An Analysis of Metadiscourse in the Abstracts of English Academic Papers

Lichan Wang

Authors

Lichan Wang

Keywords:

abstract, metadiscourse, academic writing

Abstract

As an important part in academic writing, meta discourse has got considerable attention in recent years. Abstract plays an important role in academic writings and it reflects the main contents of the whole papers. Based on the theory of metadiscourse and the classifications of Hyland, this study compared the different frequency and usage of metadiscourse in mathematical and linguistic academic papers. Two small abstracts corpora were compiled in this study including 30 mathematical and 30 linguistic abstracts of academic papers from Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and Science Citation Index (SCI) journals. The results showed that there appeared more metadiscourse in the abstracts of linguistic academic papers than mathematical academic papers. Interactive meta discourse was adopted more than interactional metadiscourse in abstracts of the two disciplines. In the use of interactive meta discourse, both disciplines demonstrated the same trends in the frequencies of five sub-categories. Regarding interactional metadiscourse, hedges were the most frequently used meta discourse markers in linguistic academic papers while self mentions were most frequently used in mathematics. It is suggested that more interactive meta discourse should be used in abstracts of both arts and science academic papers.

Downloads

How to Cite

An Analysis of Metadiscourse in the Abstracts of English Academic Papers. (2016). Global Journal of Human-Social Science, 16(G9), 9-15. https://socialscienceresearch.org/index.php/GJHSS/article/view/1922

Download Citation

References

Avon Crismore, Raija Markkanen, Margaret Steffensen (1993) Metadiscourse in Persuasive Writing. 10(1), 39-71.

Paul Gillaerts, Freek Van De Velde (2010) Interactional metadiscourse in research article abstracts. 9(2), 128-139.

Ge Dongmei, Yang Ruiying (2005) Why are girls better at Modern Foreign Languages than boys?. 138-148.

Guo Hongwei (2014) A Three-dimentional Study on English Teachers' Metadiscourse in Chinese University Classroom Discourse. (2), 60-67.

Xiong Huang Qin, Yao (2012) A Comparative Analysis of the Use of Metadiscourse in English and Chinese News Commentaries. (1), 99-103.

K Hyland (2000) Disciplinary discourse: Social interactions in academic writing.

K Hyland (2004) Disciplinary interactions: metadiscourse in L2 postgraduate writing [J]. 13, 133-151.

K Hyland, ; Metadiscourse (2008) Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

Liu Runqing (2013) Schools of Linguistics.

Erdem Akbas (2012) Interactional Metadiscourse in Turkish Postgraduates� Academic Texts: A Comparative Study of How They Introduce and Conclude. 2(3), 35-42.

Sun Mingming, Tong Minqiang (2015) Comparatively Studying on the Meta-discourse of English Abstracts in Academic Journal. 214-218.

Vande Kopple (1985) Some exploratory discourse on metadiscourse. 36, 82-93.

Wang Qiang, Cheng Xiaoguang (2016) Frontmatter. i-iv.

J Williams (1981) Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace.

Xiao Zhonghua, Cao Yan (2014) A Multidimensional Contrastive Move Analysis of English Abstracts by English and Chinese Writers. (3), 260-272.

Xin Zhiying (2011) Intersubjectivity-constructing Resources in Academic Texts: Identification, Assessment and Application. (6), 23-28.

Xin Zhiying, Huang Guowen (2010) "ANALYZING METADISCOURSE MARKERS IN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING RESEARCH ARTICLE ABSTRACTS ". 184-195.

A Alyieva, I Ostapchuk (2007) CORPORAL LINGUISTICS IN TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES. (27), 5-8.

Man Zhang (2008) A Comparative Study of First Person Pronouns in Abstracts in China and English Speaking Countries [J]. (2), 31-36.

Zhou Qijun (2014) A Contrast Study of Metadiscourse in Abstract. (3), 114-117.