RHETORICAL MOVES IN IELTS OPINION ESSAYS: PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING ACADEMIC WRITING AT TERTIARY LEVEL

This study investigates the rhetorical move structure and linguistic realizations in highscoring IELTS opinion essays. Adopting a mixed-methods genre analysis approach that integrates qualitative and quantitative analysis, this research draws on Hyland’s (1990) move analysis framework. The corpus was purposively obtained from public sources widely used among IELTS learners as reference texts for self-study and writing practice, comprising 20 highscoring opinion essays covering a wide range of topics commonly encountered in the IELTS writing test. The findings reveal that the Proposition in the introduction and the Claim–Support sequence in body paragraphs occur in all essays examined, while the conclusion consistently employs Marker and Affirmation moves. The essays also show recurrent use of linguistic realizations associated with specific moves. These results underscore the need to emphasize obligatory moves and high-frequency linguistic realizations in academic writing instruction, while encouraging learners to experiment with optional moves for greater rhetorical sophistication.