scholarly persuasion: analyzing rhetorical structures and linguistic features in scholarship motivation letters

This qualitative study aimed to analyze the rhetorical structures and linguistic features of motivation letters written by scholarship awardees when they applied to scholarship programs. 20 motivation letters written by former students of universitas islam negeri ar-raniry (uinar) and universitas syiah kuala (usk) were used for this study. the motivation letters were examined using a seven-step analysis model as a procedure to analyze genres in a discourse. the results showed five out of seven moves were used in the motivation letters. however, the way the students used the moves varied. move 1 (establishing credentials) and move 2 (introducing candidature) were found in 19 motivation letters while other moves were found variously in 1 to 4 motivation letters. this study concluded that the obligatory moves used in the motivation letters are (a) establishing credentials and (b) introducing candidature. linguistic features used in the data were personal pronouns, present simple tense, present perfect tense, passive voice, adverbs, and modals.