How Do Scientists Reach Their Target Audience? Academic and Popular Science Articles in Nutrition

The aim of the current study was to investigate frequencies of interactional metadiscourse markers in English academic research and popular science articles in nutrition. A total of 60 English articles published in three popular databases and four academic journals were analyzed for interactional metadiscourse markers, including hedges, boosters, attitude markers, engagement markers and self-mentions. Results of the analysis revealed nearly twice as many interactional metadiscourse markers in the academic research articles, indicating a higher level of explicit interaction in that genre. Results of the chi-square test (p ≤ 0.01) demonstrated that uses of metadiscourse markers differed significantly in the two genres. Findings showed that the authors of academic research and popular science articles tried to create balances between highlighting the significance and pinpointing the tentativeness of the claims and, thereby, they made interactive choices to approximate their readers’ world. Furthermore, results highlighted the high relevance of popular science articles to academic research articles since authors were inevitably involved in transforming and recovering scientific findings into more comprehensive accounts in popular science texts. Findings can be transferred to pedagogical grounds through raising students’ awareness in English writing courses about the way; through which, the authors of academic research and popular science articles use interactional resources to enhance quality and efficiency of their interactions with the readers.