A functional analysis of metadiscourse markers in political discourse: Persuasive strategies in Netanyahu’s speeches

This study attempted to investigate the persuasive meaning of metadiscourse markers in political speeches to see to what extent and how persuasive discourse is constructed in this genre through metadiscourse practices. To this aim, twenty-six political speeches given by Barack Obama, a former president of the United States, were analyzed using a discourse analytic approach and following Hyland’s (2005ab) interpersonal models of metadiscourse to identify the frequency and persuasive function of interactive and interactional devices used. The findings indicated that the persuasive meaning conveyed by metadiscourse was for the most part context-dependent, which sometimes required the speaker to rely on a combination of devices to organize his discourse, persuade audiences, attract their attention and engage them in arguments. Furthermore, interactional devices were more frequently used than interactive ones, reflecting that engaging audiences in arguments and showing one’s attitude and evaluation towards propositions were more likely to contribute to constructing a persuasive political speech. Findings can be discussed in terms of raising the awareness of second language speakers toward the linguistic and pragmatic conventions of political discourse and how persuasive discourse is constructed through metadiscourse markers.

The coherence of an essay is maintained with interactive and interactional metadiscourse (MD). Writing involves one-way interaction between the writer and reader, making it difficult for Second Language (L2) learners to compose effectively and thoroughly. Furthermore, students have a limited understanding of MD markers and prefer to exclusively employ specific MD markers, such as transition markers and self-mentions, in their writing. The study aims to find out if learners in different course groups employ different MD types, different MD features, or the same amount of MD features across the two groups. This study evaluates interactive and interactional MD markers in 40 expository essays authored by ESL learners from hard and soft science courses using Hyland's MD table (2005). Data collected was charted and transferred into frequency and percentage. The two groups, hard science and soft science used different materials in varying amounts and varieties. Soft science learners generated more MD features for interactive and interactional MD. They were more interpretative, whereas hard science learners were assertive in their writing and produced fewer MD features for both MD types. The study provides insight into improving students' awareness and use of MD, thereby enhancing their writing performance.

Metadiscourse (MD) markers are of great importance in expressing the writers’ stance, and the use of MD markers can be diverse in different genres of writing. This study endeavors to scrutinize the use of MD markers (major groups: interactive markers and interactional markers) in research proposals by Vietnamese postgraduate students in English Applied Linguistics (EAL). A cohort of 20 EAL research proposals was analyzed using AntConc software and descriptive statistics. The results unravel that regarding interactive markers, transition markers are the most used in EAL research proposals while endophoric markers are the least commonly used. Concerning interactional markers, self-mentions markers are the most popular MD markers while attitude markers are the least popular ones used in EAL research proposals. It is further found out that the most common functions of MD markers used in EAL research proposals are to link ideas in texts and texts to readers and show the writer’s presence in the text. Received 1th August 2020; Revised 2nd June 2021; Accepted 20th August 2021

Moving in line with the postulation that metadiscourse (MD) markers help transform a dry and tortuous piece of text into a coherent and reader-friendly one, the researchers in the current study attempted to investigate the effect different metadiscourse markers might have on Iranian EFL learners’ perception of written texts. To this end, 120 undergraduate English students were given three different texts chosen from the most common textbooks in BA, along with their doctored versions (all MD-removed, interactive-removed, and interactional-removed). Each text duo was then accompanied by an 8-item questionnaire following Ifantido’s (2005) lead. The findings, overall, were indicative of the positive role of metadiscourse markers in bringing about EFL learners’ ameliorated text perception. Furthermore, data analysis via ANOVA and LSD tests revealed that texts with both interactive and interactional resources had more effect on learners’ perception. Moreover, it was found that interactive and interactional resources had more or less the same effect on learners’ reactions to texts. To sum it up, in line with the findings of the present study further evidence is garnered in favor of the postulation holding that metadiscourse markers bring about an increased amount of coherence and reader-friendliness in texts.

