A Comparative Study of Metadiscourse Markers in English and Persian University Lectures

The purpose of this study is to compare metadiscourse markers in English and Persian university lectures. For the purpose of this study, 40 university lectures were selected randomly. Twenty of them were selected from the British Academic Spoken English (BASE) corpus, all delivered by native speakers of English, and distributed across academic subjects. The other 20 were the university lectures delivered by native Persian speakers in academic contexts in reputable universities of Iran, such as Amirkabir and Sharif Universities of Technology. In analyzing the English and Persian university lectures, we used Hyland’s interpersonal model of metadiscourse (Hyland, 2005; Hyland Tse, 2004), which consists of two broad classificatory resources: interactive and interactional metadiscourse. The metadiscourses presented in these 40 lectures were collected and marked according to their interactive and textual orientation. Further, the frequency of each type were studied in the lectures. Finally, native English data were compared to Persian one to see to what extent the genre of lecture is different in these two languages in terms of metadiscourse, relevant, or significant points. Data were analyzed through Chi-square and findings showed there are meaningful differences in the use of metadiscourse markers between the two corpora. However, as for boosters, the difference is not meaningful in the English and Persian university lectures. Implications of the study suggest that English and Persian lecturers can improve their lectures through developing conscious knowledge of the use and functions of metadiscourse markers. What is more, the knowledge of the metadiscourse markers might help them understand, create, and connect speech with greater ease. The results can also inform those students who want to improve their lecture comprehension process for a more successful academic career. They are suggested to devote a greater attention to the significant parts of the lecture which are highlighted by the metadiscourese markers.