Philippine E-Journals

Filipino Socio-Cultural Traits as Glimpsed in Dissertation Acknowledgments

Maurie Liza M. Nivales

Discipline: Genetic Engineering, Culture

 

Abstract:

Dissertation acknowledgments serve as avenues for researchers to shed off the cloak of objectivity characteristic of academic writing and show identity through their rhetorical choices. How infl uences of culture and traces of the writer’s identity are manifested in the writing of an independent part of an objective academic paper is the main question this study answered by investigating the rhetorical moves and forms, and analyzing them in their socio-cultural context. Thirty dissertation acknowledgements were randomly selected to achieve these research objectives. The selected samples were subjected to frequency count and analysis. Results show the presence of acknowledgement sections in most dissertations despite its optional status. The moves and other rhetorical choices made in the writing of dissertation acknowledgements reveal the infl uence of certain socio-cultural traits into writing.