A Cross-Move Analysis of Interactional Metadiscourse Markers in Abstracts of Local And International Journals of History

Abstract

The current study aimed to explore the generic organization of research article (RA) abstracts published in the Iranian local and international history journals. To this end, a corpus of 80 RA abstracts (40 local and 40 international) were scrutinized in terms of their constituent moves based on Hyland’s (2000) five-move model. Additionally, the study examined the interactional metadiscourse markers across various local and international abstract moves, using Hyland’s (2005) interpersonal metadiscourse model. The results of the genre analysis revealed a high frequency of introduction and purpose moves in local abstracts, as well as introduction, purpose, and product moves in the international corpus. The analysis of interactional metadiscourse markers revealed that boosters were the most frequently occurring category in the two groups of abstracts. Nevertheless, hedges were more frequently used by the local authors while the international researchers made a higher use of self-mentions. The results revealed the informed subjectivity and venue-based patterns of interaction at the service of presenting a persuasive account of the research objectives and outcomes in the field of history. The findings have pedagogical implications for EAP courses that aim to equip novice members of the history discourse community with the tools necessary to adhere to generic and interactional conventions.

Keywords

• genre analysis
• interactional metadiscourse markers
• research article abstracts