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Textual metadiscourse in research articles: A marker of national culture or of academic discipline?
Abstract
Academic writers leave traces of themselves in their writing which may be linked to national as well as disciplinary culture. This paper takes a doubly contrastive approach and investigates writer manifestation in three languages, English, French and Norwegian, and three disciplines, economics, linguistics and medicine, in order to see whether language or discipline is the most important variable governing the pattern of metatext in academic discourse. My corpus consists of 180 refereed research articles within these languages and disciplines. My findings suggest that the language variable is the most important one within economics and linguistics, where English and Norwegian show very similar patterns, using much more metatext than French; within medicine, all three languages display a uniform pattern of little metatext. I conclude that English and Norwegian are both representatives of writer responsible cultures, while French represents a reader responsible culture. As regards discipline, I suggest that since economics and linguistics have a less formalised research article text structure and to some extent create their findings through argumentation in the text, national culture will be more important than it is in medicine, where the IMRD (Introduction-Method
Results-Discussion) structure is globally implemented and the research data to a greater extent are -iven outside the text.
... As a result, English is probably the most extensively investigated language in the MD framework (Ädel, 2010;Aull, 2015;Hyland, 2005), accompanied by Mandarin Chinese (e.g., Hu & Cao, 2011;Kim & Lim, 2013;Mu et al., 2015), Persian (Gholami et al., 2014;Khabbazi-Oskouei, 2016), and Spanish (Mur-Dueñas, 2011;Navarro et al., 2022). Many MD studies compare the use of MD markers either across languages or between varieties and proficiency levels of languages, where one of the languages is typically English (e.g., Ädel, 2010;Bax et al., 2019;Dahl, 2004;Dontcheva-Navratilova, 2016;Mur-Dueñas, 2011), or across disciplines (Dahl, 2004;Hyland & Jiang, 2016;Ngai et al., 2018), and across genres in first and second language (e.g., Hyland, 2004). ...
... As a result, English is probably the most extensively investigated language in the MD framework (Ädel, 2010;Aull, 2015;Hyland, 2005), accompanied by Mandarin Chinese (e.g., Hu & Cao, 2011;Kim & Lim, 2013;Mu et al., 2015), Persian (Gholami et al., 2014;Khabbazi-Oskouei, 2016), and Spanish (Mur-Dueñas, 2011;Navarro et al., 2022). Many MD studies compare the use of MD markers either across languages or between varieties and proficiency levels of languages, where one of the languages is typically English (e.g., Ädel, 2010;Bax et al., 2019;Dahl, 2004;Dontcheva-Navratilova, 2016;Mur-Dueñas, 2011), or across disciplines (Dahl, 2004;Hyland & Jiang, 2016;Ngai et al., 2018), and across genres in first and second language (e.g., Hyland, 2004). ...
... Given the dominance of English as a lingua franca of academic writing and writing research, the use of MD markers in smaller languages within the academic community may benefit from comparable systematic investigations. Though there are studies available that tackle MD aspects of lesserused languages such as Lithuanian (e.g., Šinkūnienė, 2018, 2019), Norwegian (Dahl, 2004), 1 and Finnish (Crismore et al., 1993;Mauranen, 1993), these studies often build their argumentation on models and approaches that are developed based on English academic writing. The importance of variability in local writing traditions and the cultural discourse context may strongly affect the patterns of academic texts (see, e.g., Ruskan et al., 2023). ...
This article presents the development of a specialized data set for analyzing Estonian metadiscourse markers in academic usage, extending Hyland's interpersonal metadiscourse model to a non-Indo-European language. Our goal is to show how metadiscourse, as a feature of a writing tradition, can reveal aspects of writing in languages other than English, complementing the traditionally Anglo-centric perspective in metadiscourse research. By analyzing 21 Estonian linguistics research articles, we offer a transparent procedure to address methodological issues in metadiscourse studies and demonstrate the need for language-specific adjustments in the framework. We introduce statistical methods for analyzing multidimensional associations among marker categories, linguistic level, and rhetorical text structure. The findings suggest that Hyland's metadiscourse model can be adjusted for specific languages, highlighting the influence of language structure on metadiscourse category variation and linguistic expression levels. The study reinforces that the distribution and manifestation of metadiscourse are shaped, among other factors, by unique writing traditions.
... Williams 1981;Vande Kopple 1985;Clyne 1987;Crismore in Farnsworth 1990;Mauranen 1993a;Mauranen 1993b;Intaraprawat in Steffensen 1995;Valero-Garcés 1996;Moreno 1997;Čmejrková in Daneš 1997;Bunton 1999;Hyland 2000;Fuertes-Olivera in sod. 2001;Vassileva 2001;Abdi 2002;Crawford Camiciottoli 2003;Dahl 2004;Hyland 2005;Ifantidou 2005;Fløttum, Kinn in Dahl 2006;Tse in Hyland 2006;Ädel 2006 itd.), njihovi izsledki pa prinašajo pomembne ugotovitve ne le v zvezi z metabesedilnostjo samo, ampak tudi razširjajo naše razumevanje interakcije med tvorcem in sprejemnikom besedila, poznavanje jezikovnih, strokovnih in žarnskih retoričnih konvencij ter vloge nepropozicijskih delov diskurza. Vrsta raziskav metabesedilnosti in sorodnih pojavov za slovenščino v zadnjih desetih letih priča o tem, da slovensko jezikoslovje na tem področju ne zaostaja. ...
... Crismore in Farnsworth 1990;Mauranen 1993b;Moreno 1997;Bunton 1999;Hyland 2000;Fuertes-Olivera in sod. 2001;Abdi 2002;Mauranen 2002;Crawford Camiciottoli 2003;Dahl 2004). ...
... Nekateri raziskovalci metabesedila so se temu problemu izognili tako, da so koncept metabesedila omejili. Tako se Mauranen (1993aMauranen ( in 1993b osredotoča na elemente retorične organizacije v Hallidayevi besedilni funkciji, njeni teoretični utemeljitvi pa sledijo tudi Valero Garces (1996), Moreno (1997), Bunton (1999) in Dahl (2004), ki sicer njen model razvijajo naprej. Hyland (2005) meni, da je takšno razlikovanje arbitrarno, saj sam gradi na predpostavki, da je vsako piščevo dejanje v interakciji z bralcem in gre tudi pri organizaciji besedila za medosebno strategijo. ...
The paper presents an overview of approaches to metadiscourse within applied linguistics. After discussing some of the questions surrounding the definition of this concept, the paper focuses on an outline of the most influential theoretical models of metadiscourse. Selected methodological issues, above all those connected with corpus research, are then presented. Finally, an overview of studies dealing with the topic of metadiscourse in the Slovene language from various aspects is provided.
... writer-responsible style resonates well with MD framework, where it is generally agreed that one key aspect of MD is to manifest writer-reader interaction (e.g., Hyland, Tse 2004). In this regard, the higher frequencies of endophoric markers in text have been seen as indicators of the degree of overt reader/writer interaction (Dahl 2004, Fløttum et al. 2006, as well as a reader-responsible culture (Mur-Dueñas 2011: 3072). ...
... In addition, the conventional text structure used within a discipline affects how much a text relies on interactive MD markers. For example, medicine which strongly adheres to the IMRaD structure 4 , exhibits lower use of interactive MD markers, whereas economics and linguistics, as disciplines with less regulated text structure, have to connect their arguments more strongly with various interactive MD markers, including endophorics (Dahl 2004, see also Hyland 2005. ...
... Disciplinary differences are 'responsible' for the ways how authors create and connect arguments. For example, humanities tend to rely more on MD overall, but endophoric markers in particular are more frequent in hard disciplines (Dahl 2004, Hyland, Tse 2004, Hyland 2005. In our study, we have focused on the field of linguistics, which can be seen as an interesting test case between soft and hard disciplines, considering the more recent trends (at least in some sub-disciplines of linguistics) to step toward a rigorous and statistically quantifiable field. ...
... Not all scholars conceive of metadiscourse in this way. The 'narrow' or 'non-integrative' tradition (Ädel, 2006Bunton, 1999;Dahl, 2004;Mauranen, 1993a) bounds metatext or discourse reflexivityterms preferred over metadiscourse (Ädel, 2006) to the textual function within the confines of the text, or as Mauranen (2010) puts it, discourse about the on-going discourse. Thus, the writer's epistemic and affective attitude towards the text and interaction with the reader are not considered metadiscourse within this interpretation. ...
... Also of the narrow tradition is Ädel (2006, 2010), albeit her framework incorporates 'audience interaction', which broadly corresponds to commentaries or engagement. As such, metadiscourse is renowned for being a fuzzy concept (Ädel, 2006;Çandarli et al., 2015;Dahl, 2004), encompassing potentially polysemic and polypragmatic discourse elements that can only assuredly be identified and categorised with reference to the surrounding context (Hyland and Jiang, 2022). It should also be noted that the five taxonomies were developed using corpora of English academic texts. ...
... Theoretical disagreements (Ädel, 2006;Ädel and Mauranen, 2010) and conceptual fuzziness (Ädel, 2006;Dahl, 2004) pose challenges in demarcating a clear boundary around metadiscourse research. We navigated these difficulties through the adoption of a comprehensive set of search terms, the development of principled inclusion/exclusion criteria, and ancestral searching. ...
A means to control how writers mark their presence, negotiate knowledge claims, and engage with their audience, metadiscourse is one of the most prominent approaches to analysing academic writing. The present systematic review attempts to take stock of the existing literature by investigating how metadiscourse has been researched in academic writing by analysing a sample of 370 high-quality empirical studies published between 1990 and 2021. Studies were coded for their conceptual frameworks, research designs, data sources, study contexts, writers, texts, corpora, and reporting practices. It was found that over 80% of research involved cross-sectional descriptive corpus-based analysis, drawing on intercultural rhetoric. Owing to its impact, ease of application, and study comparability, most research adhered to the ‘broad’ tradition in metadiscourse. Representative of this approach, Hyland’s interpersonal framework and models of stance and engagement were prevalent, although difficulties in undertaking a ‘thick’ analysis of such a wide variety of features coupled with publishing constraints meant that many authors narrowed their focus to a few select features (especially hedges, boosters, and self-mentions). Approximately 37% of corpus-based research followed the ‘thin’ tradition, with an emphasis on marker frequency counts over contextually-bound interpretations. Corpora of English texts, notably, research articles, were prominently studied, with little research taking place outside of university contexts or recruiting human participants as informants. We discuss avenues to advance research in metadiscourse, through identifying possible future inquiries and improving study quality.
... Analysis of interactive metadiscourse can provide information about how it functions for persuasion in academic texts. Various studies (Bunton, 1999;Hyland, 1999;Dahl, 2004;Cao & Hu, 2014) have focused on interactive metadiscourse to examine the common mechanisms affecting its use as a whole. Hyland (2005) identifies five main categories of interactive metadiscourse: ...
... In the literature on interactive metadiscourse, the relative importance of frame markers has not been treated in much detail. The prevailing studies draw on a systematic analysis of the use of five main categories of interactive metadiscourse in research article abstracts (El-Dakhs, 2018;Ozdemir & Longo, 2014), in research articles (Mu et al., 2015), in different genres (Hempel & Degand, 2008), and cross-linguistic contexts (Dahl, 2004, Mur Duenas, 2011. Up to now, far too little attention has been paid to the specific employment of frame markers (Hyland & Zou, 2020). ...
... Comparing the two disciplines, Khedri et al. (2013) reported that academics in applied linguistics tended to use more frame markers to highlight text boundaries and show discourse organization than those in economics. In another study, Dahl (2004) examined interactive metadiscourse in research articles in three disciplines across English, Norwegian and French and observed the complex relationship between language and discipline. She attributed less use of frame markers in French texts to the readerresponsible culture of this community. ...
