Poring Over Metadiscourse Use in Discussion and Conclusion Sections of Academic Articles Written by Iranian ESP Students

Abstract

<span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;">This study investigated the employment of interactional metadisocurse in English <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;">academic articles written by Iranian ESP students. Data consisted of a total of 66 <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;">academic articles written in English by nonhumanities and humanities writers. <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;">Discussion and Conclusion sections were extracted, and Hyland's (2005) taxonomy <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;">was borrowed for analysis. The use of hedges, boosters, and attitude markers was <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;">compared in the articles. Total number of each metadiscourse marker was counted, <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;">and the differences were checked running Mann-Whitney <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;"><em>U </em><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;">test. Analysis revealed <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;">that there were disciplinary differences in the use of markers by nonhumanities and <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;">humanities. Hedges and attitude markers were more frequent in the humanities' <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;">articles, rather than the nonhumanities' articles. Also, the use of hedges and boosters <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;">was statistically significant. Pedagogical implications are discussed in light of the <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;">empirical data.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" /></span></span></span>