Abstract

Insufficient knowledge in constructing acknowledgements may lead to improper expressions of gratitude (Hyland, 2004). As such, the primary objective of this study is to investigate the strategies for expressing gratitude in thesis acknowledgements within the context of Malaysian ESL postgraduate students. Correspondingly, this study adopted Haverkate's (1984) framework of thanking strategies to examine how Malaysian ESL postgraduates express gratitude in their thesis acknowledgements. Content analysis of the acknowledgements in 30 PhD theses written by Malaysian ESL postgraduates revealed that most of the postgraduate students thanked the addressees explicitly to express their gratitude. In essence, the findings of this study contribute to the limited number of studies on expressions of gratitude in thesis acknowledgements as well as helping future postgraduate students indicate the best choice of gratitude expressions to acknowledge those who have helped them over the course of their postgraduate studies.