ABSTRACT
Interest shown in academic discourse by applied linguists, sociologists of sci ence, and teachers of languages for specific purposes has produced a substan tial and diverse body of research. A particularly rich seam running though the academic discourse literature is work which can be broadly described as ‘genre analytic’, spanning, as it does, studies carried out by Systemic linguists in Australia and beyond, by the N orth American New Rhetoricians, and by those, like myself, who are primarily concerned with teaching English for academic purposes.
