An Intercultural Investigation of Meta-Discourse Features in Research Articles by American and Turkish Academic Writers

This corpus-based study compares the use of hedges and boosters in English academic research articles (RAs) by Turkish and American academic writers. The data come from 40 RAs collected from well-known international journals of Applied Linguistics. Quantitative and textual analyses reveal that the American academic writers (AWs) preferred to be visible in their texts by employing a lot more hedges and boosters, while Turkish academic writers (TWs) opted to be invisible, preferring their studies to speak for themselves. Our results indicate, among other things, the influence of rhetorical practices, and epistemological beliefs, and the cultural, linguistic, and educational backgrounds of academic writers on their use of hedges and boosters. The findings of the study are discussed in relation to these aspects.