The Israel–Palestine conflict has been a focal point of international media attention, whereby media coverage transcends the mere communication of fact to the construction of counter-narratives (Alsaafin, 2023; BBC, 2024; Hope et al., 2024). Along with the advent of the internet era, the contribution of internet media has increased as well: their choice of words, rhetorical appeals, and framing are capable of influencing how people comprehend, construct ideological positions on, and influence intercultural openness towards human tragedies (Choi, 2021; Chow et al., 2024). Covering such conflicts is rarely neutral because it entails a subtle balance of stance and assessment that can implicitly affect the way readers read events as they occur (Choi, 2021). Although meta discourse analysis has been widely applied to scholarly writing and argumentative texts, its application to online crisis news coverage is still an underexplored territory. According to studies by Arrosyid and Halwati (2021), Heni and Chandra (2022), and Ali et al. (2024), news media produce varied constructions of the crisis through employing certain framing choices, rhetorical strategies, and linguistic resources. With that, this paper aims to further examine the way interactional metadiscourse such as hedges, boosters, hedges, attitude markers, engagement markers and self-mentions are used in online coverage of the Palestine-Israel conflict. Through the identification of these interactional markers, the study aims to explore how online crisis news discourse signals institutional stance and shapes public perception in the online world. This research contributes to the existing body of knowledge of media studies and discourse analysis by providing deeper insights as to how interactional metadiscourse markers are used in Malaysian hard news reporting, especially in politically sensitive crises such as the Palestine-Israel conflict. Furthermore, this study further adds to the communicative and ethical worth of metadiscourse, especially when subtle linguistic cues, depending on how it is used, can assist in prejudice, reinforce ideological beliefs or introduce more balance in online crisis news reporting. Therefore, by highlighting these strategies, the study not only enriches understanding on metadiscourse markers and its function in online news media articles but also encourages ethical reporting and media literacy towards neutrality and factual accuracy. Ultimately, this would better equip media practitioners and the public with the skills to critically read crisis news articles in Malaysian digital sphere.

As a part of pragmatics of language, Metadiscourse (MD) has been widely recognized as playing a pivotal role in the expression and comprehension of messages in academic writing. In view of its significance in effective communication, there have been a lot of attempts to categorize different MD devices within manageable models alongside some descriptive works to demonstrate the use of MD devices on the basis of these models. However, despite all the centrality accorded to MD markers in academic writing, few ESP practitioners have tried to explore the use of these devices by non-native speakers (NNS) who are known to be producing dry, incoherent and sometimes confusing papers - the very shortcomings which might easily be managed by judicious use of MD elements. With the absence of systematic works on the use of MD markers by NNS, there is a paucity of information on their use of MD devices in their productions. This is what the present paper seeks to uncover. Drawing on the Hyland and Tse’s (2004) “Interactive and Interactional” model of MD, and their description of the use of MD devices in research articles produced by native speakers (NS) in Hyland (1998), it was set out to document the frequency of MD markers in papers produced by NNS of English and contrast it with that observed in Hyland (1998). For this purpose, 20 RAs written by NNS which had been accepted for publication in the Tabriz Journal of Dentistry were selected after extensive stylistic and linguistic editing, and were compared against Hyland (1998) with respect to the frequency of particular MD elements. The results showed huge discrepancy in the use of all MD devices in general, and some in particular. The findings can provide useful insights in materials development for academic writing classes where learners could receive explicit instructions on the use of MD elements which have been found to be used least frequently.

This study explores the use of textual and interpersonal metadiscourse markers in political discourse and their role in persuasion. To this end, the study examines four political speeches delivered by Hillary Clinton, an American politician. The speeches were retrieved from YouTube, transcribed and analysed following Dafouz-Milne’s (2008) model of metadiscourse markers. In addition, Mai’s (2016) taxonomy—which draws on Aristotle’s model of persuasion—was used to identify the persuasive functions of metadiscourse markers. The data were analysed qualitatively. The findings show that Hillary Clinton used a variety of metadiscourse markers; in particular, the interpersonal markers were found more frequently used than the textual markers. Within the interpersonal markers, commentaries with the inclusive “we” was the most frequently used, and within the textual markers, the logical markers with the additive “and” were dominant in her speeches. In terms of persuasion, the study found that Clinton used metadiscourse markers to achieve logical appeal (i.e., logos) more often than affective appeals (i.e., pathos). The results are discussed in light of theories of metadiscourse and political discourse.

