An investigation into residential buildings introduction articles in english magazines

Abstract

There have been many theses on discourse analysis, but few have been discovered in the field of architecture in general, and in residential buildings introduction articles in particular. Therefore, the thesis namely “A Discourse Analysis of Residential Buildings Introduction Articles in English Magazines” is carried out to fill that gap. What is focused in this thesis are layout, syntactic features, lexical features and cohesion of Residential Buildings Introduction Articles. A great number of 150 samples of RBIAs are collected carefully in famous magazines from many countries such as: The USA, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. The data are in electronic versions downloaded from the Internet and authorized magazine online stores. In term of layout, a RIBA is comprised of two main parts: overview and residential buildings details. There are six basic elements making a complete overview of a RBIA. They are Main heading, Subheading, Byline, Illustrations, Captions and Pull-quotes. This overview is a crucial part which features a RBIA. The syntactic features examine passive voice, direct and indirect speeches, inversion. We present such elements like location verbs, descriptive adjectives, proper nouns in terms of lexical choices. In addition, cohesion is put into consideration in which reference, ellipsis, conjunction and repetition are explored. On the basis of the findings, the thesis sets out some implications and suggestions for teaching and learning in both languages. The research result can be useful for teachers, freelances and journalism students, as well as readers who are fond of RBIAs.