
33
TEMPERATURE
14
ADOPTION
STUDY
11
RESEARCH
EFFECTS
AN
26
NOT
25419
WHICH
32
AT
12
AN
THESE
11
STUDY
MORE
AS
27
THIS
25185
FROM
30
CHINA
11
AT
BETWEEN
10
USE
VOLTAGE
BE
28
ARE
23372
NEW
30
NEW
11
ATTENTION
CHINA
10
ANALYSIS
ARC
EXPECTED
29
OR
22445
THEIR
30
OPTICAL
10
BEHAVIOR
HONG
10
BOTH
BY
INNOVATION
30
BY
21916
HONG
29
RESEARCH
10
CHINESE
KONG
10
CARP
EFFECT
OUR
31
WE
20964
IT
29
10
HAS
TERM
10
EXPERIMENTS
ELECTRIC
32
SHE
20958
KONG
29
SOCIAL
10
INNOVATIONS
ALSO
INTERVIEWS
INSIDER
UNDERSTANDING
33
FROM
20933
STUDY
29
THEIR
10
LITTLE
DEVELOP
LANGUAGE
LPGS
ABOUT
34
ONE
20354
THESE
29
DEVELOPMENT
OR
EXAMINE
PROJECT
OWNERSHIP
APPLICATIONS
35
ALL
20022
CHINA
27
FEROPLUG
OTHER
RESEARCH
RESULTS
SECOND
AT
13

scholars to distinguish the various types and orientations of the word. They may
simply relate the word to the Chinese word neigou which expresses confidence.
This could to some extent explain the more frequent use of can in the PA corpus
than in the Cobuild corpus.
Lastly, as Table 5 indicates, there are 6 content words among the top 35 most frequent
words in the PA corpus, which are project, research, Hong, Kong, study, China. This
shows the authors frequent uses of reference to their previous and proposed research,
and their eager attempts to claim the practical usefulness and possible applications of
their proposed research to the local context. The 28th most frequent word in the PA
corpus, new, also suggests the eagerness of the authors to promote their proposed
research as original.
3.3
Pragmatic features of the genre
Table 6 shows the most frequently occurring hedges and boosters in the PA corpus
and in the Canadian SSHRC grant proposals (see Feng, 2002). As the Table indicates,
the most frequently used hedge in the PA corpus is may, and the most frequently used
booster is will. This is consistent with Feng (2002) and Hyland (1996), in which may
and will were respectively also the most frequently used hedge and booster in the
SSHRC research grant proposal corpus and in Hylands research article corpus.
There are, however, some interesting differences. While in my previous study on
Canadian SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada)
grant proposal writing (Feng, 2002), modal verbs (may, would, might, should, could),
approximators (often, generally) and epistemic verbs (suggest) were found to be on
the list of the ten most frequently used hedges, in the current PA corpus, I cannot find
any uses of suggest, might or would. Instead, I have found the frequent use of
approximators such as about, approximately and around; a word expressing objective
and explicit probability likely; and words expressing usuality typically, usually.
Since the PA corpus is still small at present, I am unable to make generalizations
about these differences in the uses of hedges. However, considering over half of the
proposal abstracts in this current corpus were collected from the hard disciplines,
more data are needed to see whether the disciplinary differences have influenced the
use of hedges.
When comparing the use of boosters, as I noted earlier, will and particularly (in
particular) are the two most frequently used in the current corpus as in the SSHRC
corpus. An interesting point to note is the frequent use of actually in the current
corpus, which however cannot be found in the top 10 frequency list for the SSHRC
corpus. Cheng and Warren (2001), based on their study of a corpus of naturally
occurring conversations between native and nonnative speakers of English in Hong
Kong, found that Hong Kong Chinese speakers of English use actually far more
frequently than native speakers of English. It would be interesting to see whether this
14

is also the case in the written texts when more data is entered into the current corpus.
Table 6Most frequent hedges and boosters in the PA corpus
Hedges in the CERG
PA corpus
Hedges in the
SSHRC corpus
Boosters in the CERG

