Metadiscourse Strategies and Citation Patterns as Resources of Authorial Identity in Research Articles across International/Local Journals and Applied Linguistics Subdisciplines

Abstract

The present study explored the rhetorical representation of authorial identity signaled by interactive/interactional metadiscourse strategies and integral/non-integral citation patterns in international and Iranian local research article discussion sections. The study also explored variation in metadiscourse and citation resources across three subdisciplines of Language Testing, English Language Teaching, and Discourse Analysis. To this end, a representative sample of 60 discussion sections of articles published in three prestigious international journals and three well-accredited Iranian local journals was collected. The comparisons revealed that Iranian local articles used a greater number of interactive metadiscourse strategies, whereas international articles tended to employ more interactional metadiscourse markers. In the interaction between authorial identity and citation perspectives, it was demonstrated that Iranian local articles employed more integral citation resources, while their international counterparts utilized more non-integral citation patterns. Furthermore, the findings showed subdisciplinary variation in the use of interactional metadiscourse strategies and non-integral citation patterns in international RAs. This can be attributed to their distinctive communicative purposes, target readership, scope of investigation, and final research products. The study concludes with some implications for post-graduate students to equip themselves with both macro-level generic and micro-level discoursal properties required for writing research article discussion sections, and, accordingly manifesting their authorial identity.