Interactional Metadiscourse Research Articles

Metadiscourse Analysis of Pakistani English Newspaper Editorials: A Corpus-Based Study

Metadiscourse markers (MMs) are lexical resources that writers use to organize their discourse and express their stance about the content or the reader. Metadiscourse analysis of Pakistani English Newspaper Editorials (PENE) has been conducted. The corpus of this study has contained 1000 editorials taken from four renowned Pakistani newspapers: Dawn News (DN), The Frontier (TF), The Express Tribune (TET) and The News (TN). The distribution of 250 editorials from each newspaper has been retrieved from online sources. The frequencies of metadiscourse features (MFs) have been counted and compared, and further studied metadiscourse features (MFs) functionally on the basis of propositional and non-propositional contents. A comprehensive model on Interpersonal metadiscourse has been proposed and it has been categorized into interactive and interactional markers. A comprehensive scheme of metadiscourse markers (MMs) has been proposed for the analysis of the present study. The findings revealed that all corpora used more interactive than interactional markers. In this regard, the sub-categories of interactive metadiscourse such as sequencing markers and transition markers have been frequently observed in the corpus of The Frontier (TF) as compared to other said corpora. The sub-categories of interactional metadiscourse such as engagement, and hedges have been frequently seen in the corpus of The Frontier (TF) as compared to other said corpora. In conclusion, this study has claimed that The Frontier (TF) is more reader-friendly because of the excessive use of interactive metadiscourse.

Revisiting Metadiscourse Markers of the Language Learners in Academic Writing

This study which explores successful and less-successful learners' comparative essays written by university students learning Turkish, which is based on two corpora of student writing: 20 successful essays and 20 less-successful essays in Turkish. Using Hyland's (2005) model of interactional metadiscourse, these papers were compared to examine the extent to which successful and less successful student-produced comparative essays differ in their employment of interactive and interactional modes. Findings of the analysis suggest that successful essays contain significantly greater instances of particularly interactive devices than less successful essays. How to cite: Cubukcu, F. (2017). Revisiting Metadiscourse Markers of the Language Learners in Academic Writing. Revista Romaneasca pentru Educatie Multidimensionala , 9(2), 36-47. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18662/rrem/2017.0902.02

Analysis of Metadiscourse Features in Argumentative Writing by Pakistani Undergraduate Students

Metadiscourse involves the interaction between the reader and the writer of the text in the overall process of communication. Metadiscourse not only guides the reader to understand the primary message of the text through structure and content, but also it intimates the reader with the particular slants and perspectives in the primary discourse. The students have to master the use of Metadiscourse in their writings. The purpose of this study is to examine the distribution and frequency of Metadiscourse features used by Pakistani undergraduate students in their argumentative essays and to analyze roles played by these particular features. Moreover, the research explores the extent of appropriateness and inappropriateness in this particular text as well. Hyland’s Interpersonal model of Metadiscourse (2005) was adapted to conduct the present study. AntConc 3.4.4 software is used for corpus analysis of the text. Findings show that Pakistani undergraduate students are more comfortable with using Interactional Metadiscourse 61% rather than Interactive dimension 39%. It has been observed that undergraduate students used high score of self-mentions 37% and engagement markers 37%. Endophoric markers were not used by these students 0%. Findings have considerable importance, as they assist the learners to figure out the problems of the students regarding the use of Metadiscourse. Trainings should be given to the students to use these features appropriately.

A Study of Interactional Metadiscourse in English Abstracts of Chinese Economics Research Articles

This study adopts the revised interpersonal model of metadiscourse to discover whether and to what extent Chinese authors employ a varying amount of Interactional Metadiscourse (IM) in the past decade in English abstracts of economics Research Articles (RAs). The data was drawn from a prestigious economics journal in China to compose a corpus of 289 abstracts. The analysis indicates that Chinese authors harmonize with English counterparts by capitalizing on more hedges, while the amount of boosters unexpectedly maintains at a high level over time, both of which can be attributed to the interaction of Chinese deep-seated cultural leanings and Anglo-American cultural preferences. Consistent with our prediction, attitude markers exhibit no significant difference along the years given the initial parallel with English counterparts. However, there are significant differences of self-mentions in the past decade regardless of English rhetorical conventions, which may be attributed to economical influences in China. With regards to engagement features, they remain relatively underused with no marked difference within the period resulting from the genre-specific factor which confines their use.

