Minoo Alemi - Islamic Azad University, Tehran-west Branch, Tehran, Iran
Atefeh Rezanejad - Allameh Tabataba&#۰۳۹;i University, Tehran, Iran

Acknowledgments are vital since students/researchers can demonstrate their genuine appreciation through them and more importantly shape their (local/global) academic identity. In line with this significance, the present study examined the move patterns of ۵۰۳ Persian dissertation acknowledgements from two major universities in Iran, from ۱۹۸۱ to ۲۰۱۴ and from sixteen various disciplines including soft and hard science disciplines. Overall, ۶۵,۳۲۳ words were analyzed. By and large, a careful examination and analysis of the corpus indicated that Iranian university students follow a three-tier moves pattern in writing a dissertation acknowledgments, namely a “Framing move” (including six micro steps), a main “Thanking move” (consisting of nine micro steps), and a “Closing move” (containing four micro steps). Moreover, the results indicated that the longest and shortest acknowledgments were ۹۸۶ and ۴ words respectively. The results also indicated that there was a significant difference in the complexity of acknowledgments in hard and soft science disciplines. The results of this study can hold valuable implications for both university students and professors who aspire an appropriate, coherent, and to the point display of scholarly competence and academic identity.

Generic structure, Persian, dissertation acknowledgments