Exploring Sub-Disciplinary Variations and Generic Structure of Applied Linguistics Research Article Introductions Using Cars Model

This paper explores sub-disciplinary variations and generic structure of research article introductions (rais) within three sub-disciplines of applied linguistics (al); namely, english for specific purposes (esp), psycholinguistics, and sociolinguistics, using swales’(1990) cars model. the corpus consisted of 90 rais drawn from a wide range of refereed journals in the corresponding sub-disciplines. the results indicate sub-disciplinary variation in the structure of this genre in terms of move 2 / step 1b that can be justified through the concepts of ‘established’ versus ‘emerging’ fields. the findings underline the need for further in-depth research into sub-disciplinary variation and generic structure of rais. the results also promise pedagogical implications for esp/eap practitioners, course administrators as well as material developers.