Moves and Steps of English Memorandum of Understanding of Public and Private Universities in Thailand
King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Thailand
ABSTRACT
This study aims at analysing moves and steps of public and private universities’ English Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and finding similarities and differences in both corpora. Two corpora comprising of 47 public universities’ MOUs and 10 private universities’ MOUs were analysed based on two previous frameworks. However, for analytical purposes, these universities’ information related to their identities such as a university’s name and a logo, a program’s name, an authorized person’s name, and a signature were blinded to preserve confidentiality. The findings revealed that the most frequent moves and steps in both sets of data were Move 1 (Title), Move 3 (Date of agreement), Move 4 (Parties’ identity), Step 4.1 (Parties’ names), Move 6 (Content), Step 6.1 (Scope of understanding), Move 7 (Signatures), and Step 7.1 (Name), followed by Move 5 (Aim of the MOU) and Step 6.4 (Implementation and termination). Moreover, Move 2 (Background), Move 8 (Focal points), and Move 9 (Additional annexes as required) were more important moves in the private universities’ MOUs. The frequency of these moves may be because of an awareness of the importance of a private university’s motive to exist. Therefore, in order to base their existence on making profits, stating the benefits of the MOU, agreed on work plans, budgetary matters are likely to be found in the private universities’ MOUs. Furthermore, Step 6.3 (Confidentiality) was prominent in the MOUs of the private universities. This may be because private universities aim to overtake their competitors and maximize their profit. Consequently, they give confidentiality importance more than public universities do. This paper is, therefore believed to contribute to writers and readers, especially those from non-English backgrounds to facilitate their MOU writing and reading. It also has some pedagogical implications for academic writing courses for students who from non-English backgrounds.
KEYWORDS
Genre analysis, Moves, Steps, Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)