Exploring Metadiscourse Markers in Students’ Persuasive Email Requests to University Professors

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Assistant Professor,, Department of English Language and Literature, Payame Noor University, Tehran

2 English Department, Shadegan Branch. Islamic Azad University, Shadegan, Iran

Abstract

One of the methods of persuasion in academic linguistic interactions is the use of metadiscourse markers. These markers are a tool to facilitate communication, increase the readability of the text, establish a relationship with the readers and involve them, and avoid rejecting the author's interpretations. The purpose of this study is to explore meta-discourse markers in academic correspondence between students and professors. To this end, 200 student e-mails (13,103 words in size) were randomly selected between 2019 and 2022, and were analyzed based on Hyland's (2005) model of meta-discourse markers with two categories of interactive metadiscourse markers (including transitive markers, frame markers, endophoric markers, evidentials and code glosses) and interactional metadiscourse markers (including hedges, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions and engagement markers). The relationship between the frequency of either of interactive or interactional markers with one of the Aristotle's rhetorical triangle (i.e., logos, ethos and pathos) (Hyland, 2005) is also discussed. Results show that the use of interactional metadiscourse markers was more than interactive metadiscourse markers in the corpus. Also, the engagement marker as an indicator of appealing to pathos was the most frequently used interactional markers in the corpus. In addition, transitive markers, as an indicator of appealing to logos, has the highest frequency among interactive metadiscourse markers. The results of this study conform to the previous findings that the use of metadiscourse markers depend on the context and genre in which it is used.

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Main Subjects

Linguistic Studies: Theory and Practice
Volume 2, Issue 2 - Serial Number 4
Winter 2024
March 2024
Pages 173-201

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History

  • Receive Date: 01 January 2025
  • Revise Date: 03 February 2025
  • Accept Date: 04 March 2025

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