Metadiscourse and contrastive rhetoric in academic writing: Evaluation of a small academic corpus

Abstract

Metadiscourse is a popular concept among linguists and educators. It helps to understand how writers structure their texts in order to facilitate the understanding of the text successfully. This study explores various features of metadiscourse and contrastive rhetoric in a small corpus of academic writing of Pakistani learners at tertiary levels. The paper follows Hyland’s (2004) interactive and interactional resources modal to determine metadiscourse features in the corpus. The analysis explores the data through quantitative examination as well as qualitative investigation into the texts. The paper emphasizes on developing awareness of metadiscourse features to make students’ writing more effective and well structured.