The Use of Transitions in Moroccan Masters’ Thesis Introductions: A Corpus-Based Analysis of Cohesive Devices in L2 Academic Writing

Abstract

Transition markers constitute the most frequently deployed category of interactive metadiscourse in academic writing, serving to signal logical and rhetorical relationships between propositions. This study investigates their use in a corpus of 30 master's thesis introductions (34,050 words) produced by Moroccan L2 writers from two university faculties: the Faculty of Languages, Letters and Arts (FLLA) at Ibn Tofail University, Kenitra (16,898 words; 2011–2014), and the Faculty of Education Sciences (FSE) at Mohammed V University, Rabat (17,152 words; 2017–2019). Drawing on Hyland's (2005) interactive metadiscourse framework and Prommas' (2020) marker inventory, transition markers were identified and quantified through MAXQDA Analytics Pro 2020.