Exploring the Rhetorical Use of Interactional Metadiscourse: A Comparison of Letters to Shareholders of American and Chinese Financial Companies

By taking Hyland and Tse’s (2004) interactional metadiscourse model, this study attempts to compare the incidence of the interactional metadiscourse markers in letters to shareholders of American and Chinese companies in the financial industry and their rhetorical functions. This study makes American corpus of 41 letters and Chinese corpus of 37 letters both of which are written in English. WordSmith is adopted to find out the differences in incidence of these markers. Chi-square test further confirms these differences are significant. It is consequently found that five types of interactional metadiscourse markers are all deployed in both American and Chinese corpus but the incidence of each marker is much more in American corpus than that in Chinese corpus. Besides, this study identifies that self-mentions and engagement markers are the most frequently employed in both corpora. However, it is noticeable that self-mentions and engagement markers collaborate with another three types of markers more tactically and flexibly in American corpus than in Chinese. In particular, self-mentions markers are found to use with not only boosters, but hedges and engagement markers in American corpus, while self-mentions markers in Chinese corpus only collaborate with hedges. In addition, the engagement markers of model verbs and personal pronouns are more active in American corpus than these in Chinese. This study finds out American companies integrate these markers into building a positive personal or corporate image and closing writer-reader relationship, thereby accomplishing the promotional and persuasive purposes. It may suggest that Chinese companies employ the integration of interactional metadiscourse markers as strategically as American.

Metadiscourse in persuasive essays by elementary students in South Korea and the US

AbstractThis study investigated metadiscourse in the persuasive essays of fourth graders from both urban and rural communities: 224 students in South Korea and 188 in the US. Each student was asked to write a persuasive essay in his or her native Korean or English in response to a story not previously read or discussed. Analysis with a taxonomy developed by Hyland (2004) indicated significant differences in the metadiscourse by country. In terms of interactive metadiscourse, South Korean students used more sentence-level transitions than U.S. students, who used more frame markers and endophoric markers. With regard to interactional metadiscourse, U.S. students used more hedges, boosters, engagement markers, and self-mentions in their essays. This study also compared the students′ essays by the type of community in which the writers lived. In the US the essays of students in rural communities contained more hedges, whereas those of students in urban areas included significantly more self-mentions. In South Korea, no significant difference was detected in the metadiscourse of students living in rural and urban areas.

The use of interactional metadiscourse features to present a textual voice: A case study of undergraduate writing in two departments at the University of Botswana

In recent years, there has been an increased emphasis on the interpersonal function of metadiscourse features in academic texts. This means that research on writing in academic contexts began to focus on the rhetorical features, such as interactional metadiscourse, that writers use to present their voice in writing. These developments in academic writing have also considered the context in which specific genres are produced. Using a multiple-methods approach to genre analysis, this article compares students’ use of interactional metadiscourse features in two undergraduate courses, Media Studies and Primary Education at the University of Botswana. A total of 40 student essays were analysed. Interviews with students and lecturers in the two departments were also done to understand the context in which the essays were produced. The comparison of interactional metadiscourse features in the two corpora indicated that interactional metadiscourse markers were present, but that there were variations in the use and distribution of these features by the learners. Contextual information shows that such variations reflect the different values and beliefs about academic writing of the discourse communities that students belong to. These values and beliefs can be problematic for English for Specific Purposes (EAP) lecturers who have to prepare students for writing in the various disciplines in L2 contexts.

Comparative study of metadiscourse markers employed in defense sessions of TEFL and Persian literature graduate students

This study aimed to explore the differences between TEFL and Persian literature graduate students in terms of applying metadiscourse markers in their oral presentations in defense sessions. The corpus of this study comprised the transcripts of oral presentations recorded in defense sessions of 30 graduate students, both male and female, from Islamic Azad University, Najaf Abad Branch, and it was divided into two parts of TEFL and Persian literature transcripts (each 15 transcripts). Based on Hyland's (2005) taxonomy, interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers were identified in transcripts and both descriptive and inferential statistics were utilized to analyze the data. According to the descriptive analysis, both TEFL and Persian literature graduate students employed interactive markers more frequently than interactional ones. Moreover, the use of interactive markers by Persian literature students was more than TEFL students, but the use of interactional markers was approximately similar for students in two disciplines. Regarding the inferential analysis, findings indicated that TEFL and Persian literature students were statistically different in terms of using different types of interactive and interactional markers. Nevertheless, there was a significant difference between TEFL and Persian literature students based on overall use of interactive markers and there was not observed any significant difference between them in terms of overall use of interactional ones. Generally, the results showed that Persian literature students applied metadiscourse markers more than TEFL students in their oral presentations. Findings of this study would be useful for teachers in guiding students to apply these markers in their speech to make it more coherent.

