Interpersonal Metadiscourse in Compositions Written by Iranian ESP Students

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate two types of Hyland's interpersonal metadiscourse (MD) used in compositions written by male and female students. Twelve students including 5 males and 7 females aged between 26 -33 who have been studying chemistry engineering in Islamic Azad University, Shahreza Branch were selected. Without any instruction, they were given a topic to write an eighty-word composition in ten minutes. Compositions were collected and were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Data was analyzed quantitatively in the result section and discussed qualitatively in discussion and conclusion sections. Findings showed that students employed all types of metadiscourse except for two subcategories of interactive MD namely endophoric markers and evidentials. Self mentions were the most frequently used, and hedges and boosters were the least in both males and females. Differences between genders in using MD with different degrees of occurrence are present in the overall interpersonal metadiscourse.