چكيده لاتين :
1. Introduction
Hyland (2005) defines metadiscourse as a “cover term for the self-reflective
expression used to negotiate interactional meanings in a text, assisting the writer
(or speaker) to express a viewpoint and engage with reader as members of a
particular community” (p. 37). Hyland has admitted that these rhetorical features
convey the relation between the writer, text and reader which is more than a pure
exchange of information. In this vein, newspapers are important means of
information exchange. Readers of any social level in communities have access to it
and on the other hand, unlike TV and radio, it would not oblige its users to confine
themselves to a specific time or place. Therefore, the role of newspapers in
reflecting the news is really significant. In spite of the importance of newspaper
discourse, it has not been successful in absorbing researchers’ attention to study on
language devices like metadiscourse markers in this type of texts.
2. Theoretical Framework
In analyzing the data of this study, Hyland’s (2005, p. 49) framework was utilized
since it is a more elaborated and convincing model for metadiscourse
categorization and it has been used in most of the recent studies. Hyland (2005)
divided the metadiscourse markers into two broad categories: interactive and
interactional, each of which is divided into five sub-categories. The interactive
metadiscourse group contains: (1) Transition: expresses relations between main
clauses, e.g. in addition, thus, and, (2) Frame marker: refers to discourse acts,
sequences or stages, e.g. finally, my purpose is, (3) Endophoric markers: refers to
information in the parts of the text, e.g. noted above, see figure, (4) Evidential:
refers to information from other text, e.g. according to X, Z states, (5) Code gloss:
elaborates propositional meanings, e.g. e.g. such as. The second group of
metadiscourse markers includes: (1) Hedge: expresses writer’s uncertainty, e.g.
might, perhaps, (2) Booster: expresses writer’s certainty, e.g
Journal of Linguistics & Khorasan Dialects Biannual, Vol 8, No. 2 (2016-2017)
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Attitude marker: expresses writer’s attitude, e.g. unfortunately, surprisingly, (4)
Self-mention: Explicit reference to author(s), e.g. I, we, (5) Engagement marker:
explicitly build relation with a reader, e.g. consider, note.
3. Methodology
The data of the present study were collected from the leading and most widely read
newspapers in the U.S. and Iran by means of random sampling. Random sampling
is a contributing factor to overcome the diversity of writers’ styles. The English
news articles were retrieved from an online newspaper archive, while the Persian
ones were collected from Astan-e-Qods- Razavi library archive. The data sampling
was based on easy accessibility, popularity and mass circulation of news articles.
To normalize the present study to a common basis to compare the frequency of
occurrence, this research employed 100 words approach. In fact, all of these
articles were published on 12 September in 2001. All news articles were examined
to determine and classify metadiscourse markers manually. Furthermore, to
analyze the data statistically, SPSS 18 software was applied. To find out whether
there is any difference between the metadiscourse distribution in both English and
Persian news and to explore the meaning beyond this difference, the chi-square test
was employed.
4. Results and Discussion
The findings revealed that all types of metadiscourse markers were present in both
sets of data, but that there were similarities and differences between the two groups
regarding their distribution and frequency. In general, interactive metadiscourse
markers were employed the most in news reports, in comparison to interactional
metadiscourse markers, according to chi- square test results. As for the
subcategories of interactive metadiscourse, transitions and evidentials were
meaningfully the most frequent markers in English and Persian news reports.
Regarding the subtypes of interactional metadiscourse, hedges, attitude markers
and boosters were statistically employed the most in both sets of data in terms of
frequency of occurrence. Moreover, attitude markers, hedges, boosters and
evidentials were used in both groups of news articles to display the hidden
ideology for achieving power, but engagement markers and self-mentions were
only present in English news reports to show the totalitarian ideology.
5. Conclusion
This study tried to investigate the role of metadiscourse markers about 9/11 news
articles published in 2001 in the U.S. and Iran. This comparative study might
provide pedagogical implications. It would be practical to train journalism students
about using metadiscourse markers appropriately in order to achieve more success
in reporting the world’s events. Hence, journalists by exerting metadiscourse
markers not only would be able to deepen their readers’ understanding, but also
might ensure to conduct them to grasp the content completely and ideally.