This study sought to investigate metadiscourse(MD) variations in written discourseson political matters in form of newspaper opinion articlesproduced by some Zambian females and malesin Post newspaper. It compared the frequencies of interactive MD markers as well as interactional MD markers used by females and males in opinion articles. Additionally, it described the interactive MD markers and interactional metadiscourse markers that were unique to females and males in the articles. Maximum variation technique was used to sample a total of 150 articles (75 written by females and 75 written by males) published in Post newspaper during the period 2011 to 2015.A phone camera was used to capture the articles which were later printed out to constitute a corpus of 120 000 words.A mixed methods approach was employed in the collection and analysis of data. The results revealed thatfemales and males exhibited MDvariations in their discourses some of which were statistically significant. However, more similarities than differences in the use of MD markers were found. The study concludes that gender is an important variable in the use of MD markers; nonetheless, it is not the only factor that influences MDvariations but the genre, the culture of the writers and their writing styles too, play a major role in the choice of MD markers. Therefore, for pedagogy, a genre-specific approach is recommended.

Drawing mainly on Hyland's (2005) interpersonal model of metadiscourse, the researchers in the current study strived to probe the viable impact of consciousness-raising regarding metadiscourse (MD) markers on Iranian EFL learners' academic writing performance. To this end, 75 university junior students were assigned to three separate groups (two experimental and one control, based on random assignment) and exposed to three different kinds of treatment. While the control group participants followed their normal course of instruction, learners in the explicit instruction group (the first experimental group) were provided with overt guidelines regarding the uses of metadiscourse markers through active involvement with MD-marker detection drills, and the participants in the second experimental group (the implicit instruction group) were just given hints, in a tacit manner, concerning the points at which MD markers occurred within the text (this was done through mere noticing procedure via highlighted text). It is also worth noting that an excerpt from IELTS argumentative writing tasks was used for pre and post testing purposes, and a random selection from the introduction and discussion sections of recently-published articles in peer-reviewed educational and teaching journals was utilized as the treatment material. The final analysis of data through one-way ANOVA and ANCOVA revealed significant differences in the writing performance of three groups of learners involved in the experiment.

Introduction. The present study examines the pragmastilistic potential of migration discourse based on the speeches of modern British politicians. The relevance of the chosen topic lies in the acute social specifics of migration discourse and its manipulative component. In today’s world, migration processes have become global and their impact on the development of the host culture is becoming increasingly evident. There is still no established strategy for the integration of migrants into the new society, which creates a conflict environment and determines the hostility of the indigenous population towards migrants. Migration discourse as one of the directions of policy discourse becomes an effective tool for managing public opinion. Various persuasive tactics are incorporated in the speech of politicians using linguistic means, the use of which in the British migration discourse is considered in this article.Methodology and sources. The key tasks of the study are to identify specific discursive tactics, by means of which the persuasive strategy is implemented in the British migration discourse, and to analyze the stylistic techniques used to design the discovered tactics. During the study, pragmastilistic analysis was used, the application of which involves referring to the following methods of linguistic research: the method of continuous sampling, quantitative, descriptive and comparative methods, the method of stylistic analysis, discursive analysis. The material of the study was the speeches of modern British politicians from 2004 to 2021. Results and discussion. The analysis of migration discourse based on the texts of speeches by modern British politicians allows to talk about the stylistic saturation of the material and the main means of expressiveness used in the framework of the discourse under consideration. The main tactic of opponents of free migration is the comparison of “good/bad” migrants, which is actualized using antithesis. As for the lexical stylistic means, the use of the epithet should be specified, which is also a way of actualizing opposition tactics. Thus, this tactic is implemented both at the lexical and syntactic level. Similar tactics are also relevant in the framework of pro-migration rhetoric, namely, when comparing the local elite and the visiting population, which performs all the work necessary for the functioning of society. In most cases the main stylistic technique for tactics actualization is antithesis (or the convergence of antithesis and epithet). Proponents of pro-migration policies also use metaphor (tactics for describing the political process) and syntactic parallelism (tactics for describing the benefits of migration). Finally, the most common tactic inherent in both poles of migration discourse is the tactic of generalization. It consists in equating the speaker with his audience, their “fusion”, and is most often actualized using hyperbola.Conclusion. Migration discourse is characterized by an ideological orientation, which is actualized using certain speech techniques, tactics and strategies. Migration discourse, as a multifaceted entity, can also serve to harmonize social life by facilitating the integration of migrants into the host culture. Migration discourse is a powerful ideological weapon that can be used both to contribute to integration and to incite ethnic hatred. Stylistic tools play a key role in the implementation of a persuasive strategy, which is actively used both in migration and in political discourse in general. The main tactics of the migration discourse of modern British politicians are opposition and generalization, used both in pro- and anti-migration rhetoric.

