Metadiscourse in Students’ Academic Writing: Case Study of Umaru Musa Yar’adua University and Al-Qalam University Katsina

Abstract

Studies on writing, thus, become crucial because when students make the transition from Secondary School to a Tertiary Institution, they encounter many challenges. One of them is the writing of B.A projects. Most of these undergraduate students both in L1 (English as a first language) and L2 (English as a second language) still find it difficult to argue, discuss or evaluate competently as well as persuasively in English essay writing. The present study aimed at exploring metadiscoursal choice and its influence on the success of students’ academic writing. The study was conducted within the framework of Appraisal Theory. The data was randomly generated from the written essays by thirty selected Level 400 students both from Umaru Musa Yar’adua University and Al-Qalam University Katsina. Also, the data was descriptively alaysed and presented. It was discovered that six (6) of the essays do not contain the relevant elements for this study, thus excluded from the analysis. To achieve the main objective of this study, the first six categories of the most successful essays and the least successful ones were taken for in-depth analysis. They were analysed paragraph by paragraph and then each interactional metadiscourse element was separately discussed as a whole. The findings showed that many of the students were not exposed to these elements, thus, they write academic essay the way they speak. It is against these findings that the present study unravels that embedding the teaching of metadiscourse in cumulative learning practices could consequently empower students to develop both linguistically and intellectually.

Interpersonal Metadiscourse Markers as Persuasive Strategies in Oral Business Presentation

“…The findings of the analysis show that most writers make greater use of metadiscourse in their article introductions. In contrast, Haruna et al (2018), in their research, the findings show that many of the students are not exposed to the elements of metadiscourse markers; thus, they write academic essays the way they speak. Duruk (2017) has an in-depth analysis that explores the use of interpersonal metadiscourse markers used by Turkish writers in the written register and the way Turkish writers use metadiscourse, namely in MA dissertations from one major academic field; English Language Teaching (ELT).…”

“…Studying metadiscourse markers (MDMs) is extended by several researchers. The studies focus on persuasive writings or speech produced in a number of different contexts such as academic research articles (Ozdemir & Longo, 2014;Massaabi, 2014;Kawase, 2015;Haruna et al, 2018;Davoodi, 2016;Duruk, 2017;Ahour & Maleki, 2014;Zareifard & Alinezhad, 2014;Jiang & Hyland, 2016;Mina & Biria, 2017), speeches (Wong & Yap, 2015;Malmström, 2016;Esmer, 2017;Gholami & Ilghami, 2016;Gordon & Luke, 2016;Mahmoodian & Simin, 2017;Sukma, 2017), media discourse (Sukma & Sujatna, 2014;Dafouz-Milne, 2008), business discourse (Ho, 2018;Fu, 2012), and translation (Gholami, Tajalli, & Shokrpour, 2014).…”

Use of Metadiscourse in the Persuasive Writing of Nigerian Undergraduates

“…These findings support the findings of previous studies, like that of Tan (2011) who observed that many second language writers experience difficulties in using Metadiscourse in their writing activities. Similarly, Haruna, Ibrahim, Haruna, Ibrahim and Yunus (2018) affirmed that many Nigerian undergraduates were not exposed to the Metadiscourse and their importance in writing, this led the students to write the way they speak.…”

“…Few studies were conducted to investigate the use of metadiscourse devices in the writing of Nigerian undergraduates (Haruna, Ibrahim, Haruna, Ibrahim & Yunus, 2018). However, there seems to be an absence of studies that specifically investigates the use of metadiscourse in persuasive writing or compare the use of metadiscourse and the quality of the students' writing.…”

Exploring interactive metadiscourse as a practical approach to enhancing academic writing skills of newly admitted undergraduate students in Nigeria

“…In Nigeria, there have been limited studies that have explored the use of metadiscourse among university students. However, Haruna et al (2018) conducted a study examining the metadiscoursal choice and its influence on the success of final year undergraduates' academic writing, where they found that many of the students did not use or wrongly used the devices. Additionally, Akinseye (2021) examined the metadiscursive markers in L2 PhD theses abstracts of five disciplines in Nigerian university and showed the predominance of interactive metadiscourse markers across the disciplines.…”