Functional Analysis of Transition Markers in Academic Students' Essays: A Cross-Disciplinary Study

محورهای موضوعی : Journal of Studies in Learning and Teaching English

Azadeh Mallaki ¹ (Department of English language, Bushehr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Bushehr, Iran.)
Seyed Foad Ebrahimi ² (English Department, Shadegan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shadegan, Iran)
Mohammad Taghi Farvardin ³ (Department of English Language Teaching, Ahwaz branch, Islamic Azad University, Ahwaz, Iran)

تاریخ دریافت : 1401/11/23 تاریخ پذیرش : 1402/01/21 تاریخ انتشار : 1402/03/11

کلید واژه: MICUSP, Essay, philosophy, English, transition, Metadiscourse Marker,

چکیده مقاله :

Transition markers contribute as necessary metadiscoursal devices facilitating the reader’s comprehension and improving cohesion in an academic text. Transition represents a change from an idea to the other in writing, fulfilled by the use of transition terms or phrases. English writing classes are increasingly focusing on using transitional words and phrases (Lili 2021). Thus, the current paper aims to examine the frequency and functions of transition markers in students’ academic essays. Hence, 100 essays (making a total of 293.692 words) were chosen from the Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers (MICUSP) and analyzed according to Hyland's (2005) classification of transition into type and function. It was shown that transition markers had enough frequency to be considered in teaching writing. The results confirmed the links among ideas internal and external to the text. It was also indicated that transition markers mainly used signal additive, causative, and contrastive functions between the main clauses or statements. Moreover, the research results can be directly applied to syllabus design for academic essay writing.

منابع و مأخذ:

Alaei, M., & Ahangari, S. (2016). A study of ideational metafunction in Joseph Conrad's" Heart of Darkness": A critical discourse analysis. English Language Teaching, 9(4), 203-213. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v9n4p203

Andersen, T. H., Boeriis, M., Maagerø, E., & Tonnessen, E. S. (2016). Social semiotics: Key figures, new directions. NY: Routledge.

Bakuuro, J. (2017). Demystifying Halliday’s metafunctions of language. International Journal of Language and Literature. 5. https://doi.org/10.15640/ijll.v5n2a21.

Caulfield, J. (2021). Transition sentences/tips & examples for clear writing. Scriber. https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/transition-sentences/

Copland, J. (2015). The problem and importance of academic writing. Linkedin. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/problem-importance-academic-writing-jane-copland&ved=2ahUKEwiE6dnm2oP0AhUvREEAHVlhC7oQFnoECAQQBQ&usg=AOvVaw3I_p87K5UsZZBrcGmq-4aA 

Eghtesadi, A. R., & Navidinia, H. (2009). A comparative study of metadiscourse use in research articles written by native and non-native speakers: Is audience taken into account? Journal of Asia TEFL, 6(3), 157-176.

Evely, A., Fazey, I., Lambin, X., Lambert, E., Allen, S., & Pinard, M. (2010) Defining and evaluating the impact of cross-disciplinary conservation research. Environmental Conservation, 37, 442 - 450. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892910000792

GEZEGİN, B. B., & Melike, B. A. S. (2020). Metadiscourse in academic writing: A comparison of research articles and book reviews. Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 6(1), 45-62. http://dx.doi.org/10.32601/ejal.710204

Gordon, L., & Fahlbeck, E. (2018, October). Cross-disciplinary approaches: The ‘Must have’ tools to work with complexity. https://www.siani.se/news-story/cross-interdisciplinary-approaches-the-must-have-tools-to-work-with-complexity

Han, C., & Gardner, S. (2021). ‘However’ and other transitions in the Han CH-EN corpus. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 51, 100984. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2021.100984

Heitzmann, N., Opitz, A., Stadler, M., Sommerhoff, D., Fink, M. C., Obersteiner, A., Schmidmaier, R., Neuhaus, B. J., Ufer, S., Seidel, T., Fischer, M. R., & Fischer, F. (2021). Cross-disciplinary research on learning and instruction - coming to terms. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 562658. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.562658

Hyland, K. (2005). Metadiscourse: Exploring interaction in writing. London: Continuum Intl Pub Group.

Hyland, K., & Tse, P. (2004). Metadiscourse in academic writing: A reappraisal. Applied Linguistics, 25, 156-177. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/25.2.156

Jochimsen, M. (2008). Grammar in EAP: Introduction. Grin. https://www.grin.com/document/148621

Kim, I. H. (2017). Metadiscourse in persuasive essays by elementary students in South Korea and the US. Journal of Language and Cultural Education, 5(2), 80-102. https://doi.org/10.1515/jolace-2017-0020

Leedham, M. (2014). Chinese students' writing in English: Implications from a corpus-driven study. NY: Routledge.

Lili, T. (2021). The application of transitional devices in English writing teaching. In 2nd International Conference on Language, Art and Cultural Exchange (ICLACE 2021) (pp. 355-358). Atlantis Press. https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210609.071

Matthiessen, C. M., & Halliday, M. A. K. (1997). Systemic functional grammar: A first step into the theory. China: Higher Education Press.

Pavlović, T. V., & Đorđević, D. (2020). The use of metadiscourse markers in essays written by esp university students. Годишњак Филозофског факултета у Новом Саду, 45(5), 233-249. https://doi.org/10.19090/gff.2020.5.233-249

Rasooyar, H., & Hosseini, E. (2019). Investigating interpersonal metadiscourse markers in English MA theses: The case of transition markers. Global Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 9(4), 184-192. https://doi.org/10.18844/gjflt.v9i4.4089

Sanford, S.G. (2012). A comparison of metadiscourse markers and writing quality in adolescent written narratives [Unpublished thesis]. University of Montana. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1006.9538&rep=rep1&type=pdf (accessed 10 June 2020)

Seek, N.M. (2012). Cross-disciplinary learning. In: Seel, N.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_1476

Sheridan, (2020). Types of essays.  Sheridan. https://sheridancollege.libguides.com/AcademicWriting/essaytypes

Sihura, M. (2019). Transitivity process in frozen movie: A study of systemic functional grammar. International Journal of Systemic Functional Linguistics, 2(2), 79-85. https://doi.org/10.55637/ijsfl.2.2.1480.79-85

Thompson, S. (1996). Interactional units in conversation: Syntactic, intonational and pragmatic resources. Interaction and Grammar, (13), 134.

Walková, M. (2020). Transition markers in EAP textbooks. Journal of English for academic purposes, 46, 100874. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2020.100874

Wordvice, K.H. (2021). Effective transition words in academic papers. Wordvice. https://blog.wordvice.com/common-transition-terms-used-in-academic-papers