Writing is viewed as a social act which involves interactions between the writer and the reader. Every written text often consists of two main parts: propositional content which deals with information about the external reality, and metadiscourse (MD) which helps in organising the text, revealing the writer’s attitude towards the text and engaging the readers in the written product. This case study focuses on MD in Omani English language teaching (ELT) undergraduate students’ academic writing through Bourdieu’s lens of habitus, field and capital to better understand what promotes and hinders the students’ English language learning. The study aims to answer the following research questions: (1) how do Omani third-year ELT undergraduate students’ social backgrounds and aspirations impact on their views of English language and its learning? (2) what are these students’ perceptions about MD and its impact on the quality of their academic writing? (3) how do these students use MD markers in their academic writing in their research course? (4) what are the challenges these students face with using MD in their academic writing and how do these challenges impact on their aspirations? To answer these research questions, 17 ELT undergraduate students and seven academic writing tutors took part in semi-structured interviews. The participant students’ academic texts were analysed by using Hyland’s (2005) taxonomy of MD. The findings from this study reveal that the students’ social backgrounds and their aspirations positively impact on their views about English language and the learning of it as linguistic capital. The students and their families expect English linguistic capital to provide them access to the different forms of capital (e.g. institutionalised cultural capital, economic capital and symbolic capital) they need to maintain or improve their socioeconomic status. The findings also reveal that most the study participants view MD markers as important for the quality of their academic writing. They employed MD markers differently to organise their texts and to guide their readers in their written discourse. However, there is a big gap between how some of them perceive MD in relation to quality academic writing and how they use MD markers in their academic writing. Overall, the MD-related challenges some students face expected to negatively impact on their aspirations by limiting their access to some of the forms of capital they need.
| Date of Award | 7 Feb 2024 |
|---|
| Original language | English |
|---|
| Supervisor | Glynn Jones (Main Supervisor) |
|---|