This study investigates college students’ use of metadiscoursal markers across two languages: Arabic and English. It is a corpus-based study of 25 female college students’ essays of approximately 500 running words from each student. The results reveal that in both languages students have frequently used more interactive resources than interactional resources. It also reveals that there are many differences of the use of metadiscoursal markers between the English and Arabic corpora. The findings of this study suggest some teaching implications which include the incorporation of metadiscoursal markers into the school curriculum at all levels. Teachers should raise the awareness of their students of the typical features of metadiscoursal markers, which are associated with both the English and Arabic languages, so that the students may establish a stronger interaction with their informational content and readers, as well as teachers becoming more sensitive to, and knowledgeable about, metadiscoursal markers and their use in different discourse communities and cultures.
Keywords: College students, Metadiscourse, corpus-based analysis, interactional resources, interactive resources
