Document Type : Research

Authors

• Bahroz Mawlood ¹
• Abdorreza Tahriri ²
• Seyyed Ayatollah Razmjoo ³

¹ PhD student in English Language Teaching (ELT), University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran

² Associate Professor of ELT, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran

³ Professor of TEFL, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

Abstract

Metadiscourse is an essential component of academic writing, as it helps authors better communicate their ideas and engage their readers. It is through the analysis of the text's metadiscourse that one can explore academic writing and compare the rhetorical traits and preferences of various discourse communities (Hyland, 2005). To this end, this study examined the differences in the use, type, and frequency of interactional metadiscourse markers in the discussion and conclusion sections of political science and religious studies articles written in English language. The corpus of this study consisted of 45032 words extracted from fifty research articles, twenty-five articles in the field of political science, and twenty-five articles in the field of religious studies published between 2019 and 2023 in the top one high-impact factor and peer-reviewed international journals.
To analyze the data, one Eta and two Chi-square tests were run. Considering the interactional resources of Hyland’s (2005) metadiscourse model, the researchers uncovered that despite some subtle differences in the use, frequency, and types of these metadiscourse markers, “hedges” were the most and attitude markers were the least frequently used metadiscourse markers employed in both political science and religious studies disciplines. The findings have some educational implications that shed light on the need to encourage English language teachers, university professors, and publishers in the fields of TEFL and ESP to provide EFL learners with appropriate sources and settings to increase their familiarity with various metadiscourse markers, especially the category of interactional MDMs that aids them write coherently and establish genuine interaction with audiences.

Keywords

• metadiscourse markers
• interactional features
• academic writing
• religious studies
• political science

Main Subjects

• Language and linguistics

Appendix A:

Instances of Metadiscourse Markers

Attitude Markers

admittedly, agree, agrees, agreed, amazed, amazing, amazingly, appropriate, appropriately, astonished, astonishing, astonishingly, correctly, curious, curiously, desirable, desirably, disappointed, disappointing, disappointingly, disagree, disagreed, disagrees, dramatic, dramatically, essential, essentially, even x, expected, expectedly, fortunate, fortunately, hopeful, hopefully, important, importantly.

Boosters

actually, always, believe, believed, believes, beyond doubt, certain, certainly, clear, clearly, conclusively, decidedly, definite, definitely, demonstrate, demonstrated, demonstrates, doubtless, establish, established, evident, evidently, find, finds, found, m fact, incontestable, incontestably, incontrovertible, incontrovertibly.

Hedges

about, almost, apparent, apparently, appear, appeared, appears, approximately, argue, argued, argues, around, assume, assumed, broadly, certain amount, certain extent, certain level, claim, claimed, claims, could, couldn't, doubt, doubtful, essentially, estimate, estimated, fairly, feel, feels, felt, frequently, from my perspective, from our perspective, from this perspective, generally, guess.

Self-mention

I, we, me, my, our, mine, us, the author, the author’s, the writer, the writer’s.

Engagement Markers

(the) reader’s, add, allow, analyse, apply, arrange, assess, assume, by the way, calculate, choose, classify, compare, connect, consider, consult, contrast, define, demonstrate, determine, do not, develop, employ, ensure, estimate, evaluate, find, follow, go, have to, imagine, incidentally, increase, input, insert, integrate, key, let x=y, let us, let’s, look at, mark, measure, mount, must, need to, note, notice, observe, one’s, order, ought, our (inclusive), pay, picture, prepare, recall, recover, refer, regard, remember, remove, review, see, select, set, should, show, suppose, state, take (a look/ as example), think about, think of, turn, us (inclusive), use, we (inclusive), you, your.