Interactional Metadiscourse Markers in English Research Article Abstracts Written by Non-Native Authors: A Corpus-Based Contrastive Study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ikala.v28n1a08Keywords:
research article abstract, academic discourse, interactional metadiscourse, non-native speakersAbstract
Abstracts in research articles play a crucial role in settling the impact of academic articles. However, despite the abundance of research on academic discourse, variation in its linguistic features among scholars from different academic cultures seems to have remained untouched. This corpus linguistics study presents a comparative analysis of interactional metadiscourse markers in 96 research article abstracts written in English by both Russian and Spanish scholars in the field of linguistics. The study is based on the assumption that the distribution of interactional metadiscourse devices is different in the abstracts produced by each group of scholars. This is because Spanish academic discourse has been influenced by the growing expansion of Anglophone academic conventions to a larger extent. The theoretical basis of the study is Hyland’s (2005) taxonomy of interactional metadiscourse markers, which offers a pragmatically-grounded method for studying different types of such markers in academic discourse. Findings revealed that Spanish scholars leave more traces of themselves in their writing and take far more explicitly involved positions than Russian scholars. These findings carry pedagogical implications for academic writing course designers and instructors and can enhance non-native English writers’ knowledge of culture-specific and international academic writing conventions in the discipline.
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References
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Alonso-Almeida, F. (2014). Evidential and epistemic devices in English and Spanish medical, computing and legal scientific abstracts: A contrastive study. In M. Bondi & R. Lorés Sanz (Eds.), Abstracts in Academic Discourse: Variation and Change (pp. 21-42). Bern: Peter Lang.
Babaii, E. & Ansary, H. (2005). On the effect of disciplinary variation on transitivity: The case of academic book reviews. Asian EFL Journal, 7(3), 113-126.
Beauvais, P. (1989). A speech-act theory of metadiscourse. Written Communication, 6(1), 11-30.
Belyakova, M. (2017). English-Russian cross-linguistic comparison of research article abstracts in geoscience. Estudios de Lingüística Universidad de Alicante, 31, 27-45. https://doi.org/10.14198/ELUA2017.31.02
Bhatia, V. K. (1993). Analysing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings. London: Longman.
Biber, D. (2006). Stance in spoken and written university registers. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5(2), 97-116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2006.05.001
Bondi, M. (2014). Changing voices: Authorial voice in abstracts. In M. Bondi & R. Lorés Sanz (Eds.), Abstracts in Academic Discourse: Variation and Change (pp. 243-270). Bern: Peter Lang.
Cmejrkova, S. (1996). Academic writing in Czech and English. In E. Ventola & A. Mauranen, Academic writing. Intercultural and textual issues (pp. 137-152). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Crismore, A., Markkanen, R. & Steffensen, M. S. (1993). Metadiscourse in persuasive writing: A study of texts written by American and Finnish university students. Written Communication, 10(1), 39-71. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088393010001002
Farjami, H. (2013). A corpus-based study of the lexical make-up of applied linguistics article abstracts. Journal of Teaching Language Skills, 32(2), 27-50.
Gessesse, C.M. (2016). An investigation into the macro rhetorical structures of the EFL research abstracts of graduates of 2013: the case of Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia. Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 6(1), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.29333/ojcmt/2534
Gillaerts, P. (2014). Move analysis of abstracts from a diachronic perspective: A case study. In N. -L. Johannesson, G. Melchers, & B. Björkman (Eds.), Of butterflies and birds, of dialects and genres (pp. 49-60). Stockholm: Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis.
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Hu, G., & Cao, F. (2011). Hedging and boosting in abstracts of applied linguistics articles: A comparative study of English-and Chinese-medium journals. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(11), 2795-2809. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2011.04.007
Hyland, K. (2009). Academic discourse: English in a global context. London: A & C Black.
Hyland, K. (2004) Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Hyland, K. (2005) Metadiscourse: Exploring Interaction in Writing. London: Continuum.
