Review Articles in the English-Language Medical Discourse: Functional Systematization of Genre Varieties

Introduction. Review is a common type of academic articles, however, its genre status, as well as discursive characteristics of its varieties, have yet to be studied. Analysis of discourse practices of Review in the English-language segment of academic medical discourse might bridge this gap, therefore the objective of the paper is to systematize genre varieties of English-language medical Review in the context of the functional approach to publication discourse practices. Methodology and sources. The research corpus was collected with original review articles from the leading medical journals, i.e. The New England Journal of Medicine, The British Medical Journal, The Lancet. Semantic analysis, as well as definition analysis, were used to study the requirements for authors, which contents were then verified by the contents and structure of the original articles to assess their genre varieties. Comparative analysis of genre characteristics was used to systematize traditional types of review article, as well as to identify relatively new and specific genre varieties for medical academic discourse. Results and discussion. The universal genre of review scientific articles in the English-language medical discourse include Review (the Lancet), Clinical Review (BMJ), Clinical Practice Review (NEJM). Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis in medical discourse focus on a comprehensive analysis of bibliographic sources, databases and scientific literature and largely promote evidence-based approaches in medicine. Specific genre varieties of Review, namely Live Systematic Review, Hypotheses, Seminar, Series, Viewpoint, Therapeutics, were identified and analyzed. Conclusion. The functional approach to Review systematization in the English-language segment of medical academic discourse has proven effective and potentially applicable to other genres, types of discourse and language cultures.

Authors: Yulia N. Naumenko, Anna O. Stebletsova

Direction: Linguistics

Keywords: review, functional approach, medical discourse, genre types

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