THE USE OF META DISCOURSE MARKERS IN THE MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY THESES’ ABSTRACTS

Abstract

The researchers, through this study, explored the metadiscourse markers’usage in50 master of Philosophytheses’ abstracts. Twenty-five of these abstractswere written by L2 Pakistani female students and rest of the 25 abstracts were written by the male students.The study sightsaw the frequency usage of metadiscourse markers by the male and female students. Hyland’smodel(2005)was adopted to achieve the objectives of the study. Theresults indicatedthat researchers used the interactive meta discourse markers more than the interactionalones (Interactive Markers 278 whereas 50 interactional markers). The study made it evident that the use of one marker supported the other in terms of cohesion, relevance and strong argumentation of the text. The researchers observed the diversity and variety in the usage of metadiscourse markers. The students showed varied inclinations or tendencies in the usage of metadiscourse markers.The study also concluded that male students used interactive discourse markers more than the female students whereas the female students outnumbered the male students in the use of interactional metadiscourse markers.