-

This study examines the use of textual metadiscourse in ELT research articles written by Persian and Anglo-American academic writers. To this end, the introduction sections of 73 English academic research articles were selected. The functional- contextual analysis revealed a statistically significant difference between Iranian and Anglo-American academic writers in their use of illocution markers, but no meaningful differences were noticed in their use of text connectives and code glosses. Moreover, both groups of writers used theses markers in the same hierarchical order, i.e. they tend to use more text connectives than code glosses than illocution markers. The results of this study can be helpful in writing instruction, writing skills and translation.