A Cross-cultural Analysis of English and Arabic Blurbs: An Investigation into Generic Structure and Appraisal Markers

Abstract

This study investigated the generic structures and linguistic features of English and Arabic academic book blurbs from different disciplines. The study also examined appraisal markers in the blurbs within the appraisal framework to identify the main attitudinal markers that book blurb writers use to construe and negotiate attitudes with their intended readers. To carry out the aims of the study, 300 English and 300 Arabic blurbs from different disciplines in social sciences were selected. The findings of the study demonstrated that the generic structure of academic blurbs in English differ from that in Arabic. As for the appraisal markers, the findings revealed that both English and Arabic blurb writers widely deploy appraisal markers. The results showed that within the attitude category, appreciation markers were widely used and highly dominant. Within the engagement system, heteroglossic resources were higher than monoglossic ones and for graduation resources, they were widely used by both English and Arabic book blurb writers.

Keywords

• blurbs
• academic books
• genre
• appraisal markers