Investigating Frequency and Distribution of Transition Markers in English and Persian Research Articles in Applied Linguistics: Focusing on Their Introduction Sections

The pressure to produce work in English and to publish internationally has increased over recent years. However, a large number of non-native writers may be excluded from the web of global scholarship due to defective rhetorical organizations and discourse structures of their works. This study aimed to investigate frequency and distribution of transition markers (TMs) in introduction sections of applied linguistics research articles (RAs) written by native writers of English (NE), nonnative Persian writers of English (NNE), and native writers of Persian (NP). For this purpose, 45 RAs were functionally and manually analyzed and compared to find possible differences among their introduction sections in terms of frequency and distribution of TMs. The results showed that compared with English, Persian language makes more use of TMs. Moreover, it was revealed that NNE writers show a pattern of overuse of TMs when they write in English owing to the effects of their native language writing culture.