Zitationspraxen in deutschsprachigen Fachaufsatzeinleitungen

Abstract

Since Swales’ groundbreaking article (1990) on the rhetorical structure of research article introductions, a growing number of studies have explored the move structure of introductions. There is an enormous body of work analyzing citation practices in academic writing. Nevertheless, relatively little attention has been paid to the analysis of citation practices within different moves. This exploratory study of five German research articles investigates the relation of amount and types of citations within the different moves of research article introductions. The description and discussion of the five sample papers results in the following hypotheses: German research article introductions (1) can be divided in a territory-, a niche-, and a project-driven type, (2) prefer non-integral citations, (3) use indirect citations to establish a territory and (4) link the announced research to disciplinary fields using the instrument of direct terminology quotations.