A Comparative Study of Interactive and Interactional Metadiscourse Markers in Sales Contract Written by English Natives vs. Iranian Non-natives

This study investigated two major types of metadiscourse markers as used in typical sales contracts, written by English natives and Iranian non-natives. In so doing, 60 sales contracts were selected, 30 written by native English and 30 by Iranian non-natives. Based on Hyland and Tse’s taxonomy, the contracts were codified and classified in terms of the frequency and percentage of the interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers found. The results revealed that Iranian non-natives used more interactive metadiscourse markers while natives used more interactional metadiscourse markers. The latter also used more hedges in their sales contracts compared to non-natives.

Türkçe bilimsel metinlerde etkileşimli üstsöylem belirleyicileri

Metadiscourse defines a new field in the areas of discourse analysis and language education. At the same time it involves the relationship between the authors, the texts and the readers of the text. Despite its importance of metadiscourse, it is often perceived in different forms and leads to different language uses. In this study, interactive metadiscourse markers in Turkish Scientific Texts on the basis of Hyland (2005)'s metadiscourse model are examined. Within this context, the database of the study consists of randomly selected original research articles from different branches (psychology, history, sociology, educational sciences, philosophy and tourism) in the field of social sciences.

STRUCTURAL COMPLEXITY OF POPULAR SCIENCE NARRATIVES OF DISCOVERY AS AN INDICATOR OF READER-AWARENESS: A LABOV-INSPIRED APPROACH

1.IntroductionNarrative is a popular form of knowledge dissemination. In fact, some scholars (see, for example, Schank 1990; Gjedde 2000; Boyd 2009; Herman 2009) suggest that it is the preferred method for humans to acquire and process new information. It is no wonder that in recent decades such disciplines as communication of science to the public, philosophy of science, and science as culture have been paying increased attention to narratives and their ability to transfer complex scientific concepts to lay audiences. Narrative analysis of popular science contributes to the exploration of the language of popular science as a discourse category. Just as the languages of individual scientific disciplines can be seen as separate discourse categories (see, for example, Mackinnon 2010 for a discussion of the language of classical physics) or as the unified language of science, the language of popular science can be parsed into several discourses or analyzed as one. This study treats the language of popular science as a subsuming discourse category and suggests that the underlying narrative structure explored here is suitable for popularization of a variety of scientific disciplines.Recent studies (see, for example, Reitsma 2010; Blanchard et al. 2015; Hermwille 2016) demonstrate that the explanatory and contextualizing abilities of popular science narratives appeal not only to the science-minded laymen but also to the decision-making social power structures such as grant-providing agencies or policy-creating institutions. In that, popular science narratives have helped popular science to cross the boundaries of intellectual entertainment and become vital pieces of the technological and socio-economic spheres.While the awareness of the importance of narrative in communication of science is obvious, the linguistic insight into the structure of such narratives remains somewhat underdeveloped. Those who investigate popular science from the point of view of linguistics (see, for example, Moirand 2003; Myers 2003; Turney 2004; De Oliveira and Pagano 2006; Fu and Hyland 2014) tend to address either broad issues such as explanatory properties (see, for example, Turney 2004) or the general structure and effectiveness of a message (see, for example, Moirand 2003; Myers 2003). Others take a very narrow approach that addresses one specific linguistic issue (see, for example, De Oliveira and Pagano 2006 or Urbanova 2012 for analyses of discourse presentation; Fu and Hyland 2014 for exploration of interactional metadiscourse). General narratology usually regards scientific and popular scientific discourses as a side note (see, for example, Herman 2009).It might be tempting, in the circumstances, to propose a structural system that could account for and explicate popular science narratives and in the process introduce specific steps that successful narratives follow. Such a system would be equally useful for writers and for analysts who have to evaluate popular science narratives in order to make public policy decisions. However, as this article shows, there is no need to invent a new framework.In 1967, Labov and Waletzky introduced a structural framework for analyzing oral narratives of personal experience. In 1972, through a casestudy, Labov perfected this model. Since then numerous studies proved the applicability of the model to narratives other than those relating personal experiences. In fact, Labov's (1972) model (with modifications) has served as a springboard for structural analyses of literary narratives, narratives of children, and several types of personal narratives not examined by Labov (for example, see Peterson and McCabe 1983, Plum 1988, Berman 1997, Fleischman 1997, Baerger and McAdam 1999). So far, the value of the model has been in its universality; it is capable of exposing the underlying narrative structure of multiple text types. However, Labov's (1972) framework for narrative analysis can do more. …