PA corpus
Boosters in the SSHRC

corpus
may
may
will
39
will
likely
suggest
particularly
particularly/in particular
propose
would
determine
find
typically
often
actually
evidence
usually
propose
clear
indeed
about
might
evidence
clear(ly)
approximately
possibility
show
determine
around
generally
at least
expect
assumption
indicate
certainly
given that
could
could
impossible
demonstrate
frequently
it is known that
in general
More than
indicate
must
possibility
precise
predominantly
prove
relatively
the fact that
almost
undoubtedly
most
well-known
normally
often
perhaps
plausible
possible
predict
should
tend
theoretically
unclear
virtually
With an average of 14.23 occurrences per 1000 words, the density of hedges and
boosters in this genre seems to be much lower than that of research articles (approx.
20 occurrences per 1000 words, see Hyland, 1996) and that of SSHRC research grant
proposals (approx. 17.31, see Feng, 2002). It would be interesting to further
investigate whether this difference is due to the features of this sub-genre or due to the
inclusion of Hong Kong Chinese scholars as the majority of the participants. Similar
to the SSHRC corpus, however, the use of boosters exceeds the use of hedges. While
15

hedges have been shown to exceed boosters by nearly 3 to 1 in research articles
(Hyland, 1996), the more frequent use of boosters in the current corpus reflects the
promotional purpose of the sub-genre.
In summary, the preliminary analysis shows that the sub-genre of research grant
proposal abstracts, like most academic texts, is informational, non-narrative, and
non-situated. However, it has some unique linguistic, semantic and pragmatic features.
Its predominant use of present and future tenses reflects its particular communicative
needs of facing forward instead of looking back. Its high frequency use of such words
as project, research, Hong, Kong, study, and China could to some extent be seen as a
response to the current requirement to public or perish. Also, since the main purpose
of this sub-genre is to promote the proposed research, the use of boosters is denser
than in general academic writing, and there is a high incidence of the use of such
positive descriptive words as new. Some findings of this preliminary analysis, such
as some unique uses of hedges and boosters in the corpus, suggest the need for further
studies with more expanded data to analyze disciplinary and cultural-linguistic
variations.
3.4 Linguistic and pragmatic features of individual moves
The keyword analysis was performed on the text documents created for individual
moves. The purpose of the analysis was to search for the words that were used more
frequently in individual moves than in the entire corpus of proposal abstracts (see
Table 7), and in so doing, investigate how linguistic and pragmatic features may vary
in different moves of the genre because of their different communicative purposes.
3.4.1 Linguistic features of individual moves
The move of establishing a territory
As the results of the analysis show in Table 7, the move of territory, disregarding the
use of content words, is different from the reference corpus in its frequent use of
present perfect tense represented by the use of has and been, and its frequent use
of attributive clause reflected by the use of which. The following are two examples:
With the opening of developing economies to FDI, Hong Kong has emerged as the second largest
investor in Asia, and has been among the top investors in parts of Southeast Asia.
The emergent concept of resilience offers a new paradigm for developing social interventions that
promote positive development as opposed to remedial outcomes, of which the Understanding the
Adolescent Project (UAP) is an exemplar.
The words shown in the grey areas of Table 7 are words that rarely appeared in that
particular move. It is not unexpected that the words that rarely appeared in the
territory move are words that introduce the proposers, the proposed research, and the
16
Table 7: Keywords of the individual moves

OBJECTIVES
NICHE
EXPLAINING BASIC
TERRITORY
PRINCIPLE
RESEARCH MEANS
ACHIEVEMENT
Keywords
Freq.
Keywords
Freq.
Keywords
Freq.
Keywords
Freq.
Keywords
Freq.
Keywords
Freq.
PROJECT
34
HOWEVER
10
HAS
35
WAVEGUIDE
12
WILL
31
EXPECTED
WE
20
NOT
10
TEMPERATURE
14
SILICA
BE
28
HELP
HOW
16
LITTLE
BEEN
24
POLYMER
LINE
RESEARCH
12
EXAMINE
WHILE
FEROPLUG
SIGNAL
EXPERIMENTS
MARINE
TRANSACTIONS
THERE
WHICH
19
LAMP
INTERVIEWS
INNOVATION
DEVELOP
10
ATTENTION
WE
OPTICAL
STUDENT
UNDERSTANDING
CONNECTED
INNOVATIONS
TO
59
CAN
HYPOXIC
WILL
21
OBJECTIVES
HAVE
11
THIS
15
ZNO
CARP
MAKE
TERM
10
PRODUCT
BE
14
CONTROL
GROUP
CONTRIBUTION
10
BEEN
ADOPTION
RESEARCH
EFFECT
LABORATORY
IMPORTANT
11
HAVE
IS
22
PROJECT
ELECTRIC
MAJORS
HA
12
IS
20
TOWARDS
MORE
PARTICIPANTS
HOI
13
HAS
NEGATIVE
WAVEGUIDES
PROCESSING
DEBATES
14
PROLIFERATION
VOLTAGE
RATIO
URBAN
15
BUT
EFFECTS
REFLECTIVE
WAYS
16
LPGS
UNIVERSITY
PROVIDE
17
HAD
ARC
DATA
UNDERWATER
18
THE
40
INSIDER
DIFFERENT
IT
19
OWNERSHIP
DEPTH
STUDY
20
SECOND
ENGLISH
21
THAN
QUANTIFIERS
22
AND
14
THEIR
LANGUAGE
THE
52
IS
23
24
25
17