Hyland, K. & Tse, P. (2004). Metadiscourse in academic writing: A reappraisal. Applied Linguistics, 25, 156-177. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/25.2.156
Huckin, T. (2006). Abstracting from abstracts. In M. Hewings (Ed.), Academic Writing in Context (pp. 93-103). London: Continuum.
Ji, X. (2015). Comparison of abstracts written by native speakers and second language learners. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 5, 470- 474. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojml.2015.55041
Jordan, M. P. (1991). The linguistic genre of abstracts. In A. Della Volpe (Ed.), The seventeenth LACUS forum 1990 (pp. 507-527). Lake Bluff, IL: LACUS.
Kaya, F. & Yagiz, O. (2020). Move analysis of research article abstracts in the field of ELT: a comparative study. Dil Ve Dilbilimi Çalıs¸maları Dergisi, 16(1), 390–404. https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.712854
Khedri, M., Chan, S. H. & Tan, H. (2015). Interpersonal-driven features in research article abstracts: Cross-disciplinary metadiscoursal perspective. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 23(2), 303-314.
Kozubíková Šandová, J. (2019). Changing Czech academic discourse in the past 50 years. Časopis pro moderní filologii, 101(1), 54–71. https://doi.org/10.14712/23366591.2019.1.4
Kozubíková Šandová, J. (2021). Interpersonality in research article abstracts: a diachronic case study. Discourse and Interaction, 14(1), 77-99. https://doi.org/10.5817/DI2021-1-77
Krapivkina, O. A. (2014). Pronominal choice in academic discourse. Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research, 20(7), 833-843. https://doi.org/10.5829/idosi.mejsr.2014.20.07.13676
Kuhi, D. & Mousavi, Z. (2015). A diachronic study of interpersonality in research articles’ discussion section: The field of applied linguistics. International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies, 2(4), 6-13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-03329-z
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Lorés Sanz, R. (2006). I will argue that’: First person pronouns as metadiscoursal devices in research article abstracts in English and Spanish. ESP across Cultures, 3, 23-40.
Lorés Sanz, R. (2004). On RA abstracts: From rhetorical structure to thematic organisation. English for Specific Purposes, 23(3), 280-302. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2003.06.001
Lorés Sanz, R., Mur-Dueñas, P. & Lafuente-Millán, E. (Eds) (2010). Constructing Interpersonality. Multiple Perspectives on Written Academic Genres. Newcastle upon Tyne. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Lyda, A. & Warchal, K. (2014). Gender and academicity: Insights from research article abstracts. In M. Bondi & R. Lorés Sanz (Eds.), Abstracts in Academic Discourse: Variation and Change (pp. 111-130). Bern: Peter Lang.
Martin-Martin, P. (2003). A genre analysis of English and Spanish research paper abstracts in experimental social sciences. English for Specific Purposes, 22(1), 25-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(01)00033-3
1993.
Mauranen, A. (1993). Contrastive ESP rhetoric: metatext in Finnish-English economics texts. English for Specific Purposes, 12, 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/0889-4906(93)90024-I
Muñoz, C. M. (2013). The “I” in interaction: Authorial presence in academic writing. Revista De Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas, 8(1), 49-58. https://doi.org/10.4995/rlyla.2013.1162
Mur-Dueas, Pilar (2011). An intercultural analysis of metadiscourse features in research articles written in English and in Spanish. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 3068–3079. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2011.05.002
Nurhayati, N. (2017). Analysis of linguistic realizations of abstracts on Asian EFL journal. Proceedings, 1(1), 184-193.
Ortega Barrera, I. & Torres Ramírez, A. (2010). Estudio sobre los Abstracts de Artículos de Investigación Informáticos: Evidencialidad y Modalidad Textual. Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas, 5/1, 141-153. https://doi.org/10.4995/rlyla.2010.764
Perales-Escudero, M., & Swales, J. M. (2011). Tracing convergence and divergence in pairs of Spanish and English research article abstracts: The case of Ibérica”. Ibérica, 21, 49-70
Peterlin, P.A. (2005). Text-organising metatext in research articles: An English-Slovene contrastive analysis. English for Specific Purposes, 24(3), 307-319. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2004.11.001
Pyankova, T. (1994). A practical guide for the translation of Russian scientific and technical literature into English. Moscow: Letopis.