Metadiscourse is now a widely used term in academic discourse analysis. How academics employ rhetorical devices to structure their texts, establish reader-writer interaction and stamp their authorial stance regarding the conventions of the disciplines, cultures, and genres has been the subject of many studies. Despite the growing prominence of the term, however, some features of it, one of which is frame markers, have gone unnoticed. Frame markers signal the boundaries in the academic discourse for the readers' understanding, and they are a crucial rhetorical feature of metadiscourse. The present study examines the deployment of frame markers in research articles written between 2010 and 2019. Based on the analysis of frame markers in a corpus of research articles across four disciplines in social sciences, there were marked variations across the four disciplines in the use of frame markers and the occurrences of their sub-categories. The findings suggested that academic communities have a decisive role in constructing text structures in research articles. The results might offer guidance to academic writers on shaping the texts that their readers find persuasive.
... Previous research from an intercultural perspective has offered an insight into the exploitation of stance markers in RA conclusions. In addition, it is widely accepted that academic writers engage themselves in their writing ascribed to the cultural and disciplinary communities (Dahl, 2004;Vold, 2006;Loi et al., 2016;Ädel, 2022). To date, little research has focused on the use of stance markers in RA conclusions from the cross-cultural/linguistic and cross-disciplinary perspectives. ...
... This may be ascribed to the influence of the Aristotelian claims of directness or explicitness (Abdollahzadeh, 2011). More importantly, in a writerresponsible culture (Dahl, 2004;McCambridge, 2019), English writers choose a direct and explicit way to show their authorial stance by the use of I. Another plausible reason may lie in the effect of individualism (Crismore et al., 1993;McCambridge, 2019), suggesting that the writers are aware of whom they are and what they want to do by catering to the presumed readers. Conversely, Chinese writers use more inclusive we to show modesty and collective identity and to hide the individual, which shows the key notion of collectivism in Chinese culture (McCambridge, 2019;Chen, 2020). ...
... Particularly, the use of we in single-author RAs and the use of the author depicts the writers' distance from the authorial persona and reduces the role of writerself in the text, which is in line with previous studies (Mu et al., 2015;Chen, 2020). . . Disciplinary factors a ecting the use of stance markers Dahl (2004) proposes that "academic writing reflects national as well as disciplinary culture" (p. 1,807), which may give an account of the discipline difference affecting the use of stance markers. ...
Research article conclusions form an important sub-genre in the academic community. This study aims to compare the use of stance markers in English and Chinese research article conclusions and investigate how stance markers may vary in soft and hard sciences. Based on Hyland's stance model, an analysis of stance markers over 20 years was made in two corpora, which were compiled with 180 research article conclusions in each language from four disciplines. It was found that English writers and soft science writers tended to make statements more tentatively by hedges and craft their persona more explicitly through self-mentions. However, Chinese writers and hard science writers made their claims with more certainty by boosters and showed their affective attitude more frequently through attitude markers. The results reveal how writers from different cultural backgrounds construct their stances and also unveil the disciplinary differences involved in stance-taking. It is hoped that this corpus study will inspire future research on stance-taking in the conclusion section and also help cultivate writers' genre awareness.
... Recent studies adopt a diachronic perspective, tracing changing patterns of metadiscourse deployment across disciplines (Hyland and Jiang, 2016a, 2016b. Other studies have examined the influence of different languages and cultures on the use of crossdisciplinary metadiscourse (Dahl, 2004;Crismore et al. 1993). Additionally, Cao and Hu (2014) investigated the use of interactive metadiscourse across three soft disciplinary domains from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. ...
... In terms of employing interactive metadiscourse across different fields, on the other hand, there have also been numerous studies involved (Hyland, 2007;Dahl, 2004). Peacock (2010) examined the deployment of linking adverbials (overlapping with what Hyland called transitional markers), establishing a corpus of 320 RAs spanning eight disciplines categorized into sciences and non-sciences and discovered that those non-sciences exploited more linking adverbials than sciences. ...
Scientific world is now privileging an interdisciplinary solution to problems, and the academic discourse it rests on is typically sensitive to its disciplinary context, but the discursive features of emerging interdisciplinarity remain under-investigated. This study aims to examine the deployment of interactive and interactional metadiscourse in research abstracts spanning three fields: computational linguistics, computer science, and applied linguistics. Based on a corpus of 270 abstracts in leading journals across the fields, the analysis demonstrated that writers in computational linguistics employed a greater frequency of both interactive and interactional metadiscourse in contrast to their counterparts in applied linguistics and computer science. Specifically, frame markers and self-mentions are predominantly utilized, reflecting the interdisciplinary essence of computational linguistics. Interestingly, apart from self-mentions, other interactional metadiscoursal elements are the second most frequently utilized category in computational linguistics abstracts. This observation underlines the field’s interdisciplinary nature, extends the common thread of disciplinary variation revealed in the literature, and points to addressing the disciplinary needs of these neighboring disciplines. In addition, pedagogical implications are also raised regarding the teaching of research writing.
... Alanyazında farklı üstsöylem sınıflandırmaları mevcuttur (örn., Ädel, 2006, 2010Bunton, 1999;Dahl, 2004;Crismore, Markkanen ve Steffensen, 1993;Dafouz-Milne, 2003;Hyland, 1998Hyland, , 2005aMauranen, 1993;Meyer, 1975;Vande Kopple, 1985Williams, 1982). Bu sınıflandırmalar, teorik ve işlevsel olarak uygulamayla ve zamanla gelişmiştir. ...
... Ayrıca, Abdollahzadeh (2011), yazarların kendilerini ifade etme biçimlerinin ve okuyucularıyla etkileşim kurma şekillerinin, belirli kültürel toplulukların normları ve beklentileriyle yakından ilişkili olduğunu iddia etmektedir. Farklı kültürlerden gelen yazarların yazdıkları metinlerde kendilerinden nasıl söz ettiği üzerine yapılan çalışmalar yazar sesinin (authorial voice) metnin yazarlarının bulunduğu kültüre göre farklılık gösterdiğini açığa çıkarmıştır (örn., Attaran, 2014;Breivega vd., 2002;Dahl, 2004;Fløttum, 2003;Fløttum, Dahl ve Kinn, 2006;Vassileva, 1998Vassileva, , 2000. Vassileva (1998), İngilizce, Almanca, Fransızca, Rusça ve Bulgarca dillerinde yazılan dilbilim araştırma makalelerinde yazar varlığını ve şahıs ben ile birinci çoğul şahıs biz kullanımı açısından incelemiştir. ...
z: Son yıllarda akademik metinlerdeki üstsöylem (metadiscourse) kullanımı üzerine yapılan çalışmalar, yazarın okurlara daha okur dostu ve tutarlı bir söylem sunmak için başvurduğu üstsöylemsel birimlerin, yazarın bulunduğu toplumun kültürel kimliği hakkında da bilgi taşıdığını ortaya koymaktadır. Bu çalışma, yabancı dil olarak Türkçe öğretimi amacıyla hazırlanan ders kitaplarında ben ve biz birinci kişi kullanımlarını incelemeyi ve bu kullanımların üstsöylem işlevlerini belirleyerek Türk kültürünü özellikle bireycilik-toplumsalcılık (individualism-collectivism) karşıtlığında nasıl yansıttığını ortaya çıkarmayı amaçlamaktadır. Bu amaçla, Hyland'ın (2005a) Kişilerarası Üstsöylem Modeli kapsamında Yedi İklim, Yeni Hitit, İstanbul Yabancılar için Türkçe C seviyesi ders kitaplarının okuma metinlerindeki birinci tekil kişi ve birinci çoğul kişi kullanımları ve üstsöylemsel işlevleri nitel ve nicel olarak incelenmektedir. Veri çözümlemesi, ders kitaplarında birinci çoğul kişi adıl kullanımlarına daha fazla başvurulduğunu ve bu kullanımların sıklıkla kapsayıcı biz (inclusive we) üstsöylem işleviyle katılım belirleyicisi (engagement marker) olarak ortaya çıktığını göstermektedir. Bu bulgunun, hem Türkçenin sondan eklemeli (agglutinative) ve adıl düşüren (pro-drop) bir dil olması hem de Türk kültürünün daha çok toplumsal bir kimliğe sahip olmasından kaynaklandığı ileri sürülebilir. Bu çalışmanın sonuçlarının, yabancı dil ders materyalleri hazırlayanlara üstsöylem işlevi gören ögelerin kültürel yansımalardaki işlevi hakkında farkındalık sağlaması beklenmektedir. Anahtar Sözcükler: üstsöylem, ders kitapları, yabancı dil olarak Türkçe, kültür, birinci tekil kişi adılı, birinci çoğul kişi adılı, adıl kullanımı Abstract: Recent studies on the use of metadiscourse in academic texts have revealed that the metadiscursive units that the author employs to present their readers with a more reader-friendly and coherent discourse also carry information about the cultural identity of the author's society. This study aims to examine the uses of "I" and "we" in textbooks, prepared for teaching Turkish as a foreign language, to determine their metadiscourse functions, and to reveal how these uses reflect Turkish culture, especially regarding the individualism-collectivism dimension. To this end, within the scope of Hyland's (2005a) Interpersonal Metadiscourse Model, the reading texts in
... Cross-linguistic variations in the use of metadiscourse including endophoric markers have been studied in RAs, MTs and essays written in English and other languages, such as Chinese (Kim and Lim 2013;Mu et al. 2015), Spanish (Mur-Dueñas 2011; Lee and Casal 2014), Catalan and Spanish (Martín-Laguna and Alcón 2015) and French and Norwegian (Dahl 2004), among others. ...
... In recent years, there has been significant attention given to the evolving understanding of interactive metadiscourse in academic writing, particularly in RAs, with a focus on its use across diverse disciplines, both soft and hard. Khedri et al. (2013) analysed 60 RA abstracts in applied linguistics and economics; Dahl (2004) examined 180 RAs in medicine, economics, and linguistics; Khalili and Aslanabadi (2014) studied 20 RAs in dentistry; and Celiešienė and Sabulyte (2018) compared metadiscourse marker usage in RAs in informatics, energy, and civil engineering. The results indicated that hard science texts employ more visual elements, which accounts for the frequent use of endophoric markers and code glosses. ...
The aim of this study is to contribute to cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary discourse analysis, shedding light on English L2 learners’ metadiscursive practices. Focusing on a specialised learner corpus of English-medium Master’s theses written by Czech university students, the research explores the occurrence of endophoric markers and their characteristics. To enable cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparison, a reference corpus of representative L1 English academic discourse was compiled. A new taxonomy used here, which draws on Hyland’s list of endophoric markers (2005) and an extensive literature review, categorises endophoric markers into three groups: purely directional, markers using specific words, and a category combining the first two. The study investigates the occurrence and function of these markers, focusing on anaphoric, cataphoric, and non-directional references. It also aims to identify differences in the usage of endophoric markers in English between L2 novice writers and experienced L1 academic writers, providing insights into trends and patterns in the employment of endophoric markers in academic writing in a way that accounts for disciplinary and linguistic factors. The results reveal higher endophoric marker frequencies in the Master’s Thesis Corpus, suggesting distinctive discourse patterns among Czech learners using English as an L2, with a predominance of specific endophoric markers and notable cross-disciplinary variation.
