Metadiscourse Choice In The Discussion Section Of Research Articles Of Engineering Written In English By Chinese Novice Writers

As the “ linguistic cues which help the reader to organize,paraphrase and evaluate the information provided”(Crismore et al.,1993,p.57),metadiscourse markers are often analyzed to investigate the command of language by the researchers who use them in their dissertation.In recent years,it has become a popular topic and studies about metadiscourse are growing rapidly.The various use of metadiscourse by writers in different fields were compared and then the influencing factors and the functions of metadiscourse used by them have been analyzed.Researchers were keen to investigate the different use of metadiscourse across cultures,disciplines,and genders,etc.However,most of the researchers only focused on how metadiscourse are used by the professional and despite a growing number of literatures on metadiscoursal features in research articles,the studies on research articles written by novice writers were seldom carried out.As the group who are anxious about getting their research articles published in reputable international journals,the novice writers urgently need relevant studies to guide them in the writing process and help them tackle the challenges faced by them.The present study aims to investigate and analyze the metadiscourse occurring in the discussion part of the English research articles written by Chinese novice writers of engineering disciplines,by doing which,the research attempts to find the possible influencing factors of their choices of metadiscourse and the author's identity established in their dissertation.A small corpus was built,consisting of two subcorpus: one collects the unpublished research articles written by Chinese novice writers(the CNWs)while the other contains the published ones written by English expert writers(the EEWs).Based on Hyland's(2004)interpersonal model,this study compares the choice,frequency,and functions of different metadiscourse used by the CNWs and the EEWs in the discussion section of their research articles to analyze the choices of the CNWs.Besides,the interviews concerning the use of metadiscourse,the command of English,and the perspectives of Chinese novice writers towards metadiscourse were also conducted to explore the novice writers' awareness of readership and the author's image established in their research articles.According to Hyland(2004),metadiscourse can be classified into interactivemetadiscourse which guides the readers throughout the articles and interactional metadiscourse which helps the authors communicate with their potential readers.The study finds that there is little significant difference in interactive meatadiscourse used by two groups but significant difference in interactional meatadiscourse as well as some subtypes of metadiscourse.Compared with the metadiscourse used in research articles written by the EEWs,some expressions such as hedges and self-mentions are seldom found in the corpora of the CNWs while metadiscourse such as transitions and boosters occur more frequently.Based on such findings,it can be concluded that the CNWs prefers constructing the structure of their research articles to communicating with their potential readers.Besides,by analyzing the answers of Chinese novice writers in the interviews,this research also reveals that the influencing factors of the Chinese novice writers' preference of metadiscourse as well as the objective and neutral author images they tend to construct in their research articles by using such kinds of metadiscourse.It can be found that the identity of a L2 novice writer and the ESP or EAP education have long influenced the use of metadiscourse by Chinese novice writers and in their writing process,they seem to give up their voices of authors and tend to construct the image of author which conforms to the characteristics of the disciplines of them.Besides,factors such as limitations as L2 writers,the influence of epistemic knowledge,and factors such as epistemic knowledge of generic conventions,linguistic proficiency,and their awareness of readership interact to create a rather complex picture of their metadiscourse choice and identity construction.