Saidi, M. & Talebi, S. (2021). Genre Analysis of Research Article Abstracts in English for Academic Purposes Journals: Exploring the Possible Variations across the Venues of Research. Education Research International, 2, 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/3578179
Stotesbury, H. (2003). Evaluation in research article abstracts in the narrative and hard sciences. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 2, 327-341. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1475-1585(03)00049-3
Supranont, P. (2012). Developing a writing template of research article abstracts: a corpus-based method. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 66, 144–156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.11.256
Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thomson, G. (2001). Interaction in academic writing: Learning to argue with the reader. Applied Linguistics, 22(1), 58-78. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/22.1.58
Thompson, G. & Thetela, P. (1995). The sound of one hand clapping: the management of interaction in written discourse. Text, 15(1), 103-27. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.1.1995.15.1.103
Van Bonn, S., & Swales, J. M. (2007). English and French journal abstracts in the language sciences: Three exploratory studies. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 6(2), 93-108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2007.04.001
Vande Kopple, W. (1985). Some exploratory discourse on metadiscourse. College Composition and Communication, 36(1), 82-93. https://doi.org/10.2307/357609
Vassileva, I. (1998). Who and I/who are we in academic writing? International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 8(2), 163-190.
Vassileva, I. (2001). Commitment and detachment in English and Bulgarian academic writing. English for Specific Purposes, 20(1), 83-102. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(99)00029-0
Ventola, E. (1994). Abstracts as an object of linguistic study. In S. Čmejrková, F. Daneš & E. Havlová (Eds.), Writing vs. Speaking. Language, Text, Discourse, Communication (pp. 333-352). Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
Yang, Y. (2013). Exploring linguistic and cultural variations in the use of hedges in English and Chinese scientific discourse. Journal of Pragmatics, 50(1), 23-36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.01.008
Walková, M. (2018). Author’s self-representation in research articles by Anglophone and Slovak linguists. Discourse and Interaction, 11(1), 86-105. https://doi.org/10.5817/DI2018-1-86
Williams, J. (1981). Style: ten lessons in clarity and grace. Boston: Scott Foresman.
Al-Khasawneh, F. M. (2017). A genre analysis of research article abstracts written by native and non-native speakers of English. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 4(1), 1-13.
Alonso-Almeida, F. (2014). Evidential and epistemic devices in English and Spanish medical, computing and legal scientific abstracts: A contrastive study. In M. Bondi & R. Lorés Sanz (Eds.), Abstracts in Academic Discourse: Variation and Change (pp. 21-42). Bern: Peter Lang.
Babaii, E. & Ansary, H. (2005). On the effect of disciplinary variation on transitivity: The case of academic book reviews. Asian EFL Journal, 7(3), 113-126.
Beauvais, P. (1989). A speech-act theory of metadiscourse. Written Communication, 6(1), 11-30.
Belyakova, M. (2017). English-Russian cross-linguistic comparison of research article abstracts in geoscience. Estudios de Lingüística Universidad de Alicante, 31, 27-45. https://doi.org/10.14198/ELUA2017.31.02
Bhatia, V. K. (1993). Analysing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings. London: Longman.
Biber, D. (2006). Stance in spoken and written university registers. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5(2), 97-116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2006.05.001
Bondi, M. (2014). Changing voices: Authorial voice in abstracts. In M. Bondi & R. Lorés Sanz (Eds.), Abstracts in Academic Discourse: Variation and Change (pp. 243-270). Bern: Peter Lang.
Cmejrkova, S. (1996). Academic writing in Czech and English. In E. Ventola & A. Mauranen, Academic writing. Intercultural and textual issues (pp. 137-152). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Crismore, A., Markkanen, R. & Steffensen, M. S. (1993). Metadiscourse in persuasive writing: A study of texts written by American and Finnish university students. Written Communication, 10(1), 39-71. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088393010001002
Farjami, H. (2013). A corpus-based study of the lexical make-up of applied linguistics article abstracts. Journal of Teaching Language Skills, 32(2), 27-50.
