Abstract

English medical and literary texts were compared and contrasted to find out whether there were any significant differences between the two kinds of texts in terms of the number and types of metadiscoursal markers. To this end, first, 30 medical and literary journal articles were chosen. Then, 3 successive paragraphs were extracted randomly from each of the selected articles which totaled 90 paragraphs out of which 45 were medical and 45 literary. The frequency and type of metadiscoursal markers in each text were investigated in accordance with Vande Kopple’s (1985) taxonomy. Next, the total number of metadiscoursal items in each type of the texts under study was determined. Finally, the Chi-square test was applied to the collected data to compare medical and literary texts. The statistical results gained through the computer suggested that there was a significant difference in the amount and type of metadiscoursal markers in medical and literary texts.

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