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Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL 1

Ian Chen

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Table of Contents

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Introduction................................................................................................................................3 Background and context.........................................................................................................3 Problem statement...................................................................................................................3 Research questions..................................................................................................................3 Relevance and importance of the research.............................................................................3 Literature review........................................................................................................................3 Key concepts, theories and studies.........................................................................................3 Key debates and controversies................................................................................................3 Gaps in existing knowledge....................................................................................................3 Research design and methods....................................................................................................3 Aims and objectives................................................................................................................3 Methods and sources...............................................................................................................3 Practicalities and potential obstacles......................................................................................3 Implications and contributions to knowledge............................................................................3 Practical implications..............................................................................................................3 Theoretical implications.........................................................................................................3 Reference list..............................................................................................................................4 Research schedule......................................................................................................................5 Research phase........................................................................................................................5 Objectives...............................................................................................................................5 Deadline..................................................................................................................................5

Introduction The introduction should include the following elements:

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Background and Context Lead the reader into the topic and scope of your research. Problem Statement Describe the theoretical or practical research problem that you want to address. What is already known about the problem? What is missing from current knowledge?

Research Questions State the specific question(s) that you aim to answer.

Relevance and Importance of the Research Make it clear what new insights you will contribute, who they are relevant to, and why the research is worth doing.

With the influence of globalization, English has undeniably become the lingua franca not only for international business but also in the realm of academia for scholarly exchange.

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Literature review The literature review summarizes, compares and critiques the most relevant scholarly sources on the topic. There are many different ways to structure a literature review, but it should explore:

Key Concepts, Theories and Studies Compare, contrast, and establish the theories and concepts that will be most important for your project.

Key Debates and Controversies Identify points of conflict and situate your own position.

Gaps in Existing Knowledge Show what is missing and how your project will fit in.

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5 Research design and methods

Here you should explain your approach to the research and describe exactly what steps you will take to answer your questions.

Research design Explain how you will design the research. Qualitative or quantitative? Original data collection or primary/secondary sources? Descriptive, correlational or experimental?

Methods and Sources Describe the tools, procedures, participants and sources of the research. When, where and how will you collect, select and analyze data?

Practical Considerations Address any potential obstacles, limitations and ethical or practical issues. How will you plan for and deal with problems?

RESEARCH PROPOSAL Implications and contributions to knowledge Finish the proposal by emphasizing why your proposed project is important and what it will contribute to practice or theory.

Practical Implications Will your findings help improve a process, inform policy, or make a case for concrete change? Theoretical Implications Will your work help strengthen a theory or model, challenge current assumptions, or create a basis for further research?

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7 References

Crismore, A. (1983). Metadiscourse: What it is and how it is used in school and non-schoolsocial science texts. Technical Report, 273. Hyland, K. (1998). Persuasion and context: The pragmatics of academic metadiscourse. Journal of Pragmatics, 30, 437-455. Hyland, K. (2005a). Metadiscourse. Exploring interaction in writing. London: Continuum. Mauranen, A. (1993). Cultural differences in academic discourse: Problems of a linguistic and cultural minority. The Competent Intercultural Communicator, 51, 157-174. Swales, J. (1990). Genre Analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge University Press. Valero-Garces, C. (1996). Contrastive ESP rhetoric: Metatext in Spanish-English economic texts. English for Specific Purposes, 15(4), 279-294. Vande Kopple, W. J. (1985). Some Exploratory Discourse on Metadiscourse. College Composition and Communication. 36(1). 82-93.

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Research schedule Research phase

Objectives

Deadline

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Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1Background Metadiscourse has been considered as an ambiguous concept which the boundaries of application can vary substantially according to different contexts and conditions. Owing to the nature of being a fuzzy term, over the years different researchers has understood and depicted the term in different ways (e.g. Crismore, 1983; Hyland, 1998, 2005; Swales, 1990; Valero-Garces, 1996; Vande Kopple, 1985 The concept of metadiscourse has been widely used in discourse analysis, However, it is a field of study which is of vital importance in organizing and producing persuasive writing The use of metadiscourse in academic writing has gained considerable research attention (e.g. Aull & Lancaster, 2014; Hyland & Tse, 2004; Hyland, 2004; Lee & Deakin, 2016; Mur Duen~as, 2007). This may be attributed to the fact that metadiscoursecan function to persuade by making appeals to rationality, credibility and character, and emotions (Hyland, 2005a). In other words, with metadiscourse, writers can realize the three means of persuasion as suggested by Aristotle (2010) logos, ethos, and pathos. Metadiscourse has been construed and defined in different ways. For example, it is regarded as resources that convey a secondary level of meaning of a text in that it helps readers to “connect, organize, interpret, evaluate, and develop attitudes towards the materials” (Vande Kopple, 2002, p. 93). That is, it does not contribute to the propositional meaning e the primary level of a text. The construal of metadiscourse as non-contributory towards the propositional meaning of a text is strengthened by Mauranan's (1993) non-integrative approach to metadiscourse. This approach makes a clear distinction between metadiscourse and proposition, and takes metadiscourse as only functioning to help the writer to organize a text. This metadiscourse-proposition distinction, however, has been criticized for its inability to explain the change in the propositional meaning of a text when metadiscourse is removed from it (Hyland & Tse, 2004). Instead of being secondary to the propositional meaning of a text, metadiscourse has been also regarded as linguistic resources writers could use to intrude in the text to interact with the reader (Crismore & Farnsworth, 1990; Hyland, 2005a), and to shape their propositions to create texts that are coherent and convincing (Hyland & Tse, 2004). Metadiscourse, with which writers can interact and convince readers, is taken to be interpersonal in nature and defned as: “[T]he cover term for the self-refective expressions used to negotiate interactional meanings in a text, assisting the writer (or speaker) to express a viewpoint and engage with readers as members of a particular community” (Hyland, 2005a, p. 37).

