The Role of Metadiscourse Markers in Comprehending Texts of Reading Comprehension Books Published in Iran and Oxford University Press

Abstract

Coherence is considered as the distinctive feature for a text which is achieved by fulfilling two components including texture as the more important one. Structural and non-structural are the two aspects of texture. The earlier deals with inter-sentence or intra-sentence structures including metadiscourse markers. These markers were investigated in this research. A corpus of reading comprehension texts has been compiled from books Published in Iran for university students and compared with similar books printed in Oxford University press. Following investigating each of the lessons in the corpus and contrasting the results, it was found that the texts in Oxford University press used 50 percent more interactive resources and twice more interactional resources. This led to conclude that the texts in Oxford University Press books seem to be more reader-friendly than those in books Published in Iran. Based on the results of this research, Iranian EAP (English for Academic purposes) books developers are recommended to include more interactive metadiscourse markers and much more interactionals to provide students-friendlier books.Coherence is considered as the distinctive feature for a text which is achieved by fulfilling two components including texture as the more important one. Structural and non-structural are the two aspects of texture. The earlier deals with inter-sentence or intra-sentence structures including metadiscourse markers. These markers were investigated in this research. A corpus of reading comprehension texts has been compiled from books Published in Iran for university students and compared with similar books printed in Oxford University press. Following investigating each of the lessons in the corpus and contrasting the results, it was found that the texts in Oxford University press used 50 percent more interactive resources and twice more interactional resources. This led to conclude that the texts in Oxford University Press books seem to be more reader-friendly than those in books Published in Iran. Based on the results of this research, Iranian EAP (English for Academic purposes) books developers are recommended to include more interactive metadiscourse markers and much more interactionals to provide students-friendlier books.