English Engagement Markers: A Comparison of Humanities and Science Journal Articles

Engagement markers (hereafter, EMs) are crucial interpersonal devices to interact with readers through texts. However, little is known about the differences of EMs use in Humanities and Science journal research articles (hereafter, RAs), as well as the changes in markers use over the passage of time. The present study provides a quantitative and contrastive analysis based on two corpora consisting of four disciplines of Humanities RAs (Psychology, Sociology, Economics and Law) and four disciplines of science RAs (Mathematics, Geology, Physics and Biology). Sixteen articles from each discipline were selected randomly from a pool of journal RAs. All sections of the articles were scrutinized for the purpose of the study. The obtained results indicate that Humanities RAs make use of more EMs than Science RAs. Also, the findings of this study suggest that directives are used more than other markers both in Humanities and Science RAs. Regarding the use of EMs in the decades of 1990s and 2000s, a significant increase in the use of EMs was observed with the passage of time, both in Humanities and Science RAs.