Metadiscourse in Academic Writing of Pre-University Arab Students at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM)

Abstract

Abstract. There is lack of studies on the use of metadiscourse markers; especially amongst international students studying in Malaysia and Malaysia are receiving scores of international students particularly from the Middle East annually. This study involves a textual analysis of students' academic writing where the metadiscourse markers in 50 Arab IIUM students' academic texts were identified and analyzed. The findings of this study indicated that Arab writers had a greater inclination for the deployment of the interactive markers (Total counts = 919) than interactional ones (Total counts = 592) as there was a higher percentage of interactive metadiscourse (60.8%) usage than the interactional ones (39.2%). It might be useful for English language teachers to integrate cultural considerations within their syllabus with regard to metadiscourse markers in order to prepare relevant materials based on their students' needs as well as to develop the students' awareness of the importance of these linguistic features. Introduction Background of studyWriting essays is an important part of a student's life at the university for the reason that they have to write essays for their assignments. The quality of the written assignments would have a significant influence on their academic achievement. Moreover, the capability to compose academic texts competently at institution of higher education is a practical anticipation to be grasped by the tertiary learners [1]. In order to compose a comprehensible writing, the learners need to employ appropriate metadiscourse markers within their written tasks. Tan and Wong (2014) mentioned that metadiscourse is a central semantic means that aids authors to navigate the movement of their written content as well as to address their standpoint to their readers [2].According to Hyland and Tse (2004), the metadiscourse markers are important resources deployed to designate how the text is organized, to clarify difficult words and jargons for readers, and to put into code what rhetorical acts are being performed [3]. Competent employment of metadiscourse markers will make a text readable.Thus, the knowledge of metadiscourse is frequently observed to be beneficial not only for students and the anticipated readers of the students' written works, but also for language instructors. Teachers can interpret their students' writing by looking at the students' deployment of metadiscourse. Consequently, the observation on the deployment of metadiscourse might assist the teachers to guide their students to be more thoughtful of the variances between students' national culture and the culture of the discourse or the community to which the text denotes [4]. Statement of the problemEffective deployment of metadiscourse markers can be one of the means of enhancing the quality of academic essays written within academic circles [5]. Specifically, the utilization of metadiscourse markers were suggested to improve the writing quality [6], increase the readability [7], and build a relationship with the readers [4,...

Metadiscourse Markers Written in Introduction Section of Final Project of Unimus Efl Learners

“…From those findings, it is clearly seen that the total occurrence of metadiscourse markers in introduction sections of Unimus EFL learners is 637 in which the interactive metadiscourse usage is higher (524) than interactional metadiscourse one (113). This finding is an alignment with the previous findings (Anwardeen, Luyee, Gabriel & Kalajahi, 2013;Zakaria & Malik, 2017) which showed that undergraduate students tended to use interactive metadiscourse (textual metadiscourse) rather than interactional metadiscourse (interpersonal metadiscourse). It means that the learners, in this case, tend to interpret the messages explicitly through the text rather than involving the readers through the arguments given.…”

Writing an argumentative essay: the use of meta-discursive didactic sequences to improve students' skills

“…Dialectical argumentation makes it possible to place arguments in favor of and against the thesis under consideration, which entails the use of argumentation methods. In this regard, as noted by Zakaria and Malik (2018), a defensible subject must know the recipient. Therefore, it is necessary to know one's own environment, to know which theses they accept or reject, as well as to be aware of their identity and values.…”

“…Students need to develop argumentation skills for the correct expression of their thoughts, protection of their ideas, and communication (Barrot & Gabinete, 2019). In this perspective, the theory of argumentation is a line of research that is of growing interest in the 21st century in the educational, linguistic and cognitive sciences, as well as among teachers of foreign languages and researchers in the field of bi-multi-literacy (Zakaria & Malik, 2018). Thus, the purpose of this study is to analyze the implementation of a metadiscursive didactic consistency when writing an argumentative essay in English as a second language.…”

Using Macro-Level Metadiscourse Coherence Devices in Written Texts: A Product Perspective

“…In this connection, Lenk (1998) argued that writers, unlike speakers, have a space to plan their text propositions showing ''appropriate indexing of what comes next and how it is related to the overall scheme of writing'' (p. 18), producing a relatively smooth and clear topic development. For Zakaria and Abdul Malik (2018) and Silva (1990), a written text can be examined from three perspectives. The first perspective is cognitivepsychological which figures out a written text as a recorder of the writer's psychological status forming a general attitude.…”

“…2022; Carrio-Pastor, 2022;Liao, 2020;Bal-Gezegin & Bas, 2020;Takač & Ivezić, 2019;Duruk, 2017;Hyland, 2002Hyland, , 2005Jones, 2011;Hyland & Tse, 2004;Swales, 1990) touched upon errors of language learner from an explicit discourse standpoint, showing, for example, sources of problems of cohesion, coherence, use of discourse markers, etc., and ignoring implicit sources of language learner problems. Even those studies that examined the errors of language learner (e.g., Zakaria & Abdul Malik, 2018;Zali et al, 2020;Mina & Biria, 2017) from an interpersonal perspective, they are still in the stream of explicitness of dealing with sources of errors. In other words, all these studies examined the language learner from a microlevel metadiscourse standpoint.…”