earticle

영어

Metadiscourse is an important strategic skill in writing, yet it has been seldom a part of explicit classroom instruction. In pursuit of evidence about the L2 writers' incidental assimilation into the L1 uses of interpersonal metadiscourse (IMD) skills, this study examined CMC corpora of L1 and L2 university students covering three discussion sessions. Although not straightforward, the L2 writers demonstrated some signs of assimilation; while the L1 writers gradually reduced IMD with increasing affinity, the L2 group made a quick drop-off and then caught up with the L1 rate at the later session, showing a U-shaped pattern of development. The investigation by categories presented four patterns: an early change for self mentions; delayed changes for engagement and attitude markers; a sustained difference for boosters; and a retrogression for hedges. Exposing learners to appropriate target forms would suffice for the categories involving directness such as self mentions, engagement markers, and attitude markers, while learners may benefit more from some explicit instruction for boosters and hedges.