Interpersonal Metadiscourse Markers in Opinion Articles: A Study of Texts Written by Indonesian Writers

Writers can apply interpersonal metadiscourse markers to encode an interaction and build a relationship with their readers. In some particular genres, such as newspaper discourse, they can even be used as means of attaining persuasive goals. Initiated by the idea, the present writer attempts to explore the use of interpersonal metadiscourse markers in Indonesian newspaper opinion articles. This present study aims to investigate interpersonal metadiscourse categories and subcategories applied and most predominantly occuring in the type of newspaper article. For the data, eleven selected articles of an Indonesian newspaper were taken to analyze by using Dafouz’s (2008) classification of interpersonal metadiscourse markers. Results reveal that interpersonal metadiscourse categories (hedges, certainty markers, attributors, attitude markers, and commentaries) and subcategories (epistemic verbs, probability adverbs, deontic verbs, attitudinal adverbs, attitudinal adjectives, cognitive verbs, rhetorical questions, inclusive expressions, personalizations, and asides) were used in Indonesian opinion articles. It is also found that attitude markers and two subcategories, which are deontic and epistemic verbs, are most frequently present in the texts.