A Genre-Based Investigation of Move Structure in Literature Review Sections of Applied Linguistics Research Articles

The Literature Review (LR) section has been comparatively under-researched in genre-based studies, especially when it comes to published journal articles in Applied Linguistics, a genre that has been described as rhetorically complex. Although studies on LR sections have been conducted in doctoral dissertations and master's theses at the genre level, there has been no systematic study that has introduced the frequency-based classification criteria into the study of Applied Linguistics journal articles based on the four-move model proposed by Hsiao and Yu (2012). The purpose of this study was to describe the rhetorical move structure of the LR sections in Applied Linguistics research articles, to identify which moves are mandatory, conventional, and optional, and to compare the results with other studies conducted in similar situations (theses and dissertations). The data source consisted of a purposive sample of 10 articles from the areas of Applied Linguistics research field published between 2021 and 2026. The LR sections were analyzed in terms of the four-move analytical framework developed by Hsiao and Yu (2012): Move 1 (Conceptualizing Themes in a Field), Move 2 (Integrating Previous Works), Move 3 (Relating Previous Works to the Current Study), and Move 4 (Advancing to One's Own Research). All LR sections were analyzed sentence by sentence and the moves and steps were categorized according to the frequency-based criteria developed by Kanoksilapatham (2005, 2011) as obligatory (100%), conventional (60–99%) and optional (less than 60%). The findings showed that all four moves had to be made in all parts of the corpus; therefore, there was a high level of genre stabilization in the LR sections of Applied Linguistics journal articles. On the step level, five steps were considered obligatory, five were considered conventional, and one was considered optional, where gap-indication (Step 3.2) and source integration (Step 2.1) were the steps that were most consistently achieved. Unlike Sumayo and Tulud's (2021) thesis corpus, which yielded a discipline-specific step, no other steps beyond Hsiao and Yu's model were found. The results provide a genre description of LR conventions in Applied Linguistics and have implications for the teaching of academic writing in Applied Linguistics, especially for novice researchers and EFL/ESL learners.