A cross-cultural study of the use of metadiscourse markers in argumentative essays by Iranian and Chinese EFL students

Figures & data

Table 1. Hyland’s model for interactional resources

Interactional Resources	Meant to Involve the Reader in the Argument
Category	Function	Examples
Hedges	Withhold writer’s full commitment to proposition	Might/perhaps/possible/about
Boosters	Emphasis force or writer’s certainty in proposition	In fact definitely/it is clear that
Attitude markers	Express writer’s attitude proposition	Unfortunately/I to agree/surprisingly
Engagement markers	Explicitly refer to or build relationship with reader	Consider/note that/you can see that
Self-mentions	Explicit reference to author(s)	I/we/my/our

Figure 1. Illustrative methodology of studying the use of metadiscourse markers in argumentative essays by Iranian and Chinese EFL students.

Table 2. Test of normality distribution of scores of Iranian and Chinese students in writing argumentative essays

	Kolmogorov-Smirnov			Shapiro-Wilk
	Statistic	df	Sig.	Statistic	df	Sig
Hedge	.166	80	.000	.841	80	.000
booster	.245	80	.000	.821	80	.000
Attitude	.229	80	.000	.848	80	.000
Engagement	.380	80	.000	.641	80	.000
Self-mention	.306	80	.000	.545	80	.000

Table 3. Mann–Whitney U test for interactional resources

	Interactional	Hedges	Boosters	Attitude Markers	Engagements	Self-Mention
Mann-Whitney U	657.000	617.000	680.000	684.000	663.000	499.000
Wilcoxon W	1477.000	1437.000	1500.000	1504.000	1483.000	1319.000
Z	−1.000	−1.000	−1.000	−1.000	−1.000	−2.000
Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed)	.000	.064	.000	.010	.000	.004