Gessesse, C.M. (2016). An investigation into the macro rhetorical structures of the EFL research abstracts of graduates of 2013: the case of Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia. Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 6(1), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.29333/ojcmt/2534
Gillaerts, P. (2014). Move analysis of abstracts from a diachronic perspective: A case study. In N. -L. Johannesson, G. Melchers, & B. Björkman (Eds.), Of butterflies and birds, of dialects and genres (pp. 49-60). Stockholm: Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis.
Graetz, N. (1985). Teaching EFL students to extract structural information from abstracts. In J. M. Ulijn & A. K. Pugh (Eds.), Reading for professional purposes. Methods and materials in teaching language (pp. 123-135). Amersfoot: Leuven.
Hu, G., & Cao, F. (2011). Hedging and boosting in abstracts of applied linguistics articles: A comparative study of English-and Chinese-medium journals. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(11), 2795-2809. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2011.04.007
Hyland, K. (2009). Academic discourse: English in a global context. London: A & C Black.
Hyland, K. (2004) Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Hyland, K. (2005) Metadiscourse: Exploring Interaction in Writing. London: Continuum.
Hyland, K. & Tse, P. (2004). Metadiscourse in academic writing: A reappraisal. Applied Linguistics, 25, 156-177. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/25.2.156
Huckin, T. (2006). Abstracting from abstracts. In M. Hewings (Ed.), Academic Writing in Context (pp. 93-103). London: Continuum.
Ji, X. (2015). Comparison of abstracts written by native speakers and second language learners. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 5, 470- 474. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojml.2015.55041
Jordan, M. P. (1991). The linguistic genre of abstracts. In A. Della Volpe (Ed.), The seventeenth LACUS forum 1990 (pp. 507-527). Lake Bluff, IL: LACUS.
Kaya, F. & Yagiz, O. (2020). Move analysis of research article abstracts in the field of ELT: a comparative study. Dil Ve Dilbilimi Çalıs¸maları Dergisi, 16(1), 390–404. https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.712854
Khedri, M., Chan, S. H. & Tan, H. (2015). Interpersonal-driven features in research article abstracts: Cross-disciplinary metadiscoursal perspective. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 23(2), 303-314.
Kozubíková Šandová, J. (2019). Changing Czech academic discourse in the past 50 years. Časopis pro moderní filologii, 101(1), 54–71. https://doi.org/10.14712/23366591.2019.1.4
Kozubíková Šandová, J. (2021). Interpersonality in research article abstracts: a diachronic case study. Discourse and Interaction, 14(1), 77-99. https://doi.org/10.5817/DI2021-1-77
Krapivkina, O. A. (2014). Pronominal choice in academic discourse. Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research, 20(7), 833-843. https://doi.org/10.5829/idosi.mejsr.2014.20.07.13676
Kuhi, D. & Mousavi, Z. (2015). A diachronic study of interpersonality in research articles’ discussion section: The field of applied linguistics. International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies, 2(4), 6-13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-03329-z
Lafuente-Millán, E. (2008). Epistemic and approximative meaning revisited: The use of hedges, boosters and approximators when writing research in different disciplines. In S. Burgess & P. Martín-Martín (Eds.), English as an Additional Language in Research Publication and Communication (pp. 65-82). Bern: Peter Lang
Lorés Sanz, R. (2006). I will argue that’: First person pronouns as metadiscoursal devices in research article abstracts in English and Spanish. ESP across Cultures, 3, 23-40.
Lorés Sanz, R. (2004). On RA abstracts: From rhetorical structure to thematic organisation. English for Specific Purposes, 23(3), 280-302. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2003.06.001
Lorés Sanz, R., Mur-Dueñas, P. & Lafuente-Millán, E. (Eds) (2010). Constructing Interpersonality. Multiple Perspectives on Written Academic Genres. Newcastle upon Tyne. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Lyda, A. & Warchal, K. (2014). Gender and academicity: Insights from research article abstracts. In M. Bondi & R. Lorés Sanz (Eds.), Abstracts in Academic Discourse: Variation and Change (pp. 111-130). Bern: Peter Lang.