... Additionally, Golebiowski (2007) observed that RAs by Polish authors were increasingly monologic and reader-responsible, due to the scarcity of text-organizing markers. What these analyses seem to overlook is that the influence exerted by the writers' linguacultural background often interplays with the impact of their disciplinary writing conventions (Dahl 2004). Hence, there are few investigations adopting a doubly contrastive approach -cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural -to the preferences of scholars from the Polish-based cultural context. ...
... It thus seems that Anglophone writers understand that the heterogeneous international readership they address may need more precise guidance regarding the less absolute nature of psychology knowledge. Still, they do not invest much effort into creating complex networks of adverbial cohesion in the medical RAs, realizing that "the way medical researchers conduct their work and report their findings" provided "a disciplinary mould that transcends national culture" (Dahl 2004(Dahl : 1822. Polish authors, who target local, more homogeneous intellectual communities, seem to be closer to national academic culture, which presumes that more focus should be given to the content than to the organization of the argument. ...
... Endophoric markers (e.g., in this section, in Chapter X, see Table X, in Figure X) serve similar functions as code glosses in that they point to different parts of a text in order to help readers understand the intended meaning better. While code glosses are introducers of paraphrasing and thus are textual, endophoric markers are 'metatext' (Dahl, 2004) because they explicitly identify discoursal locations to which readers must turn. Evidential markers (e.g., according to..., cited, author (year)) establish the relationship between the presented text and the relevant source, ensuring readers of the legitimacy of information or arguments in a text. ...
... Research into interactive metadiscourse has primarily focused on cross-disciplinary comparisons, demonstrating recognizable differences between hard disciplines such as physics and engineering and soft disciplines such as philosophy and applied linguistics. For example, Dahl (2004) reported that endophoric markers are more frequently utilized in the RAs in the fields of economics and linguistics than in the field of medicine. Peacock (2010), comparing four science disciplines and four non-science disciplines, observed that linking adverbials (largely overlapping with the transition markers) appeared significantly more frequently in the RAs in the non-science disciplines. ...
... Some theoretical frameworks of metadiscourse were proposed (Vande Kopple, 1985;Crismore et al., 1993;Mauranen, 1993;Dahl, 2004;Hyland, 2005aHyland, , 2005dHyland, , 2005bÄ del, 2006, 2006dAdel and Mauranen, 2010). These frameworks usually led to divergences among metadiscourse studies in L2 English writing in the past decades. ...
... It utilised a deductive analytical scheme to meticulously probe into the conceptual and methodological features of the filtered empirical studies. Following the examples set by the classic and widely used metadiscourse models (Crismore et al., 1993;Hyland, 2005aHyland, , 2005dHyland, , 2005bAdel, 2006), other influential empirical studies in metadiscourse (Ädel, 2010, 2010del and Mauranen, 2010; Dahl, 2004;Mauranen, 1993;Hyland and Milton, 1997;Hyland and Tse, 2004), and the examples of systematic reviews (Plonsky and Gass, 2011;Aull and Lancaster, 2014;Hiver et al., 2021) and methodological reviews in metadiscourse and second language acquisition (Crismore and Abdollahzadeh, 2010;Plonsky and Gass, 2011), the deductive analytical scheme used in this study was developed inductively and recursively by identifying values, variables, and categories of research focus in respect of the above examples. The pilot coding scheme was developed based on 30 empirical voice and L2 English writing studies. ...
The present systematic review assessed the existing and growing literature in metadiscourse and L2 English writing by focusing on using voice in students' writing. Empirical studies in this field were retrieved and coded for their research design, study types, data sources, software tools, corpora characteristics, study context, analytical tests and reporting practices. Prominent adoption of mixed methods and triangulation approaches was found. Hyland's metadiscourse model (2005) was utilised by most reviewed studies, while models proposed by other researchers were also found in this review, which provide more feasible choices for future studies. A shortage of longitudinal studies of voice and L2 English writing was found, and more evidence from diachronic corpora was spotlighted. Most reviewed studies were corpus-based; however, some studies showed that reporting corpora features remained insufficient. Implications and suggestions for further research of voice markers and L2 English writing were provided based on the review.
... The construction "this means" in Extract 2 serves to clarify the preceding statement which emphasises the cause-and-effect relationship between economic growth and the expansion of a nation's productive capacity. It helps interpret complex economic concepts clearly and concisely, aligning with the discipline's focus on precision in communication (Dahl, 2004(Dahl, , 2008Greenlaw, 2003;Hunter & Tse, 2013). In English, the normalised frequency of "this means" was 0.83 per 10,000 words, lower than in Economics but still notable. ...
This study examines unattended anaphoric pronouns in postgraduate theses across four academic disciplines (English, Economics, Biology, and Civil Engineering) from a Ghanaian public university, focusing on the period between 1980 and 2022. A corpus-based analysis and the analytical framework from Chang and Swales (1999), adapted by Hyland and Jiang (2017), was adopted to investigate the differences in the occurrence and use of unattended anaphoric pronouns across these disciplines. It also explored the verbs most commonly associated with unattended anaphoric pronouns within the theses. The findings revealed significant discipline-specific patterns in the use of unattended anaphoric pronouns, with distinct preferences in verb usage across English, Economics, Biology, and Civil Engineering. In the analysis of unattended anaphoric pronouns, "this" was the most frequently used across all disciplines, with Economics exhibiting the highest frequency at 15.95 per 10,000 words. The collocational pattern "this is/was" was the most frequently used in the corpora. The study concludes that the academic discipline influences reference strategies, offering insights into the structural and rhetorical features of postgraduate writing in these fields. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of how disciplinary discourse shapes academic writing practices in Ghanaian postgraduate education.
... On the other side of the coin, a very serious and not solely academic discussion on these matters continues throughout the academic literature (59) as well as in the popular press. Dahl concluded that "national culture will be more important [governing the pattern of metatext in economics and linguistics] than in medicine" and likely than in the physical sciences including chemistry "where the IMRD (Introduction-Method-Results-Discussion) structure is globally implemented and the research data to a greater extent are given outside the text" (60). In 2001, Ammon published a book on the effect of English dominance as the language of science on other languages and language communities (61). ...
A review. For many decades, French scientists, the French Academie des Sciences, and the government of France have been concerned about the declining use of French within the scientific milieu and the trend toward English as the universally-accepted language to communicate science. This trend is discussed with a focus on the issues most vigorously debated in the time period 1965-1985, including the reduced use of French in international scientific communication resulting from the dominance of English. A summary of the merging of national-chem.-society journals into international journals is also presented. A set of previously unpublished documents from 1965 written by the late Robert Burns Woodward-actually a linguistic twist on La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, that addresses the French-English debate-and his letter and enclosures to Jean-Marie Lehn are included and discussed.
... Regarding academic disciplines, the range explored is equally diverse. Cross-disciplinary studies examined metadiscourse usage across soft sciences (e.g., Applied Linguistics, Economics, and Sociology) and hard sciences (Physics, Engineering, and Biology) (e.g., Abdi, 2002;Dahl, 2004;Harwood, 2005;Hyland, 2001;Khedri & Kritsis, 2018;Mur-Dueñas, 2011). Further, a cohort of studies were feature-specific, such as hedges and boosters (Hu & Cao, 2011), self-mentions (Harwood, 2005), and attitude markers (Abdi, 2002). ...
This systematic review critically examines metadiscourse research in the MENA region, addressing its under-representation on the global stage. By analysing 19 out of 964 identified studies, the review highlights the overwhelming reliance on Hyland's frameworks, with 89.47 % of studies utilising his models, reflecting his significant influence in the region. However, the review uncovers significant methodological weaknesses, including inconsistent reporting, ambiguous research designs, and an over-reliance on a 'thin' approach to metadiscourse analysis. Additionally, the studies exhibit a narrow focus, both geographically and disciplinarily, with limited exploration of gender and cultural factors. These limitations hinder the comparability and gener-alizability of the findings, restricting the region's contribution to global metadiscourse research. The review calls for more diverse and rigorous methodologies, broader academic and geographical scopes, and greater integration of gender and cultural analyses to advance metadiscourse research in the MENA region and align it with global research standards. This study serves as a critical foundation for future research, offering clear recommendations to elevate the quality and impact of metadiscourse studies in this underexplored region.
... Postgraduate theses from the university's Department of Languages (pre-2010) and Department of English (post-2010) were examined. Economics was chosen for this study due to existing literature (Dahl, 2004(Dahl, , 2008(Dahl, , 2009Greenlaw, 2003;Hunter & Tse, 2013;Owusu, 2018), highlighting the importance of supporting novice writers in making claims and engaging readers. Biology was also selected for two main reasons: its established academic history at the university, which dates back to the 1950s, and the aim to (in)validate the findings of Hyland and Jiang (2017) who reported a notable 24.8% rise in the use of informal features in Biology academic writing between 1965 and 2015. ...
This research examines the impact of educational games and Concept Checking Questions (CCQs) on the enhancement of critical thinking abilities in middle school pupils in Morocco. The study, conducted at TAZI School in Casablanca, compared two student groups: one group experienced new teaching strategies, such as educational games and CCQs, while the other got conventional instruction. The findings indicated that students using educational games and Concept Checking Questions exhibited notable improvement in their critical thinking skills, whereas those in the conventional training cohort saw a deterioration. These results emphasize the need to use interactive, student-centered pedagogical approaches to improve cognitive development and engagement in Moroccan education. The research emphasizes the possibility of using creative and inquiry-based methodologies, such as educational games and Concept Checking Questions, to enhance critical thinking among middle school students, providing significant insights for educators seeking to refine classroom procedures.
... Postgraduate theses from the universi Department of Languages (pre-2010) and Department of English (post-2010) were examined. Economics was chosen for this study due to existing literature (Dahl, 2004(Dahl, , 2008(Dahl, , 2009 The study used purposive and random sampling techniques to create a balanced and representative dataset. Purposive sampling was first employed to select theses that were written by Ghanaian postgraduate students, and published between 1980 and 2022. ...
Informality arguably has permeated almost every domain of language use in academia. This study thus explores informality in L2 postgraduate theses across four disciplines (i.e., English, Economics, Biology, and Civil Engineering). Using a corpus-we identified 4,003 tokens of informal features categorised into eight types: sentence-initial conjunctions/conjunctive adverbs, unattended anaphoric pronouns, first-person pronouns, listing expressions, sentence-final prepositions, split infinitives, second-person pronouns, and direct questions. We found that sentence-initial conjunctions/conjunctive adverbs, unattended anaphoric references, and first-person pronouns were preferred across the four disciplines, collectively accounting for 92% of all informal features. Moreover, disciplinary differences in using informal features were evident, with significant variations between soft and hard disciplines. The study provides insights into how L2 postgraduates navigate disciplinary norms and conventions in their theses.
... For reading or speech to be easily understood by readers or listeners, the writer or speaker must organize and clarify the concepts (Hinds, 1987). One important way for them to recognize their duties as authors is by structuring the text and engaging the readers (Dahl, 2004). As a result, rhetorical devices are employed to highlight the academic voice, which might be difficult for writers who are not native English speakers to convey in English (Shen, 1989;Jomaa & Bidin, 2017;Jomaa & Alia, 2019). ...
