Metadiscursive Nouns in Iranian Scholars' Research Articles: Disciplinary and Gender-based Variations

Academic discourse is the collaborative interaction within academic communities, primarily aimed at convincing readers that the writers' arguments are valid. Despite the fact that nouns are frequently used in academic writing, the rhetorical functions of nouns have received limited attention in academic writing analysis. This research sets out to: (۱) investigate the frequency of Metadiscursive Nouns (MNs) in Iranian scholars' research articles, and (۲) compare MN usage across academic disciplines and genders. In this corpus-based study, ۴۰ articles from the fields of Applied Linguistics, Psychology, Medicine, and Chemistry were carefully selected and analyzed based on Jiang and Hyland's (۲۰۱۶) MNs taxonomy. Chi-square analyses revealed significant differences across disciplines and genders, with generally weak effect sizes. The findings revealed gender-based disparities, with male scholars using MNs more frequently in soft disciplines (۷۸.۴%) compared to female scholars (۶۹.۶%), while female scholars (۳۰.۴%) exceeded male researchers (۲۱.۶%) in MN usage in hard disciplines. The results also indicated that MN usage differed significantly across disciplines, with the highest frequencies observed in Linguistics and Psychology, despite the relatively small effect size. This research underscores the impact of disciplinary norms and gender on MNs' selection and usage in academic writing, providing valuable insights for teaching academic writing skills, developing instructional materials, and conducting academic discourse analysis.

کلیدواژه ها:

Metadiscursive Nouns ، Disciplinary Variation ، Gender Variation ، research articles ، Iranian Scholars