Cross Disciplinary Rhetorical-Linguistic Variations in Physical Education Research Article Abstracts in English as a Lingua Franca for Academia Context

Abstract Publication in the Anglophone-dominant journals in the Education Internationalization Age is highly challenging for non-native writers, making it for instructors of the English for Academic Purposes and English for Research Publication Purposes inevitable to enhance the authors’ ability by informing them of the latest variations in research articles and their highly important part (abstract), caused by English as a Lingua Franca for Academia. To identify the rhetorical-linguistic variations in abstracts of two Physical Education sub-disciplines in the English as a Lingua Franca for Academia contexts, 120 Research Article Abstracts (60 in Sports Medicine and 60 in Sports Management) were randomly selected from six distinguished journals in Iran, India and America, that fall within Kachru’s (1985) Three-Circle (Expanding, Outer and Inner) World Englishes Model. The abstracts underwent analyses of move structure, using Hyland’s (2000) I-P-M-R-C model, and lexico-grammatical features. Results showed Move 3, I-P-M-R-C and `study’ were the most dominant move, move pattern and lexis, respectively, also highlighting move hybrids, repetitions, omissions and dispositions. The Expanding and Inner circle writers were highly homogeneous and closer than the Outer circle ones. This study has pedagogical implications for the Academic Writing and Research Publishing instructors, helping them design courses and tasks more insightfully. Keywords: Abstract, ELFA, Moves, Sports, Publication