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Article published In:
Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 14:1 (2023) ► pp.47–69

One issue, two genres

A comparison of interactional metadiscourse in the news

| National Taiwan Ocean University
| National Taiwan Ocean University

This study compares the use of interactional metadiscourse in a British newspaper, the Daily Mail, and a British news magazine, The Economist, in reporting on the Brexit referendum. We adopted Hyland’s (2005a: 48–54) framework to analyze hedges, boosters, attitude markers, engagements, and self-mentions. One hundred news articles were randomly selected from online archives from February to June in 2016, during which time the debatable issue was discussed ardently. Quantitative and qualitative results of this study revealed both similarities and differences between the newspaper and the news magazine in the use of interactional metadiscourse. For example, quantitatively, the frequencies of boosters in both genres were similar; however, the newspaper used much more engagement markers and self-mentions whereas the magazine used more hedges and attitude markers. Qualitatively, while most self-mentions were the same in both genres, a unique choice of self-mentions was found in the news magazine.

Keywords: Brexit referendum, newspapers, news magazines, discourse analysis, metadiscourse, interactional metadiscourse
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Purpose of the study and research questions
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Analytical framework of metadiscourse
    • 2.2Previous research on metadiscourse
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1The issue: The Brexit referendum
    • 3.2Data collection
    • 3.3Data analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Hedges
    • 4.2Boosters
    • 4.3Attitude markers
    • 4.4Engagement markers
    • 4.5Self-mentions
  • 5.Interactional metadisourse in journalistic genres
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 14 March 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.19024.che
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