Metadiscourse Markers in ELT Dissertations: A Comparison Between the Final Chapters Written by Turkish and Anglophone Researchers

Metadiscourse analysis has received extensive attention in text analysis literature. Based

on the effects of metadiscourse on text organization, comprehension and quality as well as

academic writing, cross-cultural communication and language education, many researchers have

conducted metadiscourse analyses in different genres, disciplines and languages. To contribute to

this field of research, the present study aims to investigate the use of metadiscourse in an

academic genre (i.e., doctoral dissertations) which is important for the dissemination of scientific

knowledge, and it focuses on the final chapters (i.e., Result, Discussion, Conclusion) which seem to

be understudied. Specifically, the study provides a comparative analysis of the metadiscourse

markers used in the final chapters of ELT dissertations written by Turkish and Anglophone

researchers. The corpus consisted of the final chapters of 50 dissertations written in English, and

the coding was done manually based on Hyland and Tse’s (2004) taxonomy. For data analysis, both

qualitative and quantitative analyses were conducted. The statistical procedures encompassed the

frequency and percentage display, and Mann-Whitney U tests. Besides, sample sentences and

patterns taken from the analysed texts were presented. The results showed that metadiscourse

markers in the taxonomy were all employed in both corpora. Overall, the groups were similar in

terms of the use of metadiscourse in the final chapters. However, they differed in the use of specific

metadiscourse sub-categories, suggesting that there were some variations between the groups. In

the study, the similarities and differences were discussed in relation to the researchers’ knowledge

of metadiscourse elements, their familiarity with the writing conventions of the genre, and the

influences of L1 writing cultures, conventions and patterns. It is expected that this comparative

study will provide insights into the metadiscourse using strategies of Turkish and Anglophone

doctoral students and contribute to both academic writing literature and pedagogy.