Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, Zonguldak, Türkiye, 7 - 08 Eylül 2023, ss.22-23, (Özet Bildiri)
Suggested by (Prommas & Sinwongsuwat, 2011), one of the key elements in maintaining cohesion in written discourse is through the use of metadiscourse markers. Nonetheless, due to the uniqueness of metadiscourse use in each language, doing so in one’s target language becomes challenging (Bogdanovic & Mirovic, 2018; Hatipoglu & Algi, 2018). Consequently, written products of L2 language users might be regarded as unqualified (Intaraprawat & Steffensen, 1995). Hence, it is significant to scrutinize the metadiscourse marker use of L2 language users to take the necessary steps in terms of instruction and material development. Besides, comparing metadiscourse marker use of L2 users whose written products were scored differently could provide useful information on understanding the relationship between metadiscourse marker use and overall written discourse competence. Accordingly, the present study aims at examining the use of interactive metadiscourse markers in low and high scored argumentative essays in terms of their types, frequency, and accuracy. The research questions it seeks answers for are as follows: (1) What are the types of interactive metadiscourse markers employed in low-scored and high-scored essays in TOEFL11 corpus? (2) How frequently are interactive metadiscourse markers employed in low-scored and high-scored essays in TOEFL11 corpus? (3) How accurately are interactive metadiscourse markers employed in low-scored and high-scored essays in TOEFL11 corpus? To answer these questions, TOEFL11 corpus which is the largest publicly available corpus of English written by nonnative writers and annotated for score level by experienced raters (Blanchard, et. al., 2013) was utilized as data. To be able to make comparisons, two sub-corpora were compiled by the researcher (i.e., TOEFL-HighP4 and TOEFL-LowP4) which contain 68 argumentative essays in total. For data analysis, Hyland’s (2005) Interpersonal Model of Metadiscourse is used. Therefore, each essay was examined by the researcher to find all the candidate interactive metadiscourse markers and to ensure their metadiscoursal value in a data-driven fashion. Then, the types of interactive metadiscourse markers (i.e., transitions, frame markers and code glosses) were coded and their number of occurrences and relative frequency (i.e., RF) were calculated. Finally, the accurate use of these devices in the argumentative essays were categorized and coded as (1) correct use, (2) incorrect use, (3) overuse and (4) underuse, by adopting the categorization model of Çiçek Tümer (2021, p.70). The findings of the study revealed that regardless of their score, L2 English users employed frame markers, code glosses and transition markers in their argumentative essays. Nevertheless, whereas the high-scored essays contained a more variety of these markers (i.e., N=109 in TOEFL-HighP4; N=45 in TOEFL-LowP4), low-scored ones included them more frequently (i.e., RF=31,76 in TOEFL-LowP4; RF=24,95 in TOEFL-HighP4). The results also demonstrated that English users with high-scored essays used these markers more accurately and appropriately than the others since in TOEFL-HighP4 corpus 15 instances of inaccurate forms (i.e., N=5 for incorrect use, N=7 for overuse and N=3 for underuse) were found while in TOEFL-LowP4 corpus 30 incorrect forms (i.e., N=18 for incorrect use, N=4 for overuse and N=8 for underuse) were encountered. Overall, it can be proposed that employing a more variety of interactive metadiscourse markers and using them more accurately may promote L2 English users’ overall written discourse competence; however, the frequency of these devices might not guarantee a high score for written products. Hence, it can be suggested that material and curriculum developers focus on specific instruction on improving variety and accuracy in using these devices.