A Gender-based Study of Reply Articles:Exploring the Interactional Metadiscourse Markers

The current study aimed to investigate the possible difference between male and female authors in terms of the use of interactional metadiscourse markers in reply articles in the field of applied linguistics. To this end, ۱۹ reply articles written by male and female authors were scrutinized. The results indicated that the authors made use of interactional markers regardless of their gender. The findings revealed that selfmentions were the most frequently used interactional metadiscourse markers. Following that, both male and female authors included hedges and boosters. The least common types of interactional metadiscourse markers in the reply articles written by both male and female authors. The findings indicated that although the use of interactional metadiscourse markers are genre-bound, it is by no means gender-based. The results can carry pedagogical implications for academic writing and reading instruction to the novice members of the applied linguistics academic discourse community.

Keywords:

Applied linguistics , Interactional metadiscourse markers , Reply article