The present paper is a genre analysis of linguistics books prefaces in English and Arabic. Following Swales' (1990) genre framework, this study is a small scale-based generic analysis of 80 preface texts, equally divided into 40 texts from English and Arabic. The corpus analysis revealed that to perform its communicative function, the genre of the preface sections has nine component moves with some variation between the two languages. As to move type and frequency, the rhetorical structure of preface genre varies to some extent in the two different languages under investigation. In addition, the socio-cultural practices and assumptions of the book writers of the two languages are embedded in the language of preface genre. Due to the limitation of the present study, further research is required to examine this genre in depth.