Metadiscourse in Research Article Abstracts: A Cross Lingual and Disciplinary Investigation

Abstract

The present study is intended to investigate metadiscourse, as a way of talking about a specialized topic common to a specific discourse community, in 20 abstracts of Persian and English research articles in two disciplines, applied linguistics and Computer Engineering, based on Hyland (2005) taxonomy. The interlingual analysis revealed Persian’s greater writer responsibility and its priority over guiding the reader through the text rather than involving him/her in the arguments. The interdisciplinary study of research articles abstracts showed generally the preference of this genre and specifically humanities trends towards providing the readers with convincing and comprehensive materials rather than engaging with them or expressing the writers’ personality.