Exploring Interactive and Interactional Metadiscourse Markers in Discussion Sections of Social and Medical Science Articles

Abstract

Metadiscourse markers are used as one of the tools which make writing more effective in social environment and are regarded as one of the most important features in communication among people for expressing the information through different linguistic expressions with cohesive and logical constructions. Accordingly, the present study aimed to identify interactive and interactional metadiscourse in a targeted sample of 100 English research articles written by Iranian writers utilizing Hyland's taxonomy. The sample included the discussion sections of randomly selected articles with 70000 running words published between 2010 and 2016. The overall findings disclosed that, in interactive metadiscourse category, the use of transitions, frame markers, and evidentials in social science articles were more frequent than those in medical science texts. The results further revealed that the use of endophoric markers and code glosses were almost the same. In interactional metadiscourse corpora, however, the findings demonstrated that writers used hedges, boosters, and self-mentions more frequently in medical science articles compared to those in social sciences. Comparatively, the discussion sections in social science texts contained a higher percentage of engagement markers. It was also found out that there was no significant difference in the use of attitude markers in both disciplines. Notably, the social science authors seemingly preferred to employ interactive metadiscourse markers more, while the medical science authors used interactional metadiscourse markers more frequently in their research articles.

Meta-Discourse Markers in Introduction and Literature Review Sections of Management Articles Written by Iranian and Foreign Scholars

“…Also, the results are similar to the results of the study by Gholami, Tajalli, and Shokrpour (2014) wherein it was shown that there was a significant difference between the English and Persian texts regarding the frequency and types of meta-discourse markers in English medical texts and their Persian translation. Similarly, Ghahremani and Biria (2017) explored the use of meta-discourse markers in English research articles written by Iranian writers according to Hyland's taxonomy. It was revealed that in the category of interactive meta-discourse markers, transitions and evidentials in social science articles were more frequently used.…”

Use of Metadiscourse in the Persuasive Writing of Nigerian Undergraduates

“…Lastly, the findings revealed that more Metadiscourse devices are used in a dissertation in soft science because establishing proof in the soft science field is more difficulty, as a result, more Metadiscourse should be used to establish credibility in their texts. Furthermore, Mina and Biria (2017) conducted their study on exploring interactive and interactional Metadiscourse markers in discussion sections of social and medical science articles. The findings revealed that the authors of social science articles used evidential, frame markers, and transition markers more frequently than the authors of medical science.…”

Metadiscourse in Academic Written and Spoken English: A Comparative Corpus-Based Inquiry

“…In this regard, writing or speaking, especially in the domain of academic context, is perceived to be a social process between the writers and speakers, on the one hand, and readers and listeners, on the other hand (Hyland and Tse, 2004;. From various genres, the academic genre is used for miscellaneous purposes (Bailey, 2003;Ghahremani Mina and Biria, 2017). Indeed, this special kind of genre is used for reporting the results of research, answering research questions, discussing a scientific inquiry and synthesizing research programmes done by others.…”