Writing academically is substantially important for transmitting reliable knowledge to readers, abstract represents a fundamental section in revealing basic section. Therefore, this study aims to analyze rhetorical structural moves in two domains: pure sciences and humanitarian. The qualitative approach was employed, and data were selected from the Scientific Journal Ranking website: 24 abstracts from scientific domain and the same from humanitarian. Research articles were chosen intentionally following IPMPC by Hyland (2000). Based on research findings, both domains showed similarities, whereby methodology move was used in all abstracts of the scientific domain and 23 abstracts of humanitarian. The finding move came second of use though it is higher in abstracts of scientific domain. Another similarity is the significance and implications move, whereby only two abstracts in humanitarian domain included this move, whereas no abstracts in scientific domain included this move. In addition, regardless of optional moves, this analysis reveals that Turkish authors are not familiar with rhetorical use of abstracts in both domains since they did not include important moves. These findings demonstrate varieties in structural moves used in scientific and humanitarian domains. Such findings could be employed pedagogically by novice writers who are not familiar enough with how to write abstracts academically and expertly as well as identify which moves are essential and which are optional.
... Textual metadiscourse, on the other hand, assists writers to create a coherent text related to its reader as well as its context (Hyland 2005a;Vande Kopple 1985). While some analysts such as Dahl (2004) and Mauranen (1993) argue that metadiscourse only deals with textual functions, others such as Crismore et al. (1993), Hyland (2005a) propose that metadiscourse deals with both interpersonal and textual functions. Hyland (2004) further argues that even textual markers are oriented towards interpersonal functions. ...
The present article reports a comparative study of interactional metadiscourse markers in English and Persian research articles. Drawing on Hyland's (2005) interpersonal model of metadiscourse, this study investigates the employment of "hedges", "boosters", and "attitude markers" in a corpus composed of the post-method sections of 100 research articles (50 English and 50 Persian) in the field of architecture. Overall, it was found that there are statistically significant differences between the frequencies of hedges, boosters, and attitude markers used in English and Persian sub-corpora. Yet, the linguistic and functional analyses unveiled some basic similarities between the two languages in their epistemic metadiscourse strategies. The findings provide deep insights into the rhetorical conventions and norms in architectural articles and offer a broader perspective towards discoursing patterns and persuasion strategies of English and Iranian academic writers in this field.
... Como toda función apelativa, la que pretendemos analizar en el discurso político se emplea con diferentes intenciones en cuanto a sus posibles efectos en quienes escuchan; de estos se espera, bien una acción verbal o no verbal, bien la posibilidad de conseguir su complicidad, bien su acercamiento al relato, etc. Por tanto, en la interacción adquiere una relevancia especial la función comunicativa más vinculada al receptor. Ahora bien, en el discurso político de los debates sobre el estado de la nación (en adelante, DEN), más que exhortar a algo, como ocurre en la publicidad, o más que reforzar creencias comunes, como sucede en un mitin de una campaña electoral, el orador sabe que los efectos que persigue están más sujetos que en otros géneros y subgéneros a una muy dispar 1 Podríamos decir, adaptando a nuestro trabajo lo dicho por Dahl (2004Dahl ( : 1811, que tal metadiscurso es una evidente manifestación del reconocimiento del auditorio por parte del orador. 2 El término marca lo vamos a emplear para aludir al modo propuesto por el orador para expresar, generalmente mediante formas pronominales y verbales, su conexión más directa con el auditorio; se trata, por tanto, de estrategias léxico-predicativas con las que se persigue hacer más eficaz el mensaje. interpretación por parte de los receptores, condicionada, en especial, por su ideología política afecta o desafecta con tal orador. ...
El presente trabajo sigue un método descriptivo con la pretensión de aproximarse a las marcas empleadas por los políticos cuando se dirigen directamente a uno, a varios o a todos los miembros de su auditorio. Se fundamenta en un análisis cualitativo de una muestra de debates parlamentarios, concretamente de catorce intervenciones emitidas en los debates sobre el estado de la nación por los últimos cuatro presidentes del Gobierno de España y líderes de la oposición. La falta de trabajos de este tipo nos exigió la creación de cinco categorías y quince grupos en los que congregar las distintas maneras y marcas con las que los mencionados políticos se dirigían a sus interlocutores. Tras exponer la intención de nuestro trabajo y su metodología, describiremos cada uno de los diferentes grupos que se forman según las diversas marcas consideradas y veremos las cifras de apariciones y de empleo por los oradores que forman nuestro corpus.
... e., nonacademic, professional discourse) and strong criticisms have been addressed to its being conceived as Anglo-centred (see Suau-Jiménez et al., 2021). These limitations are given by the fact that the use of metadiscourse is conditioned by contextual variables such as genre, discipline, language and mode, and even media, as many scholars suggest (Crismore & Abdollehzadeh, 2010;Dahl, 2004;Gotti, 2010;Ivorra Pérez, 2016;Lorés-Sanz, 2011a, 2011bSuau-Jiménez, 2016;Yakhontova, 2006). ...
... In recent years, there has been a proliferation of metadiscourse research in L2 academic writing, including areas such as expert writing (e.g., Dahl, 2004;Gillaerts & Van de Velde, 2010); graduate and undergraduate-level writing (e.g., Akbaş, 2014;Bayyurt, 2010;Çandarlı et al., 2015;Ho & Li, 2018;Hyland, 2004;Lee & Deakin, 2016); learner writing (e.g., Ädel, 2006;Qin & Uccelli, 2019;Yoon, 2021); longitudinal studies (e.g., Beyazyildirim & Ercan, 2023;Crosthwaite & Jiang, 2017;Gürsoy, 2023;Martin-Laguna, 2023;Ruan, 2019); diachronic studies examining the change in metadiscourse over time (e.g., Hyland & Jiang, 2018). Several studies have also investigated the features of critical thinking and writing (e.g., Bruce, 2016;Carroll, 2007;Lancaster, 2016;Liu & Stapleton, 2018;Woordward-Kron, 2002). ...
Critical writing seeks to enhance university students' ability to think causally and reason effectively, and this improvement should be evident in their language use in the assignments. An example of such language is interactional metadiscourse, the expression of attitudes and opinions in line with the intended audience. In pursuit of these objectives, this study investigated the textual characteristics of critical thinking by examining interactional metadiscourse markers (MDMs) in the critical response papers authored by English Language Teaching (ELT) undergraduate students throughout a semester at a Turkish state university. The findings revealed shifts in the use of discourse markers by the end of the semester. While markers for engagement, hedging, and boosting remained prevalent across various tasks, the utilization of self-mentions and attitude markers declined, indicating a transition from the students' sharing personal opinions and experiences to relying on evidence from research in academic texts to support their arguments. Additionally, the study highlighted the impact of topic selection on how students incorporated metadiscourse markers into their response papers.
... e., nonacademic, professional discourse) and strong criticisms have been addressed to its being conceived as Anglo-centred (see Suau-Jiménez et al., 2021). These limitations are given by the fact that the use of metadiscourse is conditioned by contextual variables such as genre, discipline, language and mode, and even media, as many scholars suggest (Crismore & Abdollehzadeh, 2010;Dahl, 2004;Gotti, 2010;Ivorra Pérez, 2016;Lorés-Sanz, 2011a, 2011bSuau-Jiménez, 2016;Yakhontova, 2006). ...
Metadiscourse was initially conceived as a tool to explore mainly academic, monologic, written texts. When applied to the study of digital discourse, metadiscourse may reveal itself as a rather frustrating exploratory framework, firstly because of the problematised interaction between writer and reader in an online context where audiences are not easily identifiable and, secondly, because of the multimodal character of digital texts. In the present study, the role played by interactive metadiscoursal resources in online communication has been explored. For such purposes, the focus has been placed on a corpus of digital research digests published on the website of the British Psychological Society, the most important representative body of the profession in the United Kingdom. The study revolves around the function of interactive metadiscourse as a recontextualising tool to facilitate the understanding of complex disciplinary knowledge for potentially less expert readers. Several interactive resources (code glosses, evidentials, transition markers, and frame markers) are identified, which strategically contribute to the mediation of specialised information and which also take advantage of the affordances offered by digital platforms.
... Consequence relations either tell readers that a conclusion is being drawn or justified (thus, therefore, consequently, in conclusion, etc.) or that an argument is being countered (admittedly, nevertheless, anyway, in any case, of course) [1]. Transition markers also assist readers to understand connections between different steps in an argument [8]. Here are some typical forms of transition markers: Example 1 is the exemplification of transition markers performing additive relations. ...
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.
... Considering that the configuration of question items decided on the composition of cohesive devices, it suggested further studies for investigating the property of each question item. Many studies have proved that individual fields or genres affect text property by selective use of linguistic devices when they convey their information (Crismore 1984;Bunton 1999;Dahl 2004;Hyland 2005; Gillaerts and Van de Velde 2010). Moreover, Kim and Kwon (2014) confirmed that each item of the CSAT test revealed different values of usefulness. ...
Jung, Sookhyun. 2020. Cohesive features among CSAT English question groups focusing on pronouns. Discourse and Cognition 27:4, 127-144. This study investigated the textual features of CSAT English question groups in view of the semantic-pragmatic aspect. The corpus was composed of 243 passages which were culled out of the English reading section of CSAT from 2020 to 2011. The results indicated that there exist distinctive features between inference questions and indirect writing questions. The text of the inference question group maintained more interactional features with exophoric references. This produced a contextual circle between a writer and readers. The factor resulted in the highest value of narrativity in three groups. The indirect writing question group, on the other hand, employed anaphoric references, which contributed to consisting of text-internal cohesion. In specific, argument overlaps created the textual integration, which led to topic consistency through the hierarchy of pronouns. (Pukyong National University) (127 words)
... Accordingly, Dunleavy (2003) stressed that a thesis writer should live up to the expectations of the readers because English is a "writerresponsible" language, meaning that the writer or speaker is in charge of organizing and making sense of the ideas (Hinds, 1987). One important way for them to recognize their responsibilities as "writer-responsible" writers is by organizing the text and engaging the reader through the use of metadiscourse (Dahl, 2004). Atkinson (2001) contends that the concept of voice needs to be thoroughly considered and assessed. ...
In academic writing, stance and engagement features establish an important area because they help writers convey their impressions, messages, and attitudes towards their readers. In spite of increasing the number of studies tackling this issue, limited studies have focused on EFL Libyan students. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the stance and engagement markers in the conclusion sections of ten Ph.D. Theses of Libyan postgraduates; five of them are from the soft
domain, specifically the business administration field (B), and the other five are from the hard domain, specifically the electrical-electronics engineering (EE). The current study used Hyland’s (2005) model to explore the stances and engagement markers used in the conclusion sections. The findings showed that the total number of stances in the soft domain conclusions is 117, and the total number of engagement markers is 35, whereas in the hard domain, 27 were for stances and
13 were for engagements. Such findings could be employed academically to enhance EFL Libyan students’ performance in academic writing.
... Accordingly, Dunleavy (2003) stressed that a thesis writer should live up to the expectations of the readers because English is a "writerresponsible" language, meaning that the writer or speaker is in charge of organizing and making sense of the ideas (Hinds, 1987). One important way for them to recognize their responsibilities as "writer-responsible" writers is by organizing the text and engaging the reader through the use of metadiscourse (Dahl, 2004). Atkinson (2001) contends that the concept of voice needs to be thoroughly considered and assessed. ...
In academic writing, the stance and engagement features establish an important area because they help writers convey their impressions, messages, and attitudes towards their readers. In spite of the increasing studies tackling this issue, limited studies have focused on EFL Libyan students. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the stance and engagement markers in the conclusion sections of ten Ph.D. theses of Libyan postgraduates; five of them are from the soft domain specifically business administration field (B), and the other five are from the hard domain specifically the electrical-electronics engineering (EE). The current study used Hyland’s (2005) model to explore stance and engagement markers used in the conclusion sections. The findings show that the total number of the stance in the soft domain conclusions is (117), and the total number of the engagement markers is (35), whereas in the hard domain, (27) were for the stance and (13) were for the engagement. Such findings could be employed academically to enhance EFL Libyan students’ performance in academic writing.
