Interactive and Interactional Markers in ISI and Non-ISI Applied Linguistic Journal Articles Written by Iranian Authors: A Contrastive Meta-Discourse Analysis of Method Section

Meta-discourse as a self-reflective linguistic tool has received considerable attention in recent years. Besides, it plays a leading role in exploring variations in the way authors pen a manuscript. The present study aims at investigating variations in the use of both interactive and interactional meta-discourse markers among ISI and non-ISI articles written by Iranian authors in the field of Applied Linguistics. The corpora in the present study comprised a total of 8 Research Articles (RAs) in ISI and non-ISI journals published in 2016 and 2017. We described the distribution of interactive and interactional markers in Method sections using Hyland’s (2005) model as a framework. The results of the quantitative analysis disclosed that genre expectations of journals had a determining role in the writers’ choice of some meta-discourse markers. Owing to this fact, similarities were found in the use and distribution of meta-discourse markers across ISI and non-ISI data. In addition, a significant difference was found between the types of interactive meta-discourse markers as used in ISI and non-ISI journals. Moreover, the findings revealed similarities in employing the type of interactional meta-discourse markers in our corpora. Our study may promise some pedagogical implications for material development and English for Specific Purposes (ESP).