Comparative study of metadiscourse markers in ELT textbooks and Iranian localized high school English textbooks

The present study attempted to investigate the use of interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers in two commonly ELT textbooks in Iran, namely, Iranian high school English textbooks, compared with the American English File series. To achieve the purpose of this study, all the reading sections in high school textbooks, Book 3 and Book 4 were selected. To have an equal amount of data in four textbooks, the first 6769 words in American English File Books 3 and 4 and 6769 words in high school English Books 3 and 4 were considered. To ensure the equality of the level of difficulty, the Flesch’s (1948) readability formula was employed. According to Hyland (2005) model, interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers were identified in reading sections of these four textbooks. The descriptive analysis of the study revealed that interactional metadiscourse markers were used more in American English File series, however, interactive ones were applied more in Iranian high school textbooks. The findings showed that there were significant differences in the case of code glosses and evidentials in two series of textbooks. The use of code glosses in Iranian high school textbooks was higher than the other corpus, whereas evidentials were used more than the other interactive markers in American English File series. The results of chi-square analysis indicated that there were significant differences between two textbooks series in terms of using interactional markers. But there were not significant differences in applying the interactive ones. Among different categories of interactional metadiscourse markers, engagement markers were used more than other interactional markers in the Iranian high school textbooks and self-mentions applied more in American English File series. The findings of this study have some useful implications for teachers, curriculum designers, and material developers.

Comparing metadiscourse markers employed in English and Persian online headlines

This study aimed to investigate the differences in the use of metadiscourse markers between Persian and English online headlines about the first two months of the year 2015. To this end, the corpora in the present study comprise a total of 100 Persian and English online headlines (each 50 headlines) were chosen randomly from English and Persian newscasts such as VOA, CNN, Bistosi (20:30), and Bashgahkhabarnegaran. The specific research area of interest was whether online Persian and English headlines made a similar field-specific use of metadiscourse markers. The corpora were recorded and divided in two groups of Persian online headlines and English online headlines. The corpora also consisted of different fields, politics, economic, sport, entertainment, cultural, social, and world news. According to Hyland’s (2005) model, interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers were identified in online headlines. The analysis revealed that according to descriptive statistics Persian fields made more use of the metadiscourse markers than English fields. The findings of this research would help to keep journalism students aware of this aspect of metadiscourse.

Metadiscourse Markers of Online Texts: English and Persian Online Headlines Use of Metadiscourse Markers

The aim of the present study was to illuminate the differences between Persian and English in online headlines in terms of applying metadiscourse markers in the first two months of the year 2015. To fulfill this purpose, 100 Persian and English online headlines (each 50 headlines) were chosen randomly from English and Persian newscasts such as VOA, CNN, Bistosi (20:30), and Bashgahkhabarnegaran . The specific research areas of interest was whether online Persian and English headlines differed in making use of metadiscourse markers. The corpus was recorded and divided in two groups of Persian online headlines and English online headlines. According to Hyland’s (2005) model, interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers were identified in online headlines. Corpus analysis showed that according to descriptive statistics, Persian and English were not significantly different in using metadiscourse markers in online headlines. The findings can help to keep journalism students aware of this aspect of metadiscourse. Keywords: Metadiscourse, English headlines, Persian headlines, Field-specific

Interactions in L1 and L2 undergraduate student writing: Interactional metadiscourse in successful and less-successful argumentative essays

This study explores interactional metadiscourse in successful and less-successful (i.e., A- vs. B-graded) argumentative essays written by Chinese ESL university students, and how these ESL writers compare with high-rated L1 students. The analysis is based on three corpora of student writing: 25 successful ESL essays, 25 less-successful ESL essays, and 25 successful L1 English papers. Using Hyland’s (2005a) model of interactional metadiscourse, these papers were compared to examine the extent to which successful and less-successful student-produced argumentative essays differ in their employment of stance and engagement resources. Findings of the analysis suggest that successful essays, both L1 and L2, contain significantly greater instances of particularly hedging devices than less-successful essays. For some interpersonal resources, such as boosters and attitude markers, no significant differences were found. The analysis also reveals that, unlike their L1 peers, ESL students were overwhelmingly reluctant to establish an authorial identity in their writing. The paper concludes with a few implications for L2 writing pedagogy.

