چکیده:
This study is a corpus-based study of interactional metadiscourse in natural and social science master theses. For this purpose, 30 natural and social science master theses in six disciplines were randomly selected out of the library of five universities. Five master theses were selected in each discipline, in a period of six years (2010-2016). This study analyzed only the discussion and conclusion sections of master theses. To investigate interactional metadiscourse, Hyland’s (2005) classification was used. The results of this study demonstrated that the percentile proportion of total interactional metadiscourse markers in social science master theses was more than natural science master theses. Among the analyzed resources, hedges were the most frequent role in both corpora while attitude markers in social science and self-mention in natural science were the least favored role. The results of the present study suggested that being aware of interactional metadiscourse markers can shed light on the way of writing of academic texts because these markers help writers to negotiate with their readers and make the text more comprehensible and coherent. The results of the present study might offer pedagogical implication of this aspect of metadiscourse for postgraduate students.
خلاصه ماشینی:
An Investigation of Interactional Metadiscourse in Discussion and Conclusion Sections of Social and Natural Science Master Theses Farzad Salahshoor Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics, Department of English Language and Literature, Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Tabriz, Iran.
Although many researchers (Abdi, 2002; Hyland, 2005; Khalili & Aslanabadi, 2014) have investigated this function in academic texts including research articles, to our best knowledge, there has been little research on the role of interactional metadiscourse in master theses.
The purpose of this study was to gain insights into the function of interactional metadiscourse in developing discussion and conclusion sections of social and natural science master theses.
This study attempts to find answers to the following research question: RQ # 1: Is there a difference in the frequency of the use of Interactional Metadiscourse in social and natural science master theses?
Research Method Corpus This study was an attempt to reveal variation on the use of interactional metadiscourse in discussion and conclusion sections of social and natural science master theses.
Frequency of these interactional metadiscourse markers were compared between social and natural sciences master theses.
Frequency of interactional metadiscourse in social science master theses Category Hedges Boosters Attitude markers Engagement markers Self-mention Total Applied linguistic 25 (49.
8%) Frequency of Interactional metadiscourse in natural science master theses Category Hedges Boosters Attitude markers Engagement markers Self-mention Total Physics & Astronomy 14 (48.
Discussion This study attempted to investigate the Interactional Metadiscourse in discussion and conclusion sections of social and natural science master theses.