Abstract

The present study sets out to investigate an important aspect of gendered performance, namely, the presence of interactional metadiscourse in conference presentations delivered in Persian. The study pursues two primary objectives: firstly, to compare the quantity and quality of interactional metadiscourse markers as expressed by male and female academics; secondly, to investigate some other factors influencing the phenomenon under investigation. The data include twenty-four conference presentations by twelve males and twelve females. The quantitative analysis showed a statistically significant difference in the use of interactional metadiscourse by male and female presenters. However, the qualitative analysis helped the authors to identify more similarities than differences. In point of fact, such factors as academic status and nativeness had caused the speakers to use different metadiscourse strategies.