... Studies on Introductions, for example, have been greatly influenced by Swales's Create-a-Research-Space model (CARS) (see Swales 1990 and2004), identifying the moves and steps that characterize them: ...
Against the background of studies on "academic Englishes", this paper is a study parallel to Dontcheva-Navratilova (this issue). Focusing on the use of English in Italian academic publishing and on English linguistics in particular, we look at the development of academic writing conventions in research articles written by Italian scholars over the last 30 years. The study is based on a small corpus of 20 single-authored English-medium research articles-ten representing the period from 1990 to1995 and ten from between 2014 and 2019-published in the official journal of the Italian association of Anglicists (Textus) and in the applied linguistics journal Rassegna Italiana di Linguistica Italiana (RILA). The study draws on genre analysis to explore possible changes in rhetorical structure and on corpus analysis to study forms of self-mention. Special attention is paid to introductions, methodology, and conclusions. At a macrolevel, results show diachronic changes in rhetorical structure with a clearer IMRAD structure and a more empirical methodology in the second phase, while at a microlevel forms of self-mention show a marked increase in non-personal and implicit (locational) self-mention. This seems to respond to the tension between personal and impersonal forms that has largely characterized the development of the genre in English as well as to the contact between different academic cultures.
... Consequence relations either tell readers that a conclusion is being drawn or justified (thus, therefore, consequently, in conclusion, etc.) or that an argument is being countered (admittedly, nevertheless, anyway, in any case, of course) [1]. Transition markers also assist readers to understand connections between different steps in an argument [8]. Here are some typical forms of transition markers: e.g.1 is the exemplification of transition markers performing additive relations. ...
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.
... genre, culture, L1 background, personal preferences, writing style and L2 proficiency level). The various aspects that might affect the use of metadiscourse in texts written by L1 and L2 writers were discussed in numerous studies (for example, Kaplan 1966, Dahl 2004, Hyland 2005b, Dafouz-Milne 2008, Lee 2011, Zhao 2017, Yoon 2021). Liao (2020: 1) stated that "writing in an L2 involves not only an effort to monitor linguistic quality, such as linguistic accuracy or complexity but also an effort to make metadiscourse choices that will result in cohesive written discourse". ...
This study explores the use of interactional 1 metadiscourse by first language (L1) and second language (L2) English editorialists. The study uses Hyland's (2019) model of metadiscourse to analyse 80 editorials published between 2020 and 2021 in The Guardian and The Jordan Times newspapers (40 from each newspaper). A mixed-method approach-adopting quantitative and qualitative measures-was used to analyse the data. The frequency of interactional metadiscourse resources was statistically examined to find similarities and differences (if any) between the two corpora. The analysis revealed a statistically significant difference in the use of interactional metadiscourse resources in the editorials of the two newspapers. For instance, L2 editorialists used fewer hedges in their editorials and more boosters than L1 editorialists. In addition, engagement markers were used the most by L1 editorialists. The study provides some implications for editorialists who write in English and recommendations for future research.
... Against this backdrop, a considerable body of research has emerged to demystify the textual features of the research article (RA) as the main genre of publication (Belcher, 2009;Dahl, 2004;Hyland & Jiang, 2018;Luzón, 2018;Samraj, 2002;Sheldon, 2018;Swales, 2004). On the other hand, findings from studies interested in exploring the processes implicated in attempts at publication point to potent mediating practices such as seeking out support, mentorship and feedback from more experienced writers and literacy brokers, most notably advisors (Casanave & Li, 2008;Cho, 2004;Habibie & Hyland, 2019;Lei & Hu, 2019;Li, 2006Li, , 2007Luo & Hyland, 2021;Simpson, 2013). ...
This case study tracks a multilingual writer’s academic writing, in particular her engagement in the research article (RA) genre, over the course of four years as she moved along a trajectory from a novice graduate student to a confident disciplinary writer. The theoretical framework draws from academic literacies ( Barton & Hamilton, 1998 ), highlighting practice and disposition ( Bourdieu, 1990 ) as a way of understanding engagement with the RA genre. The findings, based on an analysis of interviews conducted with the participant, reveal three stages of the participant’s development in her disposition toward the RA genre, all interspersed with affect. Each stage is illustrated through examples from the interviews. The study’s longitudinal design provides a novel perspective that brings out a dynamic picture of the development of a graduate student writer. The findings are discussed in light of previous research and pedagogical implications are set out.
... That is, the writer or the speaker is responsible for clarifying and organizing the concepts to make readings/speeches easily understood by the readers/listeners (Hinds, 1987). One significant key to acknowledging their roles as writers responsible is through using metadiscourse (Dahl, 2004) to organize the text and interact with the reader. Hence, metadiscourses play these highly significant roles by revealing the academic voice which is rather challenging for non-native speaker writers (Jomaa & Bidin, 2017;Alia, Jomaa & Yunus, 2020). ...
Several studies have focused on the use of stance, particularly in linguistic-based writing research. However, adopting an assertive stance toward the research being reviewed or reported is considered a challenging task for second language writers. Therefore, this study aims at exploring the use of stance in the introductory chapters of EFL Arab postgraduates' theses employing SFL approach at UniSZA. Data were collected qualitatively based on 22 introductory chapters of doctoral and master theses. The writers' stance was analysed using the SFL approach, whereas the interviews were analysed manually. The findings showed frequent and different use of finite modal operators, less and different use of adjuncts expressing modalisation and other purposes, and less frequent use of comment adjuncts and subjective, rather than the objective orientation of the soft and hard domains. The findings revealed that many participants showed unfamiliarity with the use of modality markers and appropriate social and linguistic conventions. The study concluded that authorial stance is very important to be explicitly taught to postgraduate students to enrich the quality of academic writing. This study provides significant resources for academic writing instructors, supervisors, and academic writers.
... The major difference in the use of endophoric markers can be observed in the articles on linguistics and economics: here, the Lithuanian scholars use far less endophoric markers than the British scholars. Though it may be tempting to suggest some cultural differences here or the impact of the teaching academic writing traditions (Dahl 2004), the author notes that Lithuanian research articles in those two disciplines are twice shorter than the British articles; hence, the difference in the use of these markers could be the result of the less urgent need to tell the reader what has been already said or what will be said (Šinkūnienė 2014). ...
Over the past several decades, there has been an increasing interest in academic discourse investigations with a specific focus on disciplinary, cultural, and generic aspects of academic text construction. Studies of Spanish, Italian, Greek, Portuguese, French, German, and Russian (inter alia) academic discourse have revealed not only the universal features characteristic of many writing cultures, but also unique rhetorical features, typical of only some of them. In this article, we focus on academic discourse investigations in scientific texts written in one of the lesser-studied languages, Lithuanian. We review here studies of Lithuanian scientific discourse and what those studies reveal about the specific features of Lithuanian academic discourse. The first part of the article identifies how rhetorical structures differ between English and Lithuanian academic texts, whereas the second part presents a comprehensive overview of the functional groups of linguistic units, such as metadiscourse markers, stance and engagement markers, and conceptual metaphors, and how these are different or similar to English academic discourse. The overview of the empirical studies shows the current state of knowledge about Lithuanian academic discourse and highlights some of the items that distinguish Lithuanian writing. Furthermore, we highlight the importance of identifying academic writing traditions of other languages to acknowledge diversity.
... Numerous research studies have been done on the utilization of MDMs in different genres: research articles (Abdollahzadeh, 2011b; Behnam, e al., 2012;Bonyadi, et al., 2012;Dahl, 2004;Jalilifar, 2011;Khedri, Ebrahimi, & Swee Heng, 2013;Khedri & Konstantinos, 2018;Moreno, 2004;Rahimpour, 2006;Vassileva, 2001), theses (Abbaszadeh, Hosseini, & Aghajani, 2019;Abdollahzadeh, 2011a), newspapers (Abdollahzadeh, 2007;Dafouz-Milne, 2008; Tahririan & Shahzamani, 2009), political ...
Idiomatic phrasal verbs, which are typically dealt with during the latter phase of second
language apprenticeship, have been the source of frustration for Iranian EFL learners. This study
investigates the effect of extensive vs. intensive reading on Iranian advanced English Language learners'
knowledge of idiomatic phrasal-verbs. It aims to determine whether providing EFL learners with extensive
or intensive reading might have any effect on their knowledge of idiomatic phrasal-verbs or not. To answer
the question, 60 advanced-level language learners from Tehran Technical and Educational Institute in Chalous town participated in the study. The subjects took a standard OPT test to demonstrate their English proficiency. They were also assigned to two experimental and comparison groups; 30 in each group. A pretest of idiomatic phrasal-verbs was administered in each group. After 16 sessions of treatment a post-test
of idiomatic phrasal-verbs was administered again. The treatment comprised intensive reading for the
experimental group, while the comparison group received extensive reading. The data was analyzed using
independent samples t-test and Paired sample t-test. The results showed that both groups improved but the
experimental group improved a lot more which was significantly different. This study aimed to raise teachers’
and learners' awareness towards using idiomatic phrasal verbs and suggests that a balanced approach of extensive
and intensive reading will provide learners’ maximum benefit.
Keywords: Collocations, Extensive Reading, Idiomatic Phrasal verbs, Intensive Reading
... Hyland (1999) who studied the utilization of evidentiality in course books and research papers came to the conclusion that there were generally more genre discrepancies than disciplinary differences, and the textbooks had an inclination to show tracks of more disciplinary variety than the research papers. In the same vein, Dahl (2004) investigated two kinds of evidentials, i.e. locational and rhetorical meta-text, and came up with diverse interdisciplinary and cross-linguistic discrepancies in the use of meta-textual evidentiality. Besides, Hyland and Tse (2004) who studied on the use of evidentiality in postgraduate dissertations relevant to six disciplines showed that the humanities and social science disciplines employed more evidentiality than the non-humanities, and that greater evidentiality was applied in the humanities and more interdisciplinary balance of interactive evidentiality was observed in the science dissertations. ...
Integrating the triplex notion of evidentiality into its theoretical framework, this study aimed at contrastively scrutinizing the ELT academic papers authored by non-native Iranian and native English researchers in terms of the utilization of evidentiality, focusing on the adverbial and epistemic-modality types. To this end, the discussion sections of 20 online papers were randomly selected from both groups. Then, postulating Ifantidou's model (2001) as its analytical framework, this investigation identified the other evidentiality types in the collected corpora, and then classified them into appropriate subtypes based on the subcategories of the model. Furthermore, the frequency and the rate of evidentials in each group were compared and contrasted to see their rate differences. The findings indicated that the "adverbial" type of evidentiality enjoyed the first-ranked frequency, and the "epistemic modality" was the fourth frequently-used type of evidentiality in both native and non-native ELT papers. The other frequent types of evidentiality in these papers included "inferring," "reported," "memory," and "propositional attitude," respectively, which were not the types this study concentrated on. Finally, it was observed that there were subtle differences in both the degree and the way these authors draw evidentiality in their papers.
... In spite of the fact that so many researchers have strived to investigate the function of metadiscourse markers and their subcategories in a number of different contexts and genres (e.g., Dafouz-Milne, 2008;Dahl, 2004), few have been of an experimental nature, had contributions to language pedagogy, and tried to tease out the effect of metadiscourse on the students language skills (Parvaresh & Nemati, 2008;Cammicottoli, 2003;Jalilifar & Alipoor, 2007). ...
... Majority of the research in metadiscourse centers around academic genre (e.g., Abdi et al., 2010;Bunton 1999;Dahl, 2004;Hyland, 1998;Hyland 2005a;Hyland, 2005b;Hyland & Tse, 2004;Mauranen, 1993b;Vande Koople, 1985). Similarly, according to Adel (2018) academic genres as regards metadiscourse received too much interest from researchers. ...
