A Comparative Study of Proximity in Farsi and English Newspaper Editorials

Proximity is a new concept introduced by Hyland (2010a). The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare proximity elements in Farsi and English newspaper editorials. Following Hyland s proximity model compromised of organization, argumentative structure, stance, engagement, and credibility, the present study focused on a detailed analysis of proximity features in the mentioned corpora. To this aim, 240 newspaper editorials, including 120 editorials from each category were collected. The outcomes revealed that there were significant differences in the use of proximity elements in the mentioned corpora. It was demonstrated that stance markers were considerably more recurrent in the English data than the Farsi counterpart. Unlike the English editorials, Farsi ones contained a larger number of engagement markers. The key reasons behind such discrepancies are discussed in the terms of differences in cultural, social, and political backgrounds. This study can be helpful for English for Specific/Academic Purposes (ES/AP) learners who study journalistic English to be familiar with proximity.