Glossing an argument: Reformulation and exemplification in L2 Master’s theses

Abstract Following a large body of research on metadiscourse in academic writing, this paper explores one feature textual metadiscourse, code glosses, English L2 texts written by Czech university students. The study draws Hyland’s model (2005), which characterizes glosses as devices that elaborate propositional meanings rephrasing or explaining what has been said. Thus, they can help readers understand the writer’s intended meaning contribute to formation persuasive arguments. corpus consists 48 Master’s theses representing three disciplines – linguistics, literature and language teaching (ELT) methodology, totalling almost 950,000 words. results are compared with professional writing represented L1 articles from same disciplines. findings reveal differences frequency functions several novice writers shown overuse certain devices. also indicate cross-disciplinary variation, reformulation exemplification proved be much more prominent linguistics methodology than literary studies.