As a representative form of popular culture, the continuation of advice letters written by the agony aunts in newspapers can demonstrate society's needs. Despite its commonality in everyday life, advice can be termed as a ‘complex and interesting speech act’ (Hyland and Hyland 2012) since sometimes it does not end in one sentence like other speech acts (e.g., requesting, apologies and thanking) (Trosborg 1995). Based on data from a collection of 100 advice letters written by the Turkish agony aunt gathered from the years 2020-2021, a textual meta discursivee analysis of advice letters is conducted to evaluate the types and frequencies of textual markers to find out how the agony aunt utilizes these textual elements to put forward her arguments. The findings reveal that 1) logical markers are extremely essential for persuading advice seekers and 2) adversatives and additives are necessary for providing a logical basis when advising advice seekers. The paper concludes by indicating that textual markers are essential for persuading advice seekers and potential readers when giving advice.
Previous research on linguistic complexity features in research articles (RAs) has mainly focused on synchronic comparisons across disciplines or expertise levels. Relatively little research has been conducted from a diachronic perspective. The aim of the present study was to examine diachronic changes and disciplinary variations in the lexical complexity of RAs. A diachronic corpus consisting of 960 journal articles published between 1970 and 2020 in economics and medicine was compiled for analysis. Nine measures incorporated in Lu’s (2012) Lexical Complexity Analyzer were adopted to operationalize three dimensions of lexical complexity for all the texts. Results showed an increasing trend over the 50 years in the lexical density, variation, and sophistication of RAs in the two disciplines. More specifically, RAs in both disciplines have become more lexically complex over time, producing an increasing proportion of lexical words, a larger number of sophisticated words, and a wider diversity of word types. Results also showed that the two disciplines varied significantly in the complexity measures, with medicine generally exhibiting a higher level of lexical complexity during the examined period. These observed changes and variations could be interpreted as a result of shifting research paradigms and practices in the two disciplines. The findings of this study would facilitate a further understanding of linguistic changes occurring in disciplinary writing.
The central concerns of the field of world Englishes have influenced research into academic communication and literacy in several ways, giving rise to a dynamic area of inquiry. After an overview of the expansion of understandings of academic communication, the entry looks at the different ways that linguistic diversity has been conceptualized, demonstrating a shift from earlier attempts characterized by a cross‐cultural perspective to more recent translingual studies that highlight the fluidity of language boundaries and feature a focus on practice. The entry then discusses the central issues at the intersection of world Englishes and academic communication and the implications of studies for classroom pedagogy.
Son yıllarda akademik metinlerdeki üstsöylem (metadiscourse) kullanımı üzerine yapılan çalışmalar, yazarın okurlara daha okur dostu ve tutarlı bir söylem sunmak için başvurduğu üstsöylemsel birimlerin, yazarın bulunduğu toplumun kültürel kimliği hakkında da bilgi taşıdığını ortaya koymaktadır. Bu çalışma, yabancı dil olarak Türkçe öğretimi amacıyla hazırlanan ders kitaplarında ben ve biz birinci kişi kullanımlarını incelemeyi ve bu kullanımların üstsöylem işlevlerini belirleyerek Türk kültürünü özellikle bireycilik-toplumsalcılık (individualism-collectivism) karşıtlığında nasıl yansıttığını ortaya çıkarmayı amaçlamaktadır. Bu amaçla, Hyland’ın (2005a) Kişilerarası Üstsöylem Modeli kapsamında Yedi İklim, Yeni Hitit, İstanbul Yabancılar için Türkçe C seviyesi ders kitaplarının okuma metinlerindeki birinci tekil kişi ve birinci çoğul kişi kullanımları ve üstsöylemsel işlevleri nitel ve nicel olarak incelenmektedir. Veri çözümlemesi, ders kitaplarında birinci çoğul kişi adıl kullanımlarına daha fazla başvurulduğunu ve bu kullanımların sıklıkla kapsayıcı biz (inclusive we) üstsöylem işleviyle katılım belirleyicisi (engagement marker) olarak ortaya çıktığını göstermektedir. Bu bulgunun, hem Türkçenin sondan eklemeli (agglutinative) ve adıl düşüren (pro-drop) bir dil olması hem de Türk kültürünün daha çok toplumsal bir kimliğe sahip olmasından kaynaklandığı ileri sürülebilir. Bu çalışmanın sonuçlarının, yabancı dil ders materyalleri hazırlayanlara üstsöylem işlevi gören ögelerin kültürel yansımalardaki işlevi hakkında farkındalık sağlaması beklenmektedir.
Several studies on metadiscourse zero in on how genres show nuances of linguistic features that reside in various structures depending upon the linguistic exigencies of language for specific purposes. Inquisitive on how these nuances are demonstrated through a repertoire of metadiscoursal features in a highly contextualized discourse, this paper explores how metadiscourse resources are utilized in aeronautics and aerospace engineering and how these facilitate the development of a well-composed text in the field of aviation. Using Hyland and Tse’s ( 2004 ) and Hyland’s ( 2005 , 2010 ) analytical frameworks for interactive and interactional resources, a corpus of thirty research articles comprising 125,298 words published in the Journal of Aeronautics and Aerospace Engineering was scrutinized. As revealed in the study, the investigated metadiscourse markers resembled Hyland and Tse’s ( 2004 ) and Hyland’s ( 2005 , 2010 ) findings in terms of interactive and interactional markers, which contain similar features of academic writing such as formality and objectivity; however, in the use of interactional resources, it yielded a finding that supports informality through the use of self-mentions. The quantitative analysis yielded a higher frequency of interactive markers than interactional markers across the thirty articles. This argues that writers in aeronautics and aerospace engineering articles essentially employ more interactive resources than interactional resources, suggesting that these writers are primarily concerned with making their text more cohesive while being responsible for establishing an interpersonal stance toward both the propositional contents and the audience of the text. The findings of the present study provide pedagogical implications as to how writers in the field of aeronautics and aerospace engineering can effectively compose their articles through the strategic use of metadiscoursal markers.
The concept of metadiscourse is used in applied linguistics to characterise the parts of text that do not contribute new information, but help organize the text or build the relationship between the writer and the reader. In this paper I present a new aspect of metadiscourse that manifests itself especially in conversation: I refer to it as conversation management. I define three levels of conversation management: managing topic flow, managing turn-taking and managing utterance production. Based on an analysis of authentic conversations, I try to define the types of discourse elements through which the conversation management is realized. The results show that these elements are very diverse, and many of them (e. g.,prosody, speech acts, propositional content ...) have several other function in addition to conversation management.
Research articles are a primary medium for scholars to communicate with disciplinary community, but there is little evidence suggesting how much writing practices on different research subjects within a discipline diverge in a single journal. This study remedies the oversight by comparing the use of interactive metadiscourse in the papers of Applied Linguistics on language acquisition and discourse analysis. Based on a corpus of 30 research articles on each research subject, results show that writers in language acquisition make a significantly more frequent use of additive and consequential transitional markers, reformulators, and non-integral citations. However, discourse analysts prefer to invest in exemplifiers, linear and non-linear references and topic shifts. All the differences can be attributable to the characteristics of disciplinary research paradigms, which lead to different knowledge-making and interactive patterns in academic writing. The findings offer empirical evidence to the rhetorical function of metadiscourse in constructing disciplinary knowledge, and raise pedagogical implications for EAP instructors to help scholars in applied linguistics increase international publications.
Metadiscourse didn’t truly captivate the attention of applied linguists until the 1980s, a period marked by notable works from scholars like William (Style: Ten lessons in clarity and brace, Scott Foresman, 1981), Dijk (Discourse Commun 10:69, 1985) and Crismore and Farnsworth(Rhetoric Rev, 8(1), 91–112, 1989).
This study examines metadiscourse markers across a corpus of Estonian and Lithuanian journal articles in the field of linguistics. We aim to 1) compare the global use of all the metadiscourse markers across the languages and texts, making distinctions between these languages and specific academic journals, and 2) to discern whether similar and/or different patterns can be identified across the languages and whether such patterns also manifest across various academic journals. We find that Estonian writers use self-mentions more frequently in methods sections than Lithuanian counterparts. Comparing journals, the Lithuanian journal Kalbotyra shows more transition markers, code glosses, and endophoric markers, while the Estonian ERÜ aastaraamat relies more on transition markers in results and discussion sections. Despite discipline similarities, variations emerge in specific sections and interpersonal categories across languages and journals. The study provides insights into metadiscourse patterns and their role in different languages and academic contexts, offering potential guidance for future research and practice in non-English academic writing.*
The functional approach to language highlights the importance of context in language description (Halliday, 1975), with the text seen as an instance of “language functioning in context” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014). Situated in different contexts, linguistic descriptions inform theories of language and have significant contributions to teaching pedagogy (Hyland, 2002, 113). Considering that linguistic choices vary as a function of context (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014), this research attempts to investigate metadiscourse across two under-researched genres, namely brief reports and case reports (Lysanets et al., 2017; Vipon, 1993), with a view to studying how academic writers negotiate their professional personas while observing the conventions of their respective genres. To this end, a corpus of 20 brief reports and 20 case reports, published in 2020 and written by American authors, is collected from the journal of Military Medicine. This corpus, totaling 81 869 words, is analyzed for metadiscourse, following Hyland’s (2005) interpersonal model, at two levels, i.e., interactive and interactional. The choices of these metadiscoursal features are interpreted in the light of context so as to answer two questions: (i) do genres activate choices of metadiscoursal features and determine the way writers engage with the readership? and (ii) what are the communicative functions conveyed by these features across genres? The analysis reveals that the distribution of metadiscoursal features is motivated by generic conventions, with a preference for more interactive resources in BRs than CRs, which is attributed to the “in-progress” nature of BRs where authors do not assume the role of a knowledge holder but invest more in guiding the readership to get the assent of their community.
Öz Amaç Genel anestezi (GA) altında dental tedavi uygulanan çocuk hastalarda anesteziye bağlı komplikasyonları değerlendirmeyi amaçladık. Gereç ve Yöntem Etik kurul onayı alındıktan sonra Selçuk Üniversitesi Diş Hekimliği Fakültesi Genel Anestezi ve Sedasyon Kliniği’nde 01.09.2020-01.09.2022 tarihleri arasında opere edilen çocuk hastaların kayıtları demografik veriler, ASA, komorbiditeler, anestezi süresi, derlenme süresi, kardiyak/ pulmoner komplikasyonlar ve beklenmeyen hastaneye yatış oranı. Hastalar yaşa göre grup 1 (0-3 yıl), grup 2 (3-6 yıl), grup 3 (>6 yıl) olarak 3 gruba ayrıldı. Bulgular Toplam hasta sayısı 398’di. Tüm hastalar 2-15 yaş arasındaydı. Grup 1'deki hasta sayısı 7 olduğu için karşılaştırmalarda istatistiksel olarak değerlendirilmemiştir. Tüm hastaların ortalama anestezi süresi 96.9 dakika, grup 2 ve grup 3'teki süreler sırasıyla 100,3 dakika ve 88.7 dakikaydı ve grup 2 ile 3 arasındaki fark istatistiksel olarak anlamlıydı (p=0,003). Grup 2 ve grup 3'teki tüm hastaların ortalama Vücut Kitle İndeksi (VKİ) değerleri sırasıyla 16.1 ve 18.6 idi ve grup 2 ile 3 arasındaki fark istatistiksel olarak anlamlıydı (p
This article explores self-mention in L2 (Czech) learner academic discourse along three dimensions of analysis: realisation, authorial roles and distribution across the rhetorical sections of English-medium master’s theses in the field of humanities. While extending the scope of self-mention to cover pronominal and nominals forms, the aim of the study is to find out how Czech graduates combine pronominal and nominal forms of self-mention to modulate the degree of visibility and authority they convey in their texts. The contrastive corpus-based investigation compares a corpus of Czech graduates’ master’s theses to two reference L1 corpora representing learner and published academic discourse to examine differences pertaining to variation along the culture and expertise dimensions. The findings indicate that realisation patterns of self-mention and preferences for specific authorial roles vary significantly across the corpora. Czech graduates tend to be reluctant to display a high degree of visibility and authority and prefer to adopt a stance of humility in their English-medium master’s theses. The paper argues that this is motivated by the efforts of students to blend the L1 and L2 academic conventions, their lower level of rhetorical maturity and the audience the students address in the examination context of the master’s thesis.