planned acts, including we, this, research, project, to (infinitive clause),
and so on.
The move of establishing a niche
According to Table 7, the move of establishing a niche is lexically distinctive from the
general corpus in the use of adversative sentence connectorshowever, but and
while, negation in the verb phrasenot, quasi-negative quantifierslittle, and
words that are often used in introducing a nichethere and attention. The
following are some of the examples in which the niche is indicated:
1. Despite this, there has been little work analyzing the influence of Hong Kong FDI.
2. However, there have been relatively little relevant research or academic activities in Hong
Kong
3. There is a paucity of information at the molecular level on
4. This suggests two important questions that have received little attention in the
5. But at least three other important changes deserve attention
Although 86% of the occurrences of the niche were in the form of indicating a gap,
the move, generally speaking, took a mild tone, presenting challenges that were not
very confrontational. This mild tone was realized by several means. First, when the
niche was indicated, hedges were used. In example 2, for instance, relatively is used
to qualify little; in the above example 4, epistemic verb suggest is used; and in the
example 5 above, at least is used. Actually as Table 8 indicates, hedges were more
frequently used in establishing a niche than in any other moves.
Second, the niche was often mildly established in the formats of expressed
needs/desires/interests, logical conclusions, and contrastive comments, which,
according to Swales (1990, p. 156), are usually chosen where there is a weaker
challenge to the previous research. The following are some authentic examples:
Expressed needs/desires/interests:
To assist vendors and telecommunications providers in making informed business decisions on the
viability of experimental OBS options, new performance evaluation methodologies are needed.
(No. 28)
Contrastive comments:
The focus on the negative aspects of foreign direct investment (FDI) has been almost exclusively
on TNCs headquartered in the US and Europe, with little attention to whether enterprises
(particularly smaller and medium-sized enterprises) from elsewhere have had similar negative
consequences or have had more positive impacts.
(No. 8)
Logical conclusions:
Recent research indicates that proliferation of product innovations that is, very rapid
introduction of a large number of product innovations may have adverse consequences for
organizations (Barnett & Freeman, 2001; Levinthal & March, 1993). This suggests two important
questions that have received little attention in the research on product innovation
In addition to these formats, the mild challenge is also realized through the use of
conjunctions like while and if as in the following examples:
While plausible in the case of IS adoption, this assumption seems amiss when applied to
continuous IS usage behavior as it ignores the fact that frequently performed behaviors tend to
become habitual and thus more automatic than intentional. In other words, peoples baseline
18

responses to many situations are the result of habits (automatic behavior), not intentions
(conscious behavior). Thus, while intention is a key predictor of initial usage and adoption, it is
equally important to understand the impact of habitual behavior in the context of continuous
usage.
These SiNWs are highly desirable for technological applications if ohmic contact can be achieved
by coating thin metallic films onto the terminals of the wires.
The conjunction while is often used to admit in the clause that something is the case
but say that it does not affect the truth of the other part of the sentence, although the
two statements partly conflict (see Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary, p.
1662). The use of the two while in the first example above serves the function of
recognizing the previous research on intention before establishing a niche.
In the second example, the niche could actually be expressed as: however, ohmic
contact has not yet been achieved or as there is a need to achieve ohmic contact by
coating thin. The use of if and the conditional clause foregrounded the
necessity to achieve ohmic contact, however not in a normal niche-indication format
we are familiar with.
In many niche-indication cases in this current corpus, the writers also prefer focusing
on the problems of the subject matter instead of focusing on the problems of previous
research:
However, the slot antenna suffers from two major problems, namely the impedance mismatch and
backside radiation.
Despite this importance, brand trust is not a well-specified construct, and consequently, a measure
to determine brand trust remains elusive.
By focusing on the problems of the subject matter, the writers avoid directly
challenging the previous research/researchers. The niche-centered tide-like structure I
discussed in my previous studies of Canadian SSHRC grant proposals is also a
strategy used to tone down the negative evaluation of previous research. By reporting
weaknesses of previous research as a natural part of knowledge development, the
writers head off possible objections and facilitate solidarity with the reader. There are
actually four instances of such structure in the current corpus, and the following is an
example:
(Begin T) Lighting systems consume about 15%-20% of the total electrical energy in many
industrialized countries. Electronic Controlled High-Intensity-Discharge (HID) lamps are
increasingly being used in domestic and industrial lighting systems because of their high luminous
efficacy and energy efficiency. The use of energy-efficient lighting devices is an effective means
in reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission. Among various lighting devices,
high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps have the highest efficacy. HID lamps can generate about 100
lumen per Watt, whilst Edisons type incandescent lamps can provide only 10 lumen per Watt.
(End T) (Begin Niche 1) However, at high-frequency (>1kHz), HID lamps suffer acoustic
resonance problem that results in unstable arc operation and even arc extinction. (End Niche 1)
(Begin T) Dynamic monitoring of the lamp arc condition is a way to check if the lamp arc is
stable. (End T) (Begin Niche 2) However, implementation of monitoring system is not easy since
the lamp arc striking voltage is typically from a few kilo-volt to 20kV, and yet the on-state of the
lamp voltage is typically around 100V. (End Niche 2) (Begin T) While some attempts have
focused on shifting the operating conditions of the lamp to avoid instability, (End T) (Begin
19

