The Use of Interactive Metadiscourse in Research Articles: A Corpus-Based Case Study of Astronautics

Abstract

Based on Hyland’s interpersonal model of interactive metadiscourse, this study adopts astronautics as a research case to investigate the textual features of research articles, aiming to investigate the use of metadiscourse in research articles and assist academic writing for students who major in astronautics. A corpus consisting of 43 research articles published in Journal of Guidance, Control and Dynamics (JGCD) in 2020 and 2021 was built. AntConc 3.5.9 was utilized for searching and counting the standardized frequency results, so as to identify the most frequently used expressions. Results show that transition markers are most frequently used (35.72 per 1,000 word tokens), accounting for 65.62% of the total amount of interactive metadiscourse. The frequency of evidentials is the lowest, i.e., 0.26 per 1,000 word tokens, accounting for 0.48%. These indicate that transition markers play an important role in research articles in astronautics owing to the high requirement of logical expression. The low frequency of evidentials reflects low-level of dependency from others’ opinions, focusing on own experiments and argumentations. The relatively high frequencies of frame markers and endophoric markers confirm that straightforward logic and clear structure together with transparent figures are preferred in research articles in astronautics.