Discourse analysis, defined as ‘the way of studying language in action, looking at texts in relation to the social contexts in which they are used’ (Hyland, 2009a: 20), has become a central tool for identification of certain language features in genres written by particular members of their community (Hyland, 2009b). Its main concern is the communication and conveyance of ideas through language use and the interaction between the language and particular social or cultural societies among whom the language is used (Paltridge, 2006). In this regard, discourse analysis has gained an increasing attention from scholars, in which the concept of metadiscourse has been widely used (Hyland, 2010). Metadiscourse has been a ‘fuzzy term’ as it was defined by various researchers in different ways. Defining it as ‘simply an author’s discoursing about discourse’, Crismore (1983: 2) states that it is ‘the author's intrusion into the discourse, either explicitly or non-explicitly, to direct the reader rather than inform’. Valero-Garc6s (1996) defines it as metatext referring to linguistic units

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ranging from affixes to sentences and text-level rhetoric features. Hyland (1998; 2005) asserts that some of these definitions are restricted to textual and rhetorical organization (Mauranen, 1993; Valero-Garc6s, 1996) and some others are partial and restricted to ‘simply discourse about discourse’ or ‘talk about talk’ (i.e. Crismore, 1983; Vande Kopple, 1985). Therefore, he provides a comprehensive definition of the term and his notion was adopted in this study. Accordingly, metadiscourse refers to ‘the cover term for self- reflective expressions used to negotiate interactional meanings in a text, assisting the writer (or speaker) to express a viewpoint and engage with readers as members of a particular community’ (Hyland, 2005: 37).

The concept of metadiscourse has been widely used in discourse analysis and it has been the concern of many researchers. Metadiscourse is an umbrella term that covers a range of language expressions that writers use to explicitly organize the content of their texts, to signal their attitudes towards their audience and material, and to engage readers to help them decode messages (Anwardeen et al., 2013; Fuertes-Olivera et al., 2001; Hyland, 2005). Metadiscourse use has been proved to be an important indicator of author explicitness and thus text quality as it makes the text more interactive and accessible to the reader (BurneikaitL, 2008). Metadiscourse has been portrayed by various scholars in different ways. For instance, in a broad sense, Vande Kopple (1985, p. 83) defined it as ‘discourse about discourse or communication about communication’. Swales (1990, p.188) defined it specifically as ‘writing about the evolving text rather than referring to the subject matter’. Following Hyland (2010: 125) in this research, who proposed a more encompassing definition, metadiscourse is defined “as a set of features which together help explain the working of interactions between text producers and their texts and between text producers and users”. Hyland’s (2005) model of metadiscourse which is argued to be comprehensive, simple and clear (Abdi et al., 2010) was adopted in this study. His model consists of two dimensions: interactional and interactive. Interactional dimension depicts the writer’s expression of textual voice (Hyland, 2005:49). Interactive metadiscourse, a sub-category (i.e. transitions) of which was analyzed within the scope of this study, ‘concerns the writer’s awareness of a participating audience and the ways he or she seeks to accommodate its probable knowledge, interests, rhetorical expectations and processing abilities’ (Hyland, 2005, p. 49). It plays a primary role not only in the organization of persuasive discourse by the writer but also in facilitating reading process on behalf of readers in communicating writer’s beliefs (Simin & Tavangar, 2009). Argumentative writing in English poses challenges for language learners in rhetorical organization, development of argumentation and appropriate language use (Al-Haq & Ahmed, 1994; Zhu, 2001). Explicit textual organization with an awareness of audience is of utmost importance for an argumentative essay to be persuasive. Research in the use of metadiscourse in academic writing has explored a range of academic genres including research articles, postgraduate dissertations, and undergraduate essays. These research studies show that persuasion in English academic discourse can be achieved by making the logical relationship between clauses explicit and signposting the development of the text with interactive metadiscourse in various academic genres: research articles (e.g. Khedri, Heng, & Ebrahimi, 2013; Hyland, 2007; Mur-Due~nas, 2011), postgraduate dissertations (e.g. Basturkmen & Randow, 2014; Hyland & Tse, 2004), and undergraduate academic essays (e.g. Li & Wharton, 2012). It also shows that interactional metadiscourse can be used to achieve persuasion by making the writer's stance clear and engaging the readers in these academic genres (e.g. Gillaerts & Van de Velde, 2010; Hong & Cao, 2014; Hyland, 2004; Lee & Deakin, 2016; Mur Duen~as, 2007).

