Boosters as Interactional Metadiscourse Markers: A Corpusdriven Comparative Study

Abstract

This paper examined and compared two corpora in terms of boosters, a category of interactional metadiscourse markers. Boosters strengtens the writers' existence, position, argument, claims, and commitment into the texts. One hundred articles are composed of the corpora; 50 from non-native researchers’ papers (Turkish writers), and 50 from native researchers’ papers. Two corpora were compared under 4 types of boosters: modals (type 1), adjectives and adverbs (type 2), verbs: introductory verbs and cognitve verbs (type 3), and Solidarity features/clusters (type 4). In the upshot of this research, it is seen that non-native writers overuse modal auxilarities and verbs as boosters, but underused adjectives-adverbs and Solidarity features/clusters. The two groups have similar ratios, slightly in favour of non-native writers. Besides, two group writers seem to avoid overusing boosters in their texts most probably as the literature suggests that writers intentionally avoid overusing boosters to reduce the risk of readers’ opposition and not to have personal responsibility for their arguments.