Mohsen Khedri

An exploration of interactive metadiscourse markers in academic research article abstracts in two disciplines

A generic analysis of research article abstracts can cover issues of different types; among them are linguistic features. An integral part of linguistic features of research article abstracts is interactive metadiscourse usage that can assist to make the text persuasive and unfolding to a discourse community. The main principle behind applying interactive metadiscourse is the view of writing as socially engaging; specifically, it indicates the ways writers project themselves into their arguments to declare their attitudes and commitments to the readers. This study aimed to explore how interactive metadiscourse markers are deployed by research article abstract writers belonging to different disciplinary communities within the soft sciences, while trying to reach the audience by creating a well-organized discourse. Hyland’s (2005) interpersonal model of metadiscourse was adopted to analyze 60 research article abstracts written in Applied Linguistics and Economics. Based on the results, there were marked variations found across the two disciplines in terms of interactive metadiscourse markers.

Are we visible? An interdisciplinary data-based study of self-mention in research articles

Abstract Research articles have often materialized through the use of impersonal objective strategies viz. abstract rhetors, passive constructions, and nominalizations. However, intrusive or subjective strategies, such as self-mentions, appear to integrate impersonal structures. As a rhetorical strategy to explicitly portray authorial selves, self-mentions help writers to project themselves into the discourse by marketing themselves and demarcating their original contribution to the field. Here, an interdisciplinary approach was adopted to examine explicit authorial presence in a comparable corpus of 40 research articles in applied linguistics, psychology, environmental engineering, and chemistry by taking into consideration: (i) the frequency of using exclusive first person plural pronouns (we, our, us, and ours); and (ii) the writers’ rhetorical functions of pronoun use. The results showed that there are interdisciplinary variations in the frequency and use of self-reference, particularly once the soft disciplines are set against the hard ones. The differing results across the datasets reflect the susceptibility of authorial presence to the rhetorical cultures conditioned by the discipline to which the writers belong. The current results are expected to broaden our understanding of disciplinary variations towards self-mentions usage in academic writings in the four communities, particularly in the under-researched disciplines of environmental engineering and chemistry.

Cross-disciplinary and cross-linguistic perspectives on metadiscourse in academic writing

Abstract The present review article examines a selection of recent academic discourse concerning metadiscourse. Metadiscourse relates to aspects of a text which organise the discourse in an explicit way, engage the addressee, and indicate the writers attitude. It is integral to the contexts in which it happens and is intimately dealt with according to the norms and expectations of specific cultural and professional communities. This review aims to explore the effect of disciplinary conventions and norms as well as language context on the manifestation of metadiscourse markers in academic writing. Since most scholars commonly believe that the application of metadiscourse differs from discipline to discipline and language to language, the accuracy of this belief is investigated. Therefore, results of some earlier studies are reviewed so as to investigate the accuracy of the above assertion. Limitations of existing empirical studies are discussed and some directions for future research regarding the use of metadiscourse in academic settings are suggested as well.