Niche 3) the ageing effects of the lamp have not been considered in these studies. (End Niche 3)
The above tide-like structure can be simplified as follows:

T1: HID lamps have the highest luminous efficacy and energy efficiency.
N1: However, HID lamps suffer acoustic resonance problems that results in unstable
arc operation and arc extinction.
T2: Dynamic monitoring to check the stability of arc operation. (partly occupy niche
1)
N2: implementation of the monitoring is not easy.
T3: Shifting the operating conditions of the lamp (partly occupy niche 1)
N3: the ageing effects of the lamp have not been considered.
Objectives:aim to occupy all these niches
The move of outlining research objectives
As Table 7 shows, the move of outlining research objectives very often uses words
such as project, we, how, examine, develop, objectives (leaving out
content words). Differing lexically from establishing territory, in the objectives the
focus is on the present, and therefore no present perfect tense and no passive voice is
used in this move.
The move of describing research means
As far as the move of describing research means is concerned, the results show that
the word will was used most frequently, in order to express the future tense. The
word be was also used very often to introduce the passive voice. In addition to that,
a list of words was used related to research methodology experiments,
interviews, group, laboratory, participants, processing, ration,
reflective, data, different, and depth. (Again, using the Concord function, I
have removed out the content words.)
The move of achievement and benefit claims
After crossing out content words, a group of words can be seen occurring frequently
together to make the achievement and benefit claims. These words are expected,
help, understanding, will, make, contributions, important, provide,
research and study. In the following examples, we can clearly see how their usual
collocations:
The project will help clarify the meaning of trust and contribute to our understanding of the nature
of brand trust and its dimensionalities.
These studies will contribute to our basic understanding of the physiological responses of fish
to
In these ways, the project is expected to make a major contribution to analysis of changing modes
of governance in East Asia at the start of the twenty-first century.
The study is expected to yield important insights into the ways computer mediated communication
is affecting students school performance and
The project can make important contributions to both the research on product innovation and the
development of broader theories of
The move of explanation and justification

As Table 7 indicates, the key words of the move EJ consisted mainly of content words
except in the use of the modal verb can. As I have discussed in the previous section,
this is a discretionary move, with altogether 8 occurrences in 37 texts. However, it is a
20

