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Title Analysing Undergraduate Students’ Linguistic Profile: A Study of Cognitive Structures used in Expressive Writing

Author(s) Saria Saeed

Abstract Throughout history, scholars have believed that our words provide clues about our psychological processes. However, the methods used to analyse psychological processes from language have evolved significantly over time. With the advancement in modern computational technologies, the researchers are now on the point of a major revolution in language analysis research. Similarly, the present research aims to investigate the cognitive structures and document the frequency of metadiscourse markers in expressive writings of undergraduate students. For this purpose, 50 samples from undergraduate students of NUML Multan Campus (Department of Management Sciences and English) are collected. Participants are randomly assigned to write about a topic The Current Situation of Pakistan. The purpose of assigning this topic is to make students express their thoughts so their cognitive structures can be analysed. The present research employs a software Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (2022) to analyse cognitive structures and Hyland’s (2005) model of interactive metadiscourse analysis. The findings reveal that linguistic profiles have provided useful information for analysing the cognitive structures of participants. They have used more negative tone including tone of hopelessness, despair, and anxiety. Additionally, the cognitive process category which includes thinking and reasoning can be seen in all the texts. Moreover, the researcher also documents the frequency of occurrence of Hyland’s interactive metadiscourse markers in the text. The findings reveal that there is a higher use of transitional metadiscourse markers, followed by frame markers, evidentials, endophoric markers and code glosses. It shows that students have expressed their thoughts/opinions while maintaining the coherency and organization of their texts.

Type Thesis/Dissertation

Faculty Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Department English (Multan Campus)

Language English

Publication Date 2025-08-21

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