Poring Over Metadiscourse Use in Discussion and Conclusion Sections of Academic Articles Written by Iranian ESP Students

This study investigated the employment of interactional metadisocurse in English academic articles written by Iranian ESP students. Data consisted of a total of 66 academic articles written in English by nonhumanities and humanities writers. Discussion and Conclusion sections were extracted, and Hyland’s (2005) taxonomy was borrowed for analysis. The use of hedges, boosters, and attitude markers was compared in the articles. Total number of each metadiscourse marker was counted, and the differences were checked running Mann-Whitney U test. Analysis revealed that there were disciplinary differences in the use of markers by nonhumanities and humanities. Hedges and attitude markers were more frequent in the humanities’ articles, rather than the nonhumanities’ articles. Also, the use of hedges and boosters was statistically significant. Pedagogical implications are discussed in light of the empirical data.