A Comparison of the Interactive Metadiscourse in the Abstracts of Articles Written by Indonesian and Nes Scholars

Abstract

An abstract plays an important role in an article because it becomes the face of the whole paper. Besides, voluntarily or involuntarily when writing an abstract, a writer also applies metadiscourse markers to communicate effectively by organizing, interacting, and showing the stance. Thus, the application of metadiscourse in an abstract becomes an interesting object to examine. This study is aimed at examining interactive and interactional metadiscourse suggested by Hyland (2005) in 50 abstracts written by Indonesian scholars and 50 abstracts written by NES scholars, 100-250 word range, taken from TEFLIN journal and ELT journal. The results show that NES scholars apply more metadiscourse markers than Indonesian scholars (83.14 versus 76.37). NES, in details, apply more code glosses, and transition markers, while Indonesian scholars apply more frame markers and evidentials, and the similar result is found in endophoric markers (8.9 for both groups of scholars). But, from overall cases and variants, metadiscourse markers by Indonesian scholars are more varied than those of NES scholars (618 versus 559 cases, 66 versus 48 variants). Differences are mostly influenced by cultural interferences (Friedlander, 1987; Hyland, 2005; Abdi, 2009; Sanjaya et al., 2015; Mu et al., 2015). Apart from what causes the differences, the result of T-test shows that the difference in metadiscourse markers applied by both scholars is not significant. It means that metadiscourse markers applied by both groups of scholars are similar.

Metadiscourse Markers: Frequency and Errors Made by EFL Students

“…The most frequent resources were 'and', 'because', and 'so'. This result seems consistent with the previous research that found extensive transition markers in abstract writing (Mazidah, 2019;Hamid, 2019). As previously mentioned, frame markers are used to set the structure of an abstract.…”

“…For example, Kawase (2015) exposed how research article writers employed more metadiscourse markers than thesis writers, arguing the nature of research articles as a professional genre that insists on presenting oneself in the academic world. However, research article and abstract thesis writers used more interactive markers than interactional markers (Ashofteh et al, 2020;Pandey, 2020;Al-Shujairi et al, 2016;Mazidah, 2019). Some other studies reflected how native speakers and non-native speakers of English used metadiscourse markers (Hussein et al, 2018;Kaies, 2019;Nugroho, 2019).…”

Interacting with readers: How nonnative authors of English use meta-discourse markers in their research article abstracts published in English medium journals

“…Studies on the use of MMs in English RAs by English and Indonesian authors were conducted by Sanjaya et al, (2015) and Mazidah (2019). Sanjaya et al found that English RAs in Applied Linguistics written by English native speakers contain significantly more hedges than those written by Indonesian speakers.…”

“…According to Sanjaya et al, this implies that Indonesian scholars badly need instruction in using interactional MMs particularly hedges when writing in English to meet the expectation of English readers. A more recent study on the use of MMs in RAAs was conducted by Mazidah (2019). She compared 50 English RAAs written by Indonesian authors and 50 RAAs written by native English speakers (NESs) in Applied Linguistics.…”

“…As discussed above, a comparative study on the use of MMs by Indonesian and English scholars in Applied Linguistics in their RAAs has been conducted by Mazidah (2019) but this study only investigated the use of interactive MMs and excluded interactional MMs. Also, this study only analyzed the use of MMs in the entire RAAs and did not look at the use of MMs in each of the five possible RMs in the abstracts.…”