Comparative Thematic Analysis of Social Science Research Articles by Pakistani and British Research Scholars: A Corpus-Based Study

Abstract

Writers maintain the texture of the text and information with appropriate thematic choices. Previous studies have established that the problem of jumbled information existed in the academic writings of non-native English writers. Considering this, the present study aimed to analyze social science research articles written by Pakistani and British researchers keeping textual metafunction as the focal point. The objectives were to explain the functional interpretation of the thematic structures and figure out the dominant theme type in collected 160 research articles. The data was analyzed through feature coding of UAM corpus software to find out frequencies and percentages of themes and their types. The results revealed that the frequencies of themes in Pak-19 and Pak-20 were 1066 and 1252, while the frequencies in Bri-19 and Bri-20 were 1519 and 1883. Further, the findings suggested that the topical theme was frequently used as compared to textual and interpersonal themes. The second highest ratio was of textual theme as the frequencies of interpersonal theme were less as compared to textual. The topical themes functioned as noun groups, while the textual themes connected new information with previous information. Based on the findings, it was established that unmarked topical themes were prevailing in the research articles. Further, the use of finite, continuatives, and conjunctions was prevalent in textual themes.