transition markers in english for academic purposes grammar textbooks: focusing on their pedagogy and frequency of use

Students' ability to utilize metadiscourse markers will enhance the readability of their texts, which will improve their overall writing performance (ersalan, 2021). there are a number of metadiscourse markers, including transition markers. aiming to explore two key issues with regard to transition markers, the current study investigated the frequency of use and the pedagogy of transition markers (i.e., hence, but, although, since, and furthermore) in iranian english for academic purposes (eap) grammar textbooks and compared them with foreign eap grammar books. to this end, two series of eap grammar textbooks including three iranian eap english grammar textbooks and three foreign eap english grammar textbooks were analyzed. in order to determine the frequency of transition markers, hyland’s (2005) interpersonal metadiscourse model was used, namely, transition signals of addition, comparison and contrast, as well as consequence. besides, for the pedagogy of transition markers, walkova's (2020) ten suggested principles regarding the instruction of transition markers in eap textbooks were adopted. results of the study revealed that the transition markers of addition are the most prevalent whereas the transition markers of consequence are the least prevalent categories in both series of iranian and foreign textbooks. it was also found that iranian textbooks utilize transition markers to a greater degree than foreign textbooks. finally, all the textbooks failed to demonstrate a high degree of commitment to the effective principles of teaching transition markers in their pedagogy. while foreign textbooks utilized transitions less frequently in their context, they demonstrated a higher rate of application of the principles of transitions than iranian textbooks. given the role of incidental learning, material developers and curriculum designers are strongly suggested to follow the suggested principles of teaching transition markers.