The Language of Mathematics: A Corpus-based Analysis of Research Article Writing in a Neglected Field

Research article writing has received a great deal of attention from ESP researchers. Analyses of the general structure of Introduction-Method-Results-Discussion (IMRD) articles, as well as detailed analyses of individual sections, including introductions, results, and discussions sections, have dominated the ESP literature, especially following Swales' pioneering work on introductions in the early 1980s. Surprisingly, however, the writing of mathematics research articles has been almost completely neglected to date. A few reasons for this can be speculated, including a) the assumption that mathematics writing is similar to that in the well-covered areas