Interactional metadiscourse markers in political science and creative arts journal abstracts

Purpose This study examined interactional metadiscourse markers in Q1 and Q3–Q4 political sciences and creative arts abstracts. Design/methodology/approach The corpus comprised 80 abstracts of articles published in Social Science Citation Index journals from 2011 to 2022 (40 in creative arts; 40 in political science). An analysis was conducted using Hyland’s (2005) interpersonal model for the distribution of hedges, boosters, self-mentions, attitude markers and engagement markers. Findings The analysis identified 598 interactional markers, with 61.9% in political science abstracts and 38.1% in creative arts abstracts. The political science writers were more into getting the readers involved in the argument (60.2 interactional markers per thousand words) than the creative arts writers (32.9 interactional markers per thousand words). For both disciplines, booster was the most frequently used marker followed by hedging, self-mention, attitude marker and engagement marker. Based on the total number and type of interactional marker, the creative arts abstracts in Q1 and Q3–Q4 journals were similar. However, the Q1 political science abstracts had a stronger authorial presence than the Q3–Q4 political science abstracts. The greater visibility of the Q1 political science writers was reflected in more frequent boosters, hedges and self-mentions. They were stronger in asserting their propositions with confidence. Research limitations/implications As is evident from past studies, each discipline has its own uniqueness in writer-reader engagement. The study did not investigate possible influences of cultural background on the use of interactional markers for engagement by referring to the background of the writers. Practical implications Academic writing courses can employ the findings on interactional metadiscourse markers for teaching college and university students to produce research reports that fit the conventions of the community of practice. Social implications The findings indicate that differences in interactional metadiscourse use by discipline and journal tier was more obvious in the political sciences than creative arts. This means that there is a greater focus on authorial identity in the political sciences. As for journal tier, the creative arts researchers are similar in the style and there is less demarcation in the quality of writing with respect to reader-writer engagement. Originality/value The study provides new insights on greater reader interaction by discipline and journal tier in the political sciences than in the creative arts.