| As a part of pragmatics of language, Metadiscourse (MD) has been widely recognized as
playing a pivotal role in the expression and comprehension of messages in academic
writing. In view of its significance in effective communication, there have been a lot of
attempts to categorize different MD devices within manageable models alongside some
descriptive works to demonstrate the use of MD devices on the basis of these models.
However, despite all the centrality accorded to MD markers in academic writing, few ESP
practitioners have tried to explore the use of these devices by non-native speakers (NNS)
who are known to be producing dry, incoherent and sometimes confusing papers - the very
shortcomings which might easily be managed by judicious use of MD elements. With the
absence of systematic works on the use of MD markers by NNS, there is a paucity of
information on their use of MD devices in their productions. This is what the present paper
seeks to uncover. Drawing on the Hyland and Tse’s (2004) “Interactive and Interactional”
model of MD, and their description of the use of MD devices in research articles produced
by native speakers (NS) in Hyland (1998), it was set out to document the frequency of MD
markers in papers produced by NNS of English and contrast it with that observed in Hyland
(1998). For this purpose, 20 RAs written by NNS which had been accepted for publication
in the Tabriz Journal of Dentistry were selected after extensive stylistic and linguistic
editing, and were compared against Hyland (1998) with respect to the frequency of
particular MD elements. The results showed huge discrepancy in the use of all MD devices
in general, and some in particular. The findings can provide useful insights in materials
development for academic writing classes where learners could receive explicit instructions
on the use of MD elements which have been found to be used least frequently. |