Use of Metadiscourse in L1 and L2 Student Newspapers: Interactional Features of Argumentation in Editorials

This paper aims to investigate the effect of cultural factors and genre-specific conventions on the use of interactional metadiscourse within a journalistic genre. In doing so, a contrastive rhetoric research has been conducted to examine two different sub-corpora: a corpus of100 student newspaper editorials obtained from 10 Korean universities and from 7 UK universities, respectively, both written in English. Based on Hyland’s model (2005), interactional met discourse markers were analysed. The results showed that interactional metadiscourse markers are present in both L1 and L2 texts, but that there are variations in regard to the distribution and rhetorical use of such markers, specifically, in the case of engagement markers and self-mentions. A higher frequency of engagement markers and lower frequency of hedges in L2are unexpectedly noticeable and the functions of rhetorical questions between two corpora are different. This all yields an insight into howL2 writers project themselves into their written discourse to render the text more reader-oriented in attaining rhetorical persuasion in newspaper editorials. Pedagogical L2 writing resources should be given to teach Korean L2 writers alternative strategies for both genre-specific and culture-specific devices that are frequently used in newspaper editorials.

English

The study investigates how interactional metadiscourse resources are used to articulate and construct gender identity among ESL learners in Malaysia. The main purpose of the study is to provide language practitioners with empirical data of how gender is projected in the academic writings of ESL learners and to what extent learners’ writings are affected by their gender. The data can then be utilised for the design and development of more effective academic writing courses in Malaysia. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were performed on the similarities and differences in the use of interactional metadiscourse resources, namely; hedges, boosters, attitude markers, engagement markers and self mentions between male and female ESL learners involved in the study. The findings of the quantitative analyses show no obvious differences in the writing style of female and male writers in the study, while the qualitative findings reveal slight differences in the way writers position themselves in the reader/writer interaction and in the expression of agreement statement. Keywords: i nteractional metadiscourse; gender; identities; argumentative writing; ESL learners DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2016-2201-16

The Effect of a Suggested Program Based on Interactional Metadiscourse Markers on Developing EFL Majors’ Reading Comprehension and the Reader-friendliness of Their Writing

This study attempted to investigate the effect of using a suggested program of interactional metadiscourse markers on EFL majors’ reading comprehension and on their reader-friendly writing. The study used a pre-test/post-test experimental and control group design. An experimental group and a control group were exposed to pre-post means of getting data (a pre-post reading comprehension test and pre-post writing test). Thirty four EFL majors at the College of Education and Arts, Northern Borders University, participated in this study. A 10-week program of interactional metadiscourse markers was developed and given to experimental group students. Results revealed a significant improvement in the reading comprehension of the experimental group students and in their reader-friendly writing. Based on these findings, it was recommended that explicit teaching of metadiscourse markers should be integrated into EFL majors’ curricula.

The Use of Interactional Metadiscourse: A Comparison of Articles on Turkish Education and Literature

This study aims to determine the use of interactional metadiscourse in articles from the domains of Turkish language and literature. The study employed a descriptive research model to examine 20 articles from the Mustafa Kemal University Journal of Social Sciences Institute (all articles were published between 2010 and 2015 and each has only a single author). Of these randomly selected articles, 10 were on Turkish language education and 10 were concerned with Turkish literature. Hyland and Tse’s metadiscourse model was adopted to examine markers of interactional metadiscourse in all fundamental parts of these articles. For the evaluation of the obtained data, the content analysis technique and the Mann–Whitney U test were used to determine whether the interactional metadiscourse demonstrates any significant differences regarding the domains of Turkish language education and literature. Experts were consulted to ensure the reliability of the research. As a result, this study revealed that there is more use of interactional metadiscourse markers in the field of Turkish language education than in the field of literature, and this difference is significant, according to the Mann–Whitney U test. Further, it was found that hedges and boosters demonstrate a significant difference in studies on Turkish language education and literature; however, no significant difference in the uses of attitude markers, engagement markers, and self-mentions was observed.

Authorial presence in L1 and L2 novice academic writing: Cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspectives

This study involved a corpus-based textual analysis of authorial presence markers in the argumentative essays of Turkish and American students. Utilising Hyland's interactional metadiscourse model (2005a) as the analysis framework, it aimed to compare the features of stance in L1 and L2 essays by Turkish learners of English with those in essays by monolingual American students. Also, discourse-based interviews with ten students contributed to an understanding of the use of markers in their L1 and L2 writing. The results indicate that the use of authorial presence markers in English essays by Turkish students was more similar to the use of these markers in writing by novice native English-speaking students than to the use of markers in the Turkish students' own writing in Turkish. The textual and interview data are discussed in relation to writing instruction, L1 writing conventions, and the institutional context.