A Study On The Use Of Metadiscourse In Chinese English Majors’ Theses

Metadiscourse refers to words or phrases that are used to highlight interactional meanings in a discourse, assisting the writer or speaker to express his or her viewpoint and to engage with readers as members of a particular community. Such linguistic resources are of great help for writers or speakers to organize their discourse more cohesively and coherently, to highlight their stance more saliently, and to enact interactions with their readers or hearers. Though series of studies have been carried out on metadiscourse, a few gaps still await to be filled:(1) insufficient research on English L2 learners’ use of metadiscourse, with Chinese EFL learners in particular;(2)insufficient research on the different use of metadiscourse by learners of different educational levels; and(3) insufficient research on the use of metadiscourse in L2 academic writing.Taking into consideration the above-mentioned research gaps, the present study examined the use of metadiscourse by Chinese English majors at different educational levels(i.e., undergraduates, postgraduates, and doctoral candidates) in their theses with the analytic framework proposed by Hyland(2005a). Results showed that:(1)Metadiscourse items, on the whole, were significantly underused in the theses written by postgraduates than those written by undergraduates or doctoral candidates, while no such significant difference was found between the theses composed by undergraduates and doctoral candidates;(2) Interactive metadiscourse resources were used significantly differently among Chinese English majors of different educational levels. To be specific, those interactive items were significantly overused in doctoral theses than those of undergraduates, and such preference also existed in theses written by undergraduates over those by postgraduates; and(3) Interactional metadiscourse resources were significantly underused in theses written by postgraduates than those written by doctoral candidates, but no such difference was found between other groups.This paper further exposed the interactive nature of academic writing, and might shed some light on the teaching of academic writing to L2 learners and on academic textbook compiling.