An empirical analysis of metadiscourse in the abstracts of Romanian accounting research articles

Metadiscourse is vital in academic writing, whereas abstracts are arguably considered by some authors to be the most important part of an academic paper. The aim of this paper is to study the evolution of interactional metadiscourse elements present in the abstracts of accounting research articles (RA) published in the Journal of Accounting and Management Information Systems (JAMIS) over the period 2006-2014. 130 RA abstracts were analyzed, yielding a total of 25,570 words. The research design is empirical. The research hypotheses have all been accepted. First, there is a correlation between the publication’s maturity and the number of interactional instances. Second, the number of such metadiscourse elements has increased over time. Third, hedges, boosters and attitude markers are the most frequent elements of interactional metadiscourse. This suggests that once Romania underwent historical changes (such as the transition from the communism to capitalism, the integration in the European Union, the adaptation to the internationalization trend in research), Romanian accounting authors became increasingly aware of their place in the competitive scholarly community, whereby this awareness becomes tangible through the increased use of interactional metadiscourse elements.