From Summarizing to Persuading: Comparative Analysis of English And Uzbek Scientific Discourse

Abstract

Research article abstracts function as both informational summaries and access points to disciplinary knowledge. This study compares the rhetorical organisation and linguistic realisation of English and Uzbek research article abstracts, focusing on promotional and expository orientations. The corpus comprises 68 abstracts published between 2023 and 2025 and equally divided between the two languages. The texts were analysed using a five-move, fifteen-step model. Purpose and Results emerged as the most stable moves in both corpora, while Method and the complete five-move structure were more consistently represented in English abstracts. English writers more often separated communicative functions through finite research verbs, explicit data statements, reporting frames, and contribution claims. Uzbek abstracts more frequently integrated purpose, method, results, and evaluation through nominal-predicative constructions, action nominals, passive predicates, and extended enumerations. These differences are interpreted as discoursal and institutional preferences rather than fixed cultural traits. The main contrast concerns rhetorical visibility and information packaging, not the communicative functions themselves.