unique move of this sub-genre serving the function of explaining the basic principle of
the proposed project and justifying the feasibility of the proposed objective or method.
All the instances of the move were found in the hard texts. The following is an
example from the disciplinary area of electronic engineering:
(Begin OB) This project is concerned with the development of an optical switch which can control
the passage of optical signal to a desired destination. (End OB) (Begin EJ) The control action is
through the application of an electric voltage to the electrodes of a layer of ZnO deposited on three
walls of a polymer waveguide. Scientifically, this is called the piezo-electric effect in that the ZnO
either expands or contracts depending on the magnitude of the voltage. This in turn has an effect
of compressing the polymer waveguide thus changing its refractive index. This is called the
stress-opto effect. The polymer waveguide is deposited on top of a silica waveguide and they are
normally not coupled so that the optical signal can travel uninterrupted in the silica waveguide.
When an electric voltage is applied to the ZnO electrodes, the optical signal is transferred to the
polymer waveguide and travels a short distance until the polymer waveguide meets another silica
waveguide. The optical signal is then coupled down to this second silica waveguide. In this way,
the optical signal can be switched from one silica waveguide to the other silica waveguide. This
switch can operate at a bit rate in many megabits per second. (End EJ)
In the example above, the writer first proposed the objective, that is, the development
of an optical switch which can control the passage of optical signal to a desired
destination. Instead of reviewing previous research and/or indicating a niche in the
subject area, the writer turned to introduce how the proposed objective can be
achieved the basic principle of the proposed objective. From phrases like
scientifically, this is called and this is called we can see that that the writer
assumed the reader as belonging to a general audience that does not have professional
knowledge of the field. By explaining to the reader the basic principles in common
language, the writers attempted to convince the reader the feasibility of the proposed
research.
The move is different from topic generalization in that what it discusses is not the
territory; instead, it discusses the future possibilities. Interestingly, in introducing how
and why the control action could be realized, the author used the present tense and
modal verb can instead of hedges such as could or might, or future tense. This
kind of confident tone helped the writer build up a professional image before his lay
audience.
3.4.2 Pragmatic features of individual moves
Now lets take a look at the use of hedges and boosters in the individual moves. As
Table 8 shows, hedges were used most frequently in establishing a niche, with 16.95
instances per 1000 words. In the middle were the moves of explanation and
justification, establishing a territory and achievement and benefit claims, with 6.76,
5.77 and 5.70 instances per 1000 words respectively. Hedges were used least
frequently in describing research means and outlining research objectives, with 2.67
and 2.88 instances per 1000 words respectively. Concerning the use of boosters, it is
not surprising that achievement and benefit claims showed the most frequent use of
boosters. In the middle were the moves of establishing a niche, outlining objectives
and explanation and justification, with 10.59, 8.63, and 6.76 uses per 1000 words
respectively. If we consider the use of hedges and boosters together, we can see that
establishing a niche was the most rhetorical move, with altogether 27.53 uses of
hedges and boosters per 1000 words. Immediately following was achievement and
21

benefit claims with 26.59. Describing research means was the least rhetorical move,
with the lowest use of both hedges and boosters. There were altogether only 4.46
instances of hedges and boosters in this move. The results were consistent with the
expected rhetorical functions of each individual move.
Table 8: Hedges and boosters in the individual moves
Hedges (numbers)
Boosters (numbers)
Hedges/1000 words
Boosters/1000 words
H+B/1000 words
T
18
12
5.77
3.85
9.62
N
16
10
16.95
10.59
27.54
OB
8
24
2.88
8.63
11.50
RM
3
2
2.67
1.78
4.46
EJ
4
4
6.76
6.76
13.51
AB
6
22
5.70
20.89
26.59
3.5 Discussions and implications

This study of research grant proposal abstracts is a pilot study in two senses. First, it is
pilot study in which I attempted to fully exploit the use of Wordsmith Tools (Scott,
1996). I not only used the Wordsmith for lexical analysis, such as the analysis of the
most frequent words in the genre as a whole and in individual moves, and the analysis
of hedges and boosters, but also used the software for rhetorical analysis. After
hand-tagging the moves, I used the software to calculate the move frequencies, and to
provide a description of all the possibilities and the actual instances of move positions.
This is perhaps something that other corpus-based linguists have never tried before.
It is a pilot study also in the sense that I selected a sub-genre research grant proposal
abstracts to investigate the conventions and practices of Hong Kong grant proposal
writing. The sub-genre has attracted little previous attention among genre analysts.
Being a pilot study however, this current study has not included interview data.
Having no ethnographic data to help with the interpretation of quantitative results, the
study admittedly has its limitations.
The results of the study offer a detailed description of the linguistic, pragmatic, and
rhetorical features of the genre. The study has not only provided some useful insights
for corpus linguists in terms of how to fully exploit computer software and how to use
Wordsmith Tools to conduct move analysis, but also has implications for the training
of novice grant writers. There are a number of interesting findings of this study. Some
echoed my previous study of Canadian SSHRC proposal abstracts, such as the
existence of creating-a-research-space (CARS) need, the considerable space devoted
to research methods, and the existence of reporting the investigators previous
research instead of reporting items of previous research in general. There are also
some unique features of this corpus, for instance, that Hong Kong grant writers
seemed to be more inclined to set the scene for the reader by devoting much space to
presenting background information, establishing real-world territory, and offering
detailed explanations and justifications; and they seemed to be more conscious about
taking a mild tone in niche-indication by taking on board several strategies. These
findings serve the purpose of encourage(ing) rhetorical consciousness-raising
(Swales & Feak, 2004, p. 4) and helping neophyte grant writers to have a better
understanding of the unique features of grant proposal abstracts.
22
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Perspectives: Working Papers in English and Communication, 17(1) Spring 2006