Spillner Bernd. Textes medicaux francais et allemands. Contribution a une comparaison interlinguale et interculturelle. In: Langages, 26ᵉ annee, n°105, 1992. Ethnolinguistique de l'ecrit, sous la direction de Jean-Claude Beacco. pp. 42-65.
One of the conspicuous differences infacademic discourse presentation is the preference for use of the first person singular ‘I’ perspective in some languages versus the first person plural ‘we’ perspective in others. This distinction is due not so much to purely linguistic reasons as to cultural ones. The purpose of this paper is to present some data concerning the employment of the two perspectives in English, German, French, Russian and Bulgarian research articles in linguistics and to suggest some explanations, as well as to point to certain cross-cultural misunderstandings which may result from the differences established here. An attempt is also made to investigate certain cross-linguistic and cross-cultural influences among the five languages. The analysis is based on 5 corpora consisting of 300 pages for each language.
A good deal of research into academic discourses has seen itself as a branch of Applied Linguistics, that is, the main motivation has been with a practical application in mind. This is perhaps one of the reasons why it has almost exclusively concerned itself with the study of the written text, and focussed specifically on the research article and the textbook. These are the genres that millions of students all over the world will have to grapple with in English, irrespective of their mother tongues. Less practical research like the historical study of academic texts has for other but quite obvious reasons also dealt with the written text, and it is only quite recently that the research community has begun to take an interest in the spoken language. This is not without conceivable applications either, for example with international student mobility growing, and the constantly increasing international conferences based on oral presentations. The relationship between speaking and writing in the academic world can be likened to the distinction made by Gilbert & Mulkay (1984) between on the one hand formal, official, polished-up, accounts of research, following as it were from the very nature of the objects of research, the scientists' "empiricist repertoire", and on the other hand the"contingent" repertoire, which refers to scientists' ways of describing professional actions and beliefs as if resulting from individuals acting on the basis of their particular social positions, personal inclinations, interests, etc. Gilbert & Mulkay's scientists resorted to their contingent repertoire when engaging in informal discourses about their work, but it seems that speaking in a university context will quite routinely have to deal with various kinds of backstage phenomena that we normally do not write about. In the present paper I take a look into academic speaking in one of the functions which are traditionally assigned to the institutional purposes of the academia, that is, expressing criticism. In face-to-face conversation we know that there is a general tendency to avoid direct criticism, but one might assume that this tendency is overridden by the institutional conventions.
Metadiscourse plays a vital role both in organising the discourse and in engaging the audience, thus becoming an important aspect of persuasive writing. Assuming that metadiscourse is context-dependent and that it is linked to the norms and expectations of a particular setting and genre, this article studies the metadiscourse devices typically used by copywriters to construct their slogans and/or headlines. Our analysis starts from the assumption that advertising English should be represented as a continuum of text functions fluctuating between ‘informing’ and ‘manipulating’ in accordance with the idea that advertising is an example of covert communication. Examples selected from a typical women's magazine show that both textual and interpersonal metadiscourse help copywriters to convey a persuasive message under an informative mask.
The paper examines similarities and differences in the degree of commitment and detachment in English, Bulgarian and Bulgarian English research articles in linguistics. The analysis shows considerable differences in the overall distribution of hedges and boosters throughout the three main parts of the article, namely the Introduction, Discussion and Conclusion, which may lead to misunderstandings in cross-cultural communication. The particular linguistic devices employed in the three languages are also investigated. Reasons for preference for one or another device are suggested; special attention is paid to certain differences in the pragmatic function of formally similar items. The variations are related to the different rhetorical and educational traditions in order to further facilitate the teaching of academic writing in English to Bulgarians, but also to appeal for a better understanding and tolerance of culture-specific features with a view to preserving cultural identity when using English as the international language of academic communication.
The present paper starts out by assuming that, despite a relative uniformity of research articles (RAs) imposed by the requirements of the genre, there will be significant intercultural variation in the rhetorical preferences of national cultures. Its aim is to find evidence for or against this assumption. To do so, it focuses on one micro-level feature of text rhetoric, the use of causal metatext (or text about text) in orienting readers in the interpretation of cause-effect intersentential relations (CEISRs). An empirical contrastive analysis of 36 RAs in English and 36 RAs in Spanish on business and economics written by native speakers of each language is carried out. In fact, the results show that both language groups seem to make CEISRs explicit with similar frequency. In addition, they use similar strategies for expressing CEISRs, as reflected in the amount of emphasis given to the causal relation, the basic mechanism of coherence used and the choice of peripheral or integrated signals. Moreover, those strategies appear similarly distributed. The only differences across the two languages are shown in their tendencies towards verbal or nominal anaphoric and anaphoric-cum-cataphoric signals. Thus, overall, these results tend to suggest that it is the writing conventions of the RA genre, and not the peculiarities of Spanish and English writing cultures, that govern the rhetorical strategies preferred by writers to make the CEISR explicit and the frequency with which these are made explicit.
Metadiscourse refers to writers' discourse about their discourse—their directions for how readers should read, react to, and evaluate what they have written about the subject matter. In this study the authors divided metadiscourse into textual metadiscourse (text markers and interpretive markers) and interpersonal metadiscourse (hedges, certainty markers, attributors, attitude markers, and commentary). The purpose was to investigate cultural and gender variations in the use of metadiscourse in the United States and Finland by asking whether U.S. and Finnish writers use the same amounts and types and whether gender makes any difference. The analyses revealed that students in both countries used all categories and subcategories, but that there were some cultural and gender differences in the amounts and types used. Finnish students and male students used more metadiscourse than U.S. students and female students. Students in both countries used much more interpersonal than textual metadiscourse with Finnish males using the most and U.S. males the least. The study provides partial evidence for the universality of metadiscourse and suggests the need for more cross-cultural studies of its use and/or more attention to it in teaching composition.
EAP teaching materials frequently emphasise the importance of text-structuring metadiscourse (sometimes referred to as ‘signposting’ language) to signal hierarchical organisation in lectures, and EAP teaching materials are often rich in samples of this type of metadiscourse. This raises two key questions: how important this type of metadiscourse is as a means of indicating to an audience the organisation of a lecture, and what other resources are available to the lecturer. This article focuses on the roles of text-structuring metadiscourse and intonation in signalling the larger-scale organisation of academic talks. The occurrence of metadiscoursal and intonational signals of organisation is compared in authentic undergraduate lectures and in talks appearing in EAP listening skills materials. It is argued that both metadiscourse and intonation are used by academic speakers to help an audience form a coherent ‘mental map’ of the overall talk and how its parts are interconnected. However, it appears that the models of organisation in lecture discourse provided by some EAP materials may be misleading. The article ends by considering the implications of the findings for EAP listening skills courses.
One of the major problems for students reading articles in medical journals is distinguishing objective statements of accepted fact from author-marked observations of opinion, hypothesis, or recommendation. In an attempt to determine how, why, and where the subjective element is introduced in the main categories of articles in medical journals, a selection of papers from the British Medical Journal was studied. An examination revealed that author's comment is expressed by verbal and nonverbal modals and by a wide range of attitudinal markers. The incidence of these varies from one category of article to another, editorials being more author-marked throughout, while clinical case notes and research papers contain sharp differences between the objective recounting of the methods and results sections and the more subjective discussion or comment sections. It is recommended that the frequent occurrence of expressions of emphasis, advice, and evaluation should be reflected in the production of more relevant materials for students of English for medical sciences.
This paper explores the possible role of university textbooks in students acquisition ofa specialised disciplinary literacy, focusing on the use of metadiscourse as a manifestation of thewriters linguistic and rhetorical presence in a text. Because metadiscourse can be analysedindependently of propositional matter, it provides useful information about how writers supporttheir arguments and build a relationship with readers in different rhetorical contexts. The papercompares features in extracts from 21 textbooks in microbiology, marketing and appliedlinguistics with a similar corpus of research articles and shows that the ways textbook authorsrepresent themselves, organise their arguments, and signal their attitudes to both their statementsand their readers differ markedly in the two corpora. It is suggested that these differences meanthat textbooks provide limited rhetorical guidance to students seeking information from researchsources or learning appropriate forms of written argument. Finally, by investigatingmetadiscourse in particular disciplines and genres, the study helps to restore the intrinsic linkbetween metadiscourse and its associated rhetorical contexts and rectify a popular view whichimplicitly characterises it as an independent stylistic device.
Writing is not just about conveying ‘content’ but also about the representation of self. (One of the reasons people find writing difficult is that they do not feel comfortable with the ‘me’ they are portraying in their writing. Academic writing in particular often poses a conflict of identity for students in higher education, because the ‘self’ which is inscribed in academic discourse feels alien to them.) The main claim of this book is that writing is an act of identity in which people align themselves with socio-culturally shaped subject positions, and thereby play their part in reproducing or challenging dominant practices and discourses, and the values, beliefs and interests which they embody. The first part of the book reviews recent understandings of social identity, of the discoursal construction of identity, of literacy and identity, and of issues of identity in research on academic writing. The main part of the book is based on a collaborative research project about writing and identity with mature-age students, providing: • a case study of one writer’s dilemmas over the presentation of self; • a discussion of the way in which writers’ life histories shape their presentation of self in writing; • an interview-based study of issues of ownership, and of accommodation and resistance to conventions for the presentation of self; • linguistic analysis of the ways in which multiple, often contradictory, interests, values, beliefs and practices are inscribed in discourse conventions, which set up a range of possibilities for self-hood for writers. The book ends with implications of the study for research on writing and identity, and for the learning and teaching of academic writing. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in the fields of social identity, literacy, discourse analysis, rhetoric and composition studies, and to all those concerned to understand what is involved in academic writing in order to provide wider access to higher education.
Academic writing is not just about conveying an ideational ‘content’, it is also about the representation of self. Recent research has suggested that academic prose is not completely impersonal, but that writers gain credibility by projecting an identity invested with individual authority, displaying confidence in their evaluations and commitment to their ideas. Perhaps the most visible manifestation of such an authorial identity is the use of first person pronouns and their corresponding determiners. But while the use of these forms are a powerful rhetorical strategy for emphasising a contribution, many second language writers feel uncomfortable using them because of their connotations of authority. In this paper I explore the notion of identity in L2 writing by examining the use of personal pronouns in 64 Hong Kong undergraduate theses, comparisons with a large corpus of research articles, and interviews with students and their supervisors. The study shows significant underuse of authorial reference by students and clear preferences for avoiding these forms in contexts which involved making arguments or claims. I conclude that the individualistic identity implied in the use of I may be problematic for many L2 writers.