Martin-Martin, P. (2003). A genre analysis of English and Spanish research paper abstracts in experimental social sciences. English for Specific Purposes, 22(1), 25-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(01)00033-3
1993.
Mauranen, A. (1993). Contrastive ESP rhetoric: metatext in Finnish-English economics texts. English for Specific Purposes, 12, 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/0889-4906(93)90024-I
Muñoz, C. M. (2013). The “I” in interaction: Authorial presence in academic writing. Revista De Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas, 8(1), 49-58. https://doi.org/10.4995/rlyla.2013.1162
Mur-Dueas, Pilar (2011). An intercultural analysis of metadiscourse features in research articles written in English and in Spanish. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 3068–3079. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2011.05.002
Nurhayati, N. (2017). Analysis of linguistic realizations of abstracts on Asian EFL journal. Proceedings, 1(1), 184-193.
Ortega Barrera, I. & Torres Ramírez, A. (2010). Estudio sobre los Abstracts de Artículos de Investigación Informáticos: Evidencialidad y Modalidad Textual. Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas, 5/1, 141-153. https://doi.org/10.4995/rlyla.2010.764
Perales-Escudero, M., & Swales, J. M. (2011). Tracing convergence and divergence in pairs of Spanish and English research article abstracts: The case of Ibérica”. Ibérica, 21, 49-70
Peterlin, P.A. (2005). Text-organising metatext in research articles: An English-Slovene contrastive analysis. English for Specific Purposes, 24(3), 307-319. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2004.11.001
Pyankova, T. (1994). A practical guide for the translation of Russian scientific and technical literature into English. Moscow: Letopis.
Saidi, M. & Talebi, S. (2021). Genre Analysis of Research Article Abstracts in English for Academic Purposes Journals: Exploring the Possible Variations across the Venues of Research. Education Research International, 2, 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/3578179
Stotesbury, H. (2003). Evaluation in research article abstracts in the narrative and hard sciences. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 2, 327-341. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1475-1585(03)00049-3
Supranont, P. (2012). Developing a writing template of research article abstracts: a corpus-based method. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 66, 144–156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.11.256
Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thomson, G. (2001). Interaction in academic writing: Learning to argue with the reader. Applied Linguistics, 22(1), 58-78. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/22.1.58
Thompson, G. & Thetela, P. (1995). The sound of one hand clapping: the management of interaction in written discourse. Text, 15(1), 103-27. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.1.1995.15.1.103
Van Bonn, S., & Swales, J. M. (2007). English and French journal abstracts in the language sciences: Three exploratory studies. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 6(2), 93-108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2007.04.001
Vande Kopple, W. (1985). Some exploratory discourse on metadiscourse. College Composition and Communication, 36(1), 82-93. https://doi.org/10.2307/357609
Vassileva, I. (1998). Who and I/who are we in academic writing? International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 8(2), 163-190.
Vassileva, I. (2001). Commitment and detachment in English and Bulgarian academic writing. English for Specific Purposes, 20(1), 83-102. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(99)00029-0
Ventola, E. (1994). Abstracts as an object of linguistic study. In S. Čmejrková, F. Daneš & E. Havlová (Eds.), Writing vs. Speaking. Language, Text, Discourse, Communication (pp. 333-352). Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
Yang, Y. (2013). Exploring linguistic and cultural variations in the use of hedges in English and Chinese scientific discourse. Journal of Pragmatics, 50(1), 23-36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.01.008
Walková, M. (2018). Author’s self-representation in research articles by Anglophone and Slovak linguists. Discourse and Interaction, 11(1), 86-105. https://doi.org/10.5817/DI2018-1-86
Williams, J. (1981). Style: ten lessons in clarity and grace. Boston: Scott Foresman.
Published
2023-02-02
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Boginskaya, O. (2023). Interactional Metadiscourse Markers in English Research Article Abstracts Written by Non-Native Authors: A Corpus-Based Contrastive Study. Íkala, Revista De Lenguaje Y Cultura, 28(1), 139–154. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ikala.v28n1a08
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