A Corpus Based Comparative Study Of The Use Of Interactional Metadiscourse Markers In Master Theses General Conclusions

Résumé: Recently, there has been an increased emphasis on the interpersonal function of metadiscourse features in academic texts. This means that research on writing in academic contexts began to focus on the rhetorical features, such as interactional metadiscourse, that writers use to present their voice in writing. Although several studies have favored research articles as an important genre to search the metadiscourse features, little attention has been drawn to the analysis of metadiscourse use in MA theses general conclusions across L1 and L2 languages. Besides, academic writers, especially EFL learners do not manifest these features in their writing. The current study, thus, aims to report a comparative based analysis of forty postgraduates' MA theses general conclusions compiled into two equal-sized corpora each representing one of two different universities, namely, Oum El Bouaghi and Iowa. To carry out the analysis, the study adopts Hyland's (2005) interpersonal model of metadiscourse to investigate how interactional meta-discourse markers are used by native and non-native students and how similar or different the two corpora regarding the use of those markers. The results showed that each group employed interactional metadiscourse markers differently. Additionally, Iowa students used more interactional markers than Oum El Bouaghi students. Still, the analysis reported on some similarities in the use of those markers between native and non-natives which is the same frequency order of hedges, attitudes and engagement in both corpora. Moreover, hedges acted as the leading category and engagement as the last one. Nevertheless, the statistical Chi Square results suggested that there is a significant difference in the use of those markers between natives and non-natives (p<0.05)

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