Rhetorical style across cultures: an analysis of metadiscourse markers in academic writing of Thai and Malaysian students

It is believed that students from different societies and cultural background have their own preferred rhetorical style of interaction. In writing, such distinctive preference is usually exhibited through the use of linguistic features, of which metadiscourse (MD) markers are considered as one of th...

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Main Authors: Hayisama, Faridah, Ahamad Shah, Mohamed Ismail, Wan Adnan, Wan Nur Asyura
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit UTM Press 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:http://eprints.utm.my/84799/1/WanNurAsyuraWanAdnan2019_RhetoricalStyleAcrossCulturesanAnalysis.pdf
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author Hayisama, Faridah
Ahamad Shah, Mohamed Ismail
Wan Adnan, Wan Nur Asyura
author_facet Hayisama, Faridah
Ahamad Shah, Mohamed Ismail
Wan Adnan, Wan Nur Asyura
author_sort Hayisama, Faridah
collection ePrints
description It is believed that students from different societies and cultural background have their own preferred rhetorical style of interaction. In writing, such distinctive preference is usually exhibited through the use of linguistic features, of which metadiscourse (MD) markers are considered as one of the signposts to the interpretation of writing style preferences. This study aims to investigate the use of interactional metadiscourse (MD) features and its relevance to the rhetorical style preferences in academic writing of Thai and Malaysian master’s students. Using Hyland’s (2005) taxonomy, their thesis discussions were manually analysed in terms of interactional MD markers to determine their frequency of occurrence and to relate the results to the rhetorical styles of writing preferred by each group of students. The analysis revealed that of all five types of interactional MD features, hedges were the most frequently used device followed respectively by boosters, attitude markers, engagement marker and self-mention. In terms of the rhetorical style of writing, the frequency of MD features suggests that tentative and indirect statements, reader-responsibility, distant-relationship between writer and readers, and less writer-involvement in the texts were the preferred rhetorical styles of interaction of both Thai and Malaysian students. The writing conventions and rhetorical styles of the students can be explained from a sociocultural point of view that they are relevant to the oriental style of interaction from which both groups of students originated. The study draws attention to the pedagogical implications that students in Thai and Malaysia should be given more instructional focus on how to utilize MD features in making academic writing more persuasive and interactive.
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spelling utm.eprints-847992020-02-27T04:59:01Z http://eprints.utm.my/84799/ Rhetorical style across cultures: an analysis of metadiscourse markers in academic writing of Thai and Malaysian students Hayisama, Faridah Ahamad Shah, Mohamed Ismail Wan Adnan, Wan Nur Asyura L Education (General) It is believed that students from different societies and cultural background have their own preferred rhetorical style of interaction. In writing, such distinctive preference is usually exhibited through the use of linguistic features, of which metadiscourse (MD) markers are considered as one of the signposts to the interpretation of writing style preferences. This study aims to investigate the use of interactional metadiscourse (MD) features and its relevance to the rhetorical style preferences in academic writing of Thai and Malaysian master’s students. Using Hyland’s (2005) taxonomy, their thesis discussions were manually analysed in terms of interactional MD markers to determine their frequency of occurrence and to relate the results to the rhetorical styles of writing preferred by each group of students. The analysis revealed that of all five types of interactional MD features, hedges were the most frequently used device followed respectively by boosters, attitude markers, engagement marker and self-mention. In terms of the rhetorical style of writing, the frequency of MD features suggests that tentative and indirect statements, reader-responsibility, distant-relationship between writer and readers, and less writer-involvement in the texts were the preferred rhetorical styles of interaction of both Thai and Malaysian students. The writing conventions and rhetorical styles of the students can be explained from a sociocultural point of view that they are relevant to the oriental style of interaction from which both groups of students originated. The study draws attention to the pedagogical implications that students in Thai and Malaysia should be given more instructional focus on how to utilize MD features in making academic writing more persuasive and interactive. Penerbit UTM Press 2019 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://eprints.utm.my/84799/1/WanNurAsyuraWanAdnan2019_RhetoricalStyleAcrossCulturesanAnalysis.pdf Hayisama, Faridah and Ahamad Shah, Mohamed Ismail and Wan Adnan, Wan Nur Asyura (2019) Rhetorical style across cultures: an analysis of metadiscourse markers in academic writing of Thai and Malaysian students. LSP International Journal,, 6 (1). pp. 19-37. ISSN 2601–002X https://dx.doi.org/10.11113/lspi.v6n1.76 DOI:10.11113/lspi.v6n1.76
spellingShingle L Education (General)
Hayisama, Faridah
Ahamad Shah, Mohamed Ismail
Wan Adnan, Wan Nur Asyura
Rhetorical style across cultures: an analysis of metadiscourse markers in academic writing of Thai and Malaysian students
title Rhetorical style across cultures: an analysis of metadiscourse markers in academic writing of Thai and Malaysian students
title_full Rhetorical style across cultures: an analysis of metadiscourse markers in academic writing of Thai and Malaysian students
title_fullStr Rhetorical style across cultures: an analysis of metadiscourse markers in academic writing of Thai and Malaysian students
title_full_unstemmed Rhetorical style across cultures: an analysis of metadiscourse markers in academic writing of Thai and Malaysian students
title_short Rhetorical style across cultures: an analysis of metadiscourse markers in academic writing of Thai and Malaysian students
title_sort rhetorical style across cultures an analysis of metadiscourse markers in academic writing of thai and malaysian students
topic L Education (General)
url http://eprints.utm.my/84799/1/WanNurAsyuraWanAdnan2019_RhetoricalStyleAcrossCulturesanAnalysis.pdf
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