Teacher raters’ reaction to the use of metadiscourse in Chinese EFL learners’ argumentative essays

Abstract

This study aims to examine the teacher raters’ reaction to Chinese EFL learners’ performance on metadiscourse markers in argumentative essays. Four teacher raters’ retrospective verbal reports of their rating processes, text-based interviews and semi-structured interviews in relation to the students’ use of metadiscourse have been examined. The research findings demonstrate that the teacher raters commented more on the fulfillment of the cohesive and the rhetorical functions of metadiscourse rather than upon the pragmatic functions of metadiscourse per se.