Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
MAG2021 (Metadiscourse Across Genres: Mapping Interaction in Spoken & Written Discourses)), 27 - 28 Mayıs 2021, ss.14
Metadiscourse analysis has received extensive attention in text analysis literature. Based
on the effects of metadiscourse on text organization, comprehension and quality as well as
academic writing, cross-cultural communication and language education, many researchers have
conducted metadiscourse analyses in different genres, disciplines and languages. To contribute to
this field of research, the present study aims to investigate the use of metadiscourse in an
academic genre (i.e., doctoral dissertations) which is important for the dissemination of scientific
knowledge, and it focuses on the final chapters (i.e., Result, Discussion, Conclusion) which seem to
be understudied. Specifically, the study provides a comparative analysis of the metadiscourse
markers used in the final chapters of ELT dissertations written by Turkish and Anglophone
researchers. The corpus consisted of the final chapters of 50 dissertations written in English, and
the coding was done manually based on Hyland and Tse’s (2004) taxonomy. For data analysis, both
qualitative and quantitative analyses were conducted. The statistical procedures encompassed the
frequency and percentage display, and Mann-Whitney U tests. Besides, sample sentences and
patterns taken from the analysed texts were presented. The results showed that metadiscourse
markers in the taxonomy were all employed in both corpora. Overall, the groups were similar in
terms of the use of metadiscourse in the final chapters. However, they differed in the use of specific
metadiscourse sub-categories, suggesting that there were some variations between the groups. In
the study, the similarities and differences were discussed in relation to the researchers’ knowledge
of metadiscourse elements, their familiarity with the writing conventions of the genre, and the
influences of L1 writing cultures, conventions and patterns. It is expected that this comparative
study will provide insights into the metadiscourse using strategies of Turkish and Anglophone
doctoral students and contribute to both academic writing literature and pedagogy.