Metadiscourse Markers in the Abstract Sections of Persian and English Law Articles

Abstracts are well-accepted as the clarity and fidelity of language in any article assists the readership to get the central points of the research in a brief l but effective manner. Meanwhile, as a significant feature of any piece of discourse, meta-discourse markers can effectively render article abstract texts more reader-friendly and coherent. The present study aims at investigating the extent to which English and Persian abstract sections of Law articles are cross-culturally similar or different in applying metadiscourse markers. To this end, 80 articles, 40 in each language, were carefully selected from Law articles published from 2010 to 2015 in online archives of leading journals. The selected corpora were analyzed through the models suggested by Hyland and Tse (2004) and Hyland (2005) to find out the type, number, and frequency of the markers, respectively. The findings of the study revealed that English authors enlisted a larger number of metadiscourse markers than their Persian counterparts; Persian authors, on the other hand, employed larger number of transitions among others. Such observed differences may stem from the culture-specific application and organization of discourse followed by diverse nationalities and norms.