2. Applied Linguistics (Inspirations from neighbor disciplines)
Davud Kuhi; Mahya Esmailzad; Shirin Rezaei
Abstract
The term metadiscourse rarely appears in translation studies despite the continuously growing body of research on discourse markers in different genres and through various perspectives. Translation as a product that needs to observe such markers for their communicative power and contribution to the overall ...
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The term metadiscourse rarely appears in translation studies despite the continuously growing body of research on discourse markers in different genres and through various perspectives. Translation as a product that needs to observe such markers for their communicative power and contribution to the overall coherence of a text within a context has not been satisfactorily studied. Motivated by such an ambition, this study focused on the third American presidential debate of 2016 and its two online translations by IRIB (The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting) and BBC News (The British Broadcasting Corporation). This research aimed to investigate similarities and differences between the use of interpersonal metadiscourse markers in the American presidential debate and its two online translations. Overall, the findings revealed a statistically significant difference in the amount of metadiscourse items employed in English original text and its Persian translations. Translated texts into Persian employed fewer metadiscourse markers than the English text. The findings identified several pedagogical challenges that need to be addressed in translator training, including trainee translators’ familiarity with the social and discursive practices of the academic community, and their awareness of rhetorical elements used in academic texts.
1. Applied Linguistics (Language Teaching and Learning)
Davud Kuhi; Mina Babapour
Abstract
The present article shows that all scientific texts included in journals, magazines, and newspapers are vulnerable to the penetration of hedges and boosters. However, it was found that scientific texts in the three corpora tended to open up the possibilities of alternative voices rather than narrowing ...
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The present article shows that all scientific texts included in journals, magazines, and newspapers are vulnerable to the penetration of hedges and boosters. However, it was found that scientific texts in the three corpora tended to open up the possibilities of alternative voices rather than narrowing them down. The relatively higher frequency of occurrence of hedges in comparison with boosters indicates that regardless of whether the audience is expert or non-expert, their voices are seen as respected in the scientific texts. Similarly, boosters as means of narrowing down the alternative positions and developing a strong and certain authorial voices are equally disfavored in both expert and popularized scientific texts. Despite this similar pattern of the use of hedges and boosters in the investigated corpora, the means to achieve the mentioned objectives slightly differed and the informal style of language use dominating popular genres influenced the textual realizations of such functions.
2. Applied Linguistics (Inspirations from neighbor disciplines)
Farzad Salahshoor; Parya Afsari
Abstract
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, ...
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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 was the most frequent role in both corpora while attitude markers in social science and self-mention in natural science was 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.
Assef Khalili; Majid Aslanabadi
Abstract
As a part of pragmatics of language, Metadiscourse (MD) has been widely recognized as playing a pivotal role in the expression and comprehension of messages in academic writing. In view of its significance in effective communication, there have been a lot of attempts to categorize different MD devices ...
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As a part of pragmatics of language, Metadiscourse (MD) has been widely recognized as playing a pivotal role in the expression and comprehension of messages in academic writing. In view of its significance in effective communication, there have been a lot of attempts to categorize different MD devices within manageable models alongside some descriptive works to demonstrate the use of MD devices on the basis of these models. However, despite all the centrality accorded to MD markers in academic writing, few ESP practitioners have tried to explore the use of these devices by non-native speakers (NNS) who are known to be producing dry, incoherent and sometimes confusing papers - the very shortcomings which might easily be managed by judicious use of MD elements. With the absence of systematic works on the use of MD markers by NNS, there is a paucity of information on their use of MD devices in their productions. This is what the present paper seeks to uncover. Drawing on the Hyland and Tse’s (2004) “Interactive and Interactional” model of MD, and their description of the use of MD devices in research articles produced by native speakers (NS) in Hyland (1998), it was set out to document the frequency of MD markers in papers produced by NNS of English and contrast it with that observed in Hyland (1998). For this purpose, 20 RAs written by NNS which had been accepted for publication in the Tabriz Journal of Dentistry were selected after extensive stylistic and linguistic editing, and were compared against Hyland (1998) with respect to the frequency of particular MD elements. The results showed huge discrepancy in the use of all MD devices in general, and some in particular. The findings can provide useful insights in materials development for academic writing classes where learners could receive explicit instructions on the use of MD elements which have been found to be used least frequently.
Mohammadreza Negahi; Naser Nouri
Abstract
The present study attempted the relative effect of explicit teaching of textual metadiscourse markers on ESAP reading comprehension performance of Iranian university students through an awareness raising experiment. A sixty-item multiple choice ESAP reading comprehension test of accounting was developed ...
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The present study attempted the relative effect of explicit teaching of textual metadiscourse markers on ESAP reading comprehension performance of Iranian university students through an awareness raising experiment. A sixty-item multiple choice ESAP reading comprehension test of accounting was developed and validated to act as the pre-test and post-test. The test included items for assessing specific comprehension of students in their specialist subject. The test was administered to 80 undergraduate intermediate and upper-intermediate students randomly assigned to experimental and control groups as the pre-test. After the treatment was over, the English for Specific Academic Purposes test was again given to the same students as the post-test. The results of the two-way ANOVA indicated that the experimental group benefited from the explicit teaching of textual metadiscourse markers and the treatment had a facilitative effect on ESAP reading comprehension of students. Moreover, the results of the two-way ANOVA showed that the proficiency level had an effect on ESAP reading comprehension of the students, that is upper-intermediate level students in the experimental group benefited more from the explicit teaching of textual metadiscourse markers. The overall results of the study provide empirical support for the facilitative effect of explicit teaching of textual metadiscourse markers on ESAP reading comprehension of students.
Farzad Salahshoor; Zahra Najjari Asl; Marzieh Tofigh
Abstract
The power of media lies in its persuasive function, which gives media a potential to maneuver on the mind of audience (van Dijk 1996). This potential is realized via different linguistic resources, one important group of which is metadiscoursal resources. The major aim of this study was to explore how ...
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The power of media lies in its persuasive function, which gives media a potential to maneuver on the mind of audience (van Dijk 1996). This potential is realized via different linguistic resources, one important group of which is metadiscoursal resources. The major aim of this study was to explore how and in what distribution these resources are employed by writers with different cultural backgrounds to fulfill persuasive objectives in the genre of newspaper editorials. Based on Hyland’s (2005) interpersonal taxonomy, a total of eighty newspaper editorials from four elite newspapers (two Iranian and two American) were analyzed and compared. The results revealed some differences between the two groups of editors (Iranian group and American group) in terms of the number of metadiscoursal elements used in their editorials. For instance, the native speaker group proved to be more confident in using interactional and interpersonal metadiscourse markers more frequently than the non-native group, which can be attributed to genre and language ownership on the part of the native speaker group. It can also be related to the contrast often made between writer-responsibility vs. reader- responsibility cultures (Hinds 1987). On the whole, cultural upbringing, genre and language ownership, as well as different rhetorical considerations may play key roles in the type and frequency of metadiscoursal elements used in public domain discourses.