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Metadiscourse is a new and interesting field of inquiry which is believed to play a vital role in organizing and producing persuasive writing, based on the norms and expectations of people involved. Metadiscourse embodies the idea that writing and speaking are more than just the communication of ideas and presentation of ideational meaning. Rather they are considered as social acts which involve writers, readers, speakers and listeners to interact with each other to affect the ways ideas are presented and understood. Metadiscourse is, therefore, believed to be an important feature of communication because we need to asses the readers’ or listeners’ resources for understanding the text and their likely responses to it in order to be able to write or to speak effectively

The development of writing proficiency has always been one of the most important goals of education. Writing is the graphic expressive form of communication in which the writer offers feelings, considerations, information and projects to the reader. Writing is a fertile and productive ground for gaining communicative competence and it has been one of great concerns to all language learners and consequently it has turned into the principal focus of attention for all pedagogues and language teaching and learning issues. Chastain (1988) stated that ‘writing is one of the most important skills in the field of communication and a distinctive resource in processing of second language learning’. Writing is the learned process of forming thoughts into text, allowing the writer to explore, develop, clarify and communicate thoughts, feelings and words. For many centuries, written language has been

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seen as being the main issue for communication. This case is because of the significance of writing in all aspects.

Writing is a social engagement for writers to interact with their imagined readers. While disciplinary variation plays a dominant role in academic contexts, writing is further regarded as an interaction between writers and their disciplinary discourse communities. Academic writing, to a certain degree, entails that writers are in a process of “projecting themselves into their discourse tosignal their attitudes towardboth the propositional content and the audience of the text” (Hyland & Tse, 2004, p. 156).

In the process of academic writing, writers construct their arguments based on their professional disciplinary training and their understanding as well as expectation towardreaders. That is, to present coherent and persuasive arguments to particular community of readers, writers often need to construct their academic work according to readers’ prior knowledge of the texts with frequent reiteration and clarification of the immediate prior proposition. As writers, texts, and readers are regarded as the three inseparable core elements in the communication of academic writing,

Academic writing indicates a process of social engagement between writers and readers. In the social engagement, an interaction between writers and readers is builtfor knowledge accumulation and transmission. On the one hand, writers construct academic legitimate knowledge based on their assumption of readers’ prior knowledge of the field and also on their assumption toward potential question raised by readers. On the other hand, writers are required to produce academic works conforming to the discourse

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community of discipline. Referring academic writing as “concrete realization” (Li & Wharton, 2012) in particular field of the discipline, familiarizing with and employing preferred rhetorical structure and linguistic devices are salient in academic writing teaching and learning. That is to say, the “norms and expectation of particular cultural and professional communities” (Abdollahzadeh, 2011, p. 289) is closely associated with the process for writers to project themselves, present and negotiate an argument as well as engage with their readers via “community-oriented application of appropriate linguistic resources” (Abdollahzadeh, 2011, p. 289) .

Writing is a process of social engagement (Hyland, 2004, 2005; Hyland & Tse, 2004; Hyland, 2010). Writing is notmerely about proposition-making and information providing; rather, it concerns how the propositional content is connected tothe contexts and how the propositional content reveals the relationship among writers, readers, and texts.

Especially in academic contexts, writers manifest their personality, attitudes, and attempts to guide and influence the perception of readers by means of projecting themselves into their discourse with metadiscoursal devices (Hyland & Tse, 2004, p. 156; Hyland, 2005, p. 3). The awareness and ability of self-projection in academic writing is highly valued and necessary since it signalswriters’ positions, perspectives, and their preferred communicative purposes toward both argumentative statement and the readers of the text (Hyland & Tse, 2004, p. 156; Hyland, 2005, p. 4). Such academic writing goal and requirement areembodied in the employment of appropriate academic disciplinary community-oriented linguistic resources (Abdollahzadeh, 2011, p. 289). Self-reflective and interactive in nature, these linguistic resources have been collectively termed as metadiscourse. To some ext...