This article follows Hyland?s model of meta-discourse to probe into the question of author visibility, self-mention and discourse functions in Applied Linguistics dissertations. In this sense, the analysis of thirty theses and dissertations developed by postgraduate students was conducted at the University of Isfahan and the university?s main library. The study focused mainly on sections developed and discussed by authors in these academic texts to study items such as discourse functions and the frequency of self-mention in submitted manuscripts. Among other things, the results of the study demonstrated that MA and PhD students of English and Applied Linguistics generally preferred an impersonal writing style in their dissertations as the frequency of third person narration was significantly higher than the use or frequency of first person (plural or singular) throughout the main sections of manuscripts. The study also showed that these authors adhere to the traditional rules of academic writing by adopting a formal style of writing.

Applied linguistics; discourse analysis; self-mention; authorial visibility; discourse functions