Abstract

This study is focused on the analysis of rethorical categories in the Texbook genre across several disciplines. We aim at the determining the quantitative occurrence of the macro-moves, moves and steps identified in 126 university textbooks, as part of PUCV-2006 Corpus of Spanish. We distinguish the area of knowledge (Basic Sciences and Engineering and Social Sciences and Humanities) as well as four specific disciplines: Social Work, Psychology, Industrial Chemistry and Civil Construction. The results show variation patterns among the rhetorical macro-moves, moves and steps in respect of the disciplines involved. Disciplinarity emerges as a salient factor. SS and H texts reveal an important concentration in abstraction and focalization in theorizing. On the contrary, Basic Science texts show a strong didactic component and a clear concentration, which corresponds to procedural knowledge.