University of Sistan and Baluchestan Iranian Journal of Applied Language Studies 2008-5494 2 2 2012 12 26 A Genre Analysis of Persian Research Article Abstracts: Communicative Moves and Author Identity 47 74 70 10.22111/ijals.2012.70 EN Mostafa Hasrati Razi University, Iran Amer Gheitury Razi University, Iran Journal Article 2012 12 26 Most studies within the area of genre analysis, particularly those conducted in Iran, have exclusively used text analysis. While such investigations have led to important understandings of generic features of texts, it can be argued that incorporating interview data for triangulation can lead to better understanding of generic features of texts. Along this line, this paper reports the results of a qualitative study of Persian RA abstracts written by native speakers of Persian. Taking a macro and a micro structure framework, this article will look into the ‘moves’ and ‘author identity’ in such RA abstracts. Two patterns are often associated with English academic prose: <em>Introduction-Methods-Results-Discussion</em> and CARS (Create-a-research-space) (Lores, 2004). This, however, did not seem to be the case in most RA abstracts under study. The other feature of Persian RA abstracts to be explored is the absence of first person pronoun. One preliminary hypothesis would be to attribute this to a carry-over of positivistic traditions (Hyland, 2001), though qualitative interviews pointed to a close link between lack of reference to self and modesty as a cultural norm among the participants under study.  https://ijals.usb.ac.ir/article_70_c405218b481e24fda667194a5eeff3be.pdf