This book provides a comprehensive study of hedging in academic research papers, relating a systematic analysis of forms to a pragmatic explanation for their use. Based on a detailed examination of journal articles and interviews with research scientists, the study shows that the extensive use of possibility and tentativeness in research writing is intimately connected to the social and institutional practices of academic communities and is at the heart of how knowledge comes to be socially accredited through texts. The study identifies the major forms, functions and distribution of hedges and explores the research article genre in detail to present an explanatory framework based on a complex social and ideological interpretive environment. The results show that hedging is central to Scientific argument, individual scientists and, ultimately, to science itself. The importance of hedging to student writers is also recognised and a chapter devoted to teaching implications.
The paper illustrates how many Finnish writers tend to have difficulties coding references to text participants appropriately in their English texts. When organising their texts thematically, Finnish writers also appear to apply thematic patterns which are not typical of English texts. In addition, Finnish writers do not seem to utilise the possibilities of the interplay between the REFERENCE and THEME systems at their textual optimum. The insights into the textual analysis of FL-scientific writing presented here may prove useful when applied linguists are facing the challenge of designing courses for academic writing in a foreign language, courses which will develop learners' consciousness and linguistic skills in organising information in texts in a way which is referentially and thematically cohesive.
This article presents a pilot study which has been undertaken as preparation for a comparative research project called “Cultural identity in academic prose”. The general aim of the project is to study which aspects of scientific activity are most important for what we may call cultural identity in academic writing. Whether such identities are primarily national or discipline-specific is discussed. The project involves research articles from three disciplines – medicine, economics and linguistics – and three languages – English, French and Norwegian. The central questions are related to authorial presence and stance, to the manifestation of other researchers’ voices and to the authors’ promotion of their own research. This article takes a linguistic approach, and the pilot study focuses on the use of the following categories: first person pronouns, metatextual comments, explicit and implicit references and lexical items. The pilot study comprises 18 research articles; in the large-scale study the corpus will consist of about 500 articles. In the pilot study presented here the main finding is that the proposed categories seem to be well suited to the purposes of the large-scale study. The data also allow some preliminary hypotheses about ‘non-expressive medical researchers’, ‘shy economists’ and ‘polemic linguists’ to be formulated.
Hedging, the expression of tentativeness and possibility by means of epistemic devices, is often held to be a central feature of more technical ESP texts such as scientific specialist-to-specialist research articles. Furthermore, hedges are also seen as characteristic of medical discourse. This study demonstrates that in medical discourse hedging can also be applied frequently in less specialized ESP texts such as popular scientific articles, but in different communicative functions than in specialist discourse. Hedging, an indication of textual precision and interpersonal negative politeness in scholarly peer communication, may be used as a textual tool for both imprecision and precision as well as a feature of interpersonal positive politeness in popularized communication between specialist writers and non-specialist readers. The implications of such functional diversity of hedging should receive more emphasis in the teaching and research of ESP.
Metadiscourse refers to aspects of a text which explicitly organise the discourse, engage the audience and signal the writer's attitude. Its use by writers to guide readers and display an appropriate professional persona is an important aspect of persuasive writing. Its role in establishing and maintaining contact between the writer and the reader and between the writer and the message also makes it a central pragmatic concept. Based on a textual analysis of 28 research articles in four academic disciplines, this paper seeks to show how the appropriate use of metadiscourse crucially depends on rhetorical context. The study identifies a taxonomy of metadiscourse functions and suggests that metadiscourse reflects one way in which context and linguistic meaning are integrated to allow readers to derive intended interpretations. It is argued that metadiscourse provides writers with a means of constructing appropriate contexts and alluding to shared disciplinary assumptions. The study of academic metadiscourse can therefore offer insights into our understanding of this concept and illuminate an important dimension of rhetorical variation among disciplinary communities.
This article describes a contrastive textlinguistic study of rhetorical differences between texts written by academics with different cultural backgrounds. It is assumed that, despite a relative uniformity of academic papers imposed by requirements of the genre, there is significant intercultural variation in the rhetorical preferences of writers. The cultural differences between texts written by Finnish and Anglo-American academics are explored with respect to metatext use in papers from economics journals. The results indicate that Anglo-American writers use more metatext or text about text than Finnish writers. It seems that Anglo-American writers are more concerned with guiding and orienting the reader than Finns, and show more explicit presence of the writer in the text. This is taken to reflect a more reader-oriented attitude, a more positive notion of politeness, and a generally more explicit textual rhetoric. Finnish writers show a more negative kind of politeness and a greater tendency towards implicitness in their writing. Such differences may result in unintentionally inefficient rhetoric when the target audience does not share the writer's assumptions and attitudes.
The socio-pragmatic phenomenon of academic conflict (AC) is here addressed from a cross-cultural and diachronic perspective, and is examined by combining a quantitative approach and a qualitative discoursal analysis of its salient rhetorical features in a corpus of Spanish, French and English medical articles published between 1930 and 1995. The speech acts that conveyed AC were recorded in each paper and classified into two categories according to their level of commitment (direct author's involvement) or detachment (hedginess and AC responsibility shifting). The quantitative results were analyzed by means of the Chi-square test. Our overall findings indicate that French and Spanish scientists tend to be not only more critical, but also more authoritarian and passionate in the formulation of their AC than their Anglo-Saxon counterparts. However, when analyzed diachronically, our results indicate that from the 1990s on, the rhetorical behavior of Spanish AC (though still somewhat blunt and personal) quite abruptly distinguishes itself from that of French and starts adopting the more veiled and "politically correct" tone of English AC. By contrast, the discursive pattern of French AC did not substantially change over time, although its indirectness slowly and continuously increased over the period studied. By placing the earlier results within their broader educational, political, historical and socio-economic context, it can be claimed that the behavioral changes observed in the framing of AC reflect the evolution of an increasingly promotional, competitive, professionalized, collegial and pragmatic end-of-twentieth-century scientific research which tends to compel scientists to progressively change their vision of science, although certain cultures seem to be more vulnerable to external penetration than others. © 2003 The American University. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
This paper discusses some cultural differences in the organization of linguistic and sociological texts written by English and German speakers. Linearity, symmetry, hierarchy and continuity are examined in 52 texts as are the position of definitions and advance organizers and the integration of data. It is suggested that the differences between the English and German texts may be promoted by the education systems and by varying intellectual styles and attitudes to knowledge and content.
The paper borrows inspiration from three main sources: discourse organization and processing, genre analysis, and ethnography of communication. It explores cross-cultural variation in academic discourse on the basis of some English and Polish data from the field of language studies. Strategies of paper introduction are examined and compared with the help of an extended version of Swales' (1990) Move Analysis. It is argued that there exist potential areas of (in)compatibility between the two writing styles. These involve first of all the scope of information that is normally revealed in initiating a paper, and the rhetorical work that is done to handle academic face-phenomena.
Academic writing is not just about conveying an ideational ‘content’, it is also about the representation of self. Recent research has suggested that academic prose is not completely impersonal, but that writers gain credibility by projecting an identity invested with individual authority, displaying confidence in their evaluations and commitment to their ideas. Perhaps the most visible manifestation of such an authorial identity is the use of first person pronouns and their corresponding determiners. But while the use of these forms are a powerful rhetorical strategy for emphasising a contribution, many second language writers feel uncomfortable using them because of their connotations of authority. In this paper I explore the notion of identity in L2 writing by examining the use of personal pronouns in 64 Hong Kong undergraduate theses, comparisons with a large corpus of research articles, and interviews with students and their supervisors. The study shows significant underuse of authorial reference by students and clear preferences for avoiding these forms in contexts which involved making arguments or claims. I conclude that the individualistic identity implied in the use of I may be problematic for many L2 writers.
The field of English for Academic Purposes has developed rapidly in the past 25 years to become a major force in English language teaching and research. Drawing its strength from broad theoretical foundations and a commitment to research-based language education, EAP has begun to reveal some of the constraints of social contexts on language use and to develop ways for learners to gain control over these. In this first issue of a new journal devoted to developments and understandings in this field, the editors briefly sketch the context within which the journal has emerged and point to some of the issues which currently influence and confront our discipline. In so doing we raise a number of questions which are likely to preoccupy JEAP's readers and contributors into the near future.
This article investigates the way in which 13 Hong Kong research students use metatext to orient and guide their readers through their Ph.D theses. It uses a corpus of over 3000 pages and 0.6 million words. It proposes that the level of metatextual references can be determined by their scope (i.e. the amount of text referred to) and by the distance over which they operate. It argues that higher level metatextual references (i.e. referring to larger amounts of text or operating over greater distances) play a more powerful role in text cohesion and coherence than lower level ones (i.e. referring to smaller amounts of text or operating over shorter distances), especially in long texts.The article reports on the extent to which the 13 Ph.D writers use higher level metatext, at chapter or thesis levels, keeping the reader in touch with how the current subject matter relates to the text as a whole. It finds that there is considerable variation in the proportion of each thesis that is taken up with chapter and thesis level metatext, ranging from 2–16.5%, and some inconsistency in the way student writers use it, particularly at chapter level.
The research presented in this paper offers a contrastive text-linguistic study of rhetorical differences between texts written by academics with different cultural backgrounds, but using as a means of expression the same language: English. The paper is based on some previously published articles comparing English with other languages (Clyne 1987; Galtung 1979; Mauranen 1993), but in a different context in order to determine whether the results derived from the comparison between texts written in English by native speakers and non-native speakers coincide. As a result of analysing the data, I agree with Mauranen that, despite a relative uniformity of academic papers imposed by requirements of the genre, there is intercultural variation in the rhetorical preferences of writers. The cultural differences between texts written in English by Spanish-speaking academics and by Anglo-American academics are explored with respect to metatext used in papers from economics journals. The results indicate that the Anglo-American writers use more metatext, or text about the text, than the Spanish-speaking writers. They also seem to be more concerned with guiding and orienting the reader than the Spanish-speaking writers, and show more explicit presence of the writer in the text. It is suggested that the Anglo-American texts reflect a more reader-oriented attitude, and a generally more explicit textual rhetoric. The Spanish-speaking writers put a greater emphasis on propositional content and favor a more impersonal style of writing, as well as a greater tendency towards implicitness in their writing.
This study considers the way in which medical writers talk about things which they deem to be true, possible, and untrue The
study considers research papers drawn from three leading medical journals, published since 1991 Three main types of truth
are identified contextualized truth, evidential truth, and interpreted truth These deal, respectively, with truth as the research
tradition states it to be, truth as the statistical evidence states it to be, and truth as a matter of deriving possible non-statistical
meaning from findings Writers also make frequent explicit reference to the extent to which they are committed to the propositions
expressed in statements about truth the manner in which they do so is discussed, with a distinction being drawn between propositions
and comments
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Academic Writing in Context
- M Hewings
Hewings, M. (Ed.), Academic Writing in Context. University of Birmingham Press, Birmingham, pp. 43–54.
Some characteristics of argumentative abstracts Department of Romance Studies The development of the economics article: 1891 to 1980
- Dahl
- Trine
Dahl, Trine, 2004. Some characteristics of argumentative abstracts. Akademisk Prosa 2, 49–67. Department of Romance Studies, University of Bergen. Dudley-Evans, Tony, Henderson, Willie, 1993. The development of the economics article: 1891 to 1980. FINLANCE 12, 159–181.
Lexical cohesion-based text condensation. An evaluation of automatically produced summaries of research articles by comparison with author-written abstracts
- Trine Dahl
Dahl, Trine, 2000. Lexical cohesion-based text condensation. An evaluation of automatically produced summaries of research articles by comparison with author-written abstracts. Unpublished Dr. Art. thesis, University of Bergen.