Analysis of Metadiscourse Features in Argumentative Writing by Pakistani Undergraduate Students

Abstract

Metadiscourse involves the interaction between the reader and the writer of the text in the overall process of communication. Metadiscourse not only guides the reader to understand the primary message of the text through structure and content, but also it intimates the reader with the particular slants and perspectives in the primary discourse. The students have to master the use of Metadiscourse in their writings. The purpose of this study is to examine the distribution and frequency of Metadiscourse features used by Pakistani undergraduate students in their argumentative essays and to analyze roles played by these particular features. Moreover, the research explores the extent of appropriateness and inappropriateness in this particular text as well. Hyland's Interpersonal model of Metadiscourse (2005) was adapted to conduct the present study. AntConc 3.4.4 software is used for corpus analysis of the text. Findings show that Pakistani undergraduate students are more comfortable with using Interactional Metadiscourse 61% rather than Interactive dimension 39%. It has been observed that undergraduate students used high score of self-mentions 37% and engagement markers 37%. Endophoric markers were not used by these students 0%. Findings have considerable importance, as they assist the learners to figure out the problems of the students regarding the use of Metadiscourse. Trainings should be given to the students to use these features appropriately.

Metadiscourse in Academic Writing: An Investigation of Saudi EFL Students' Research Articles

“…Contrary to what have been found in previous studies on L2 writers, the study conducted by Heng and Tan (2010) revealed that the corpus of argumentative essays written by Malaysian undergraduate students exhibited more interactional metadiscourse markers rather than interactive metadiscourse markers. Similar to Heng and Tan's (2010) findings mentioned above, Mahmood, Javaid and Mahmood (2017) found that Pakistani undergraduate students were more inclined to using interactional metadiscourse markers instead of interactive ones in their argumentative essays. Nevertheless, in both studies, 'transitions' which is one of the subcategories of interactive metadiscourse, was the most frequently used type of metadiscourse by L2 learners.…”

Comparisons of Interactive and Interactional Metadiscourse among Undergraduates

“…On the other hand, this was different with the study on L2 writers by Heng and Tan (2010), where the study had revealed that Malaysian undergraduate students produced more interactional metadiscourse markers than interactive metadiscourse markers in their argumentative essays. Interestingly, Mahmood, Javaid & Mahmood (2017) also found that Pakistani undergraduate students were more inclined in using interactional metadiscourse markers instead of interactive ones in their corpus of argumentative writings in which is similar to the findings by Heng and Tan (2010). Transition Markers were found as the most frequently used features by L2 learners.…”

“…In overall, both courses used more interactive metadiscourse features (2964) than interactional metadiscourse features (1777) in their writings. In general, both courses employed more interactive metadiscourse features than interactional metadiscourse features in their writings which is similar to the result by Alkhathlan (2019), but somehow different with studies by Heng and Tan (2010) and Mahmood et. al (2017) who revealed that undergraduate students' L2 corpus exhibited more interactional metadiscourse features rather than interactive metadiscourse features.…”

Interactional Metadiscourse Analysis of ESL Learners’ Essays

“…In Malaysian context, the study on L2 writers by Heng and Tan (2010) had revealed that Malaysian undergraduate learners produced more interactional metadiscourse markers than interactive metadiscourse markers in their argumentative essays. Interestingly, Mahmood et. al (2017) also found that Pakistani undergraduate learners were more inclined in using interactional metadiscourse markers instead of interactive ones in their corpus of argumentative writings.…”