December 2024
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This is a corpus-based investigation of interactional metadiscourse used in the top ten impact factor journal article abstracts in Applied Linguistics published during 3 consecutive years, i.e., from 2019 to 2021. Using a corpus (IFALA 2019-2021) of the 3 years’ abstracts compiled during an earlier study of lexical density measures (Aziz & Riaz, 2024), ten sub-corpora were compiled and the markers were studied using Ant Conc software. The hedges were found to be the most frequent occurrence among the markers, and personal mentions were minimal. It points out that keeping in view the increasing trend of the empirical nature of studies in Applied Linguistics, authors are relying on the scientific findings to speak for themselves and not influence the opinions of readers by being present or emphasizing claims. Moreover, they are careful enough to give margin for alternate interpretations to the discourse community they are addressing i.e., the scholars and practitioners in Applied Linguistics by not being emphatic about claims, not introducing personal judgments and not engaging the readers much. This study contributes by adding 15 more items to the metadiscourse markers’ list proposed by Hyland (2005). Keywords: attitude markers; corpus-based; boosters; impact factor; engagement markers; hedges; interactional metadiscourse; self-mentions