The 9th International Conference on English Language Teaching (ELT) In China (ELT2020)

Scientific American 60-Second Science is a popular podcast for people to perceive the latest scientific findings, and often regarded by English learners as a perfect platform for them to train their listening abilities. However, few scholars have concentrated on the generic structure and language features of 60-Second Science up to now. This paper is devoted to studying this genre from macro and micro perspectives by analyzing the corpus made up of 50 transcripts with genre analysis approach, in which quantitative and qualitative methods are also applied. For the rhetorical structure of this genre, it is found that 60-Second Science has four obligatory moves of Orientation, Methods, Results, Conclusion and four optional moves of Finding/Claim, Introduction, Purpose, Discussion. Moreover, the results concerning the typical linguistic features illustrate that direct quotations are frequently used in Introduction, Results, Discussion, and model verbs usually have a high frequency in moves Discussion and Conclusion. It is believed that the study will give insights to the listeners understanding the main ideas of the podcast and journalists selecting appropriate language and pattern to build quality content, meanwhile being conducive to enriching the system of genre analysis.

60-Second Science,genre analysis,moves,language features