The International speaker Dr Zakir Naik has been the target of many studies for his influential speeches. Analysing persuasive speeches can be tackled from different angles, amongst which is the functional markers of persuasion represented by the Metadiscourse markers. Dr Zakir Naik's persuasive speeches have never been analyzed from a metadiscourse perspective. This paper aims to investigate the types and functions of metadiscourse markers in Zakir Naik's speeches. After transcribing Zakir Naik's videos manually, the coding process was accomplished via NVivo software and Microsoft Excel. Applying Dafouz-Milne's (2008) categories in the codification process, the interpersonal and textual metadiscourse markers are revealed. In terms of interpersonal metadiscourse markers, commentaries have been chiefly employed, contributing to Naik's relation to the audience. In terms of the textual metadiscourse markers, logical markers showed the highest usage. Such markers help in connecting his various persuasion strategies and multi-argument to make them smoothly connected. This paper has found that, generally, Zakir Naik has effectively developed and promoted his arguments via the extensive use of various metadiscourse tools while establishing an excellent relationship with the audience to attain a continuous relationship. This paper also argues that a fruitful approach to explore the interpersonal and textual definitions of language is Dafouz-Milne's categorization of metadiscourse markers as a powerful methodological tool in discourse analysis.

Metadiscourse markers play an important role in academic, media, and political discourse. Political leaders use discourse markers to express their ideas and thoughts persuasively and compellingly. The paper identifies the interactive meta-discourse markers in Benazir Bhutto's speech and explains how the use of meta-discourse markers, such as boosters and hedges, can strengthen or weaken the impact of political discourse. The data used for compiling the corpus consists of thirteen randomly selected speeches by Benazir Bhutto delivered between 1989 and 1997 and explained using Hyland's (1996) concept of metadiscourse. The findings show that hedges have been used more frequently than boosters. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the interactional meta-discourse markers used by politicians to shape their messages to enhance the impact of their political narratives. It also helps to understand how rhetorical devices are used by speakers to express doubts or certainty in their speeches.

Introduction. The article compares the methods of researching political discourse with special attention to linguistic methods, in particular, to discourse analysis and cognitive and rhetorical approaches. These methods are widely used to study political speeches, statements, texts. Increasingly, political discourse is seen as a social phenomenon, not only at the discursive but also on the cognitive and rhetorical levels. The object of this study is methods of analysis of political discourse allowing to study the position of a politician in the discursive sphere and to identify the character of his audience. The subject of the analysis are examples from Joe Biden's political speeches, seen as an instrument of influence, persuasion in the process of speaking to the electorate. The relevance of the work is determined by the need to develop arguments to choose a particular approach to political discourse, especially cognitive and rhetorical, as well as discourse analysis, which allow to reveal veiled meanings of political statements and consider the methods of persuasion of the electorate.Methodology and data sources. The subject of the analysis are examples of Joe Biden’s political speeches, seen as an instrument of influence, persuasion in the process of speaking to the electorate. To compare approaches the study of political discourse, descriptive and comparative methods are used, the effectiveness of different approaches and methods is illustrated by specific examples of linguistic interpretation of discursive features of publications and speeches, revealing the ambitions of the politician most fully. A method of quantitative counting is also used.Results and discussion. The use of descriptive and comparative methods makes it possible to compare different approaches to the study of political texts and speeches, to discuss the relationship of heterogeneous methods, to identify the most effective methods of studying discourse. The result of the article was the conclusions about the effectiveness of different approaches to the study of the language of politicians at discursive, cognitive and rhetorical levels. Comparison of methods of research of political discourse distinguishes discourse-analysis among other methods of analysis. The use of discourse analysis to study political discourse reveals the functions of discourse, for example, manipulative, selective and combined functions related to political goals. The use of critical discourse analysis allows you to identify these functions most fully.Conclusion. The study of political discourse can be carried out at different levels, but the discursive level compared to cognitive and rhetorical levels is the most effective from a linguistic point of view. Discourse analysis allows to explore political discourse at more qualitative different level than rhetorical and other linguistic methods of research. Discourse analysis is presented as a method of researching hidden meanings in politics in this article.

The present study sought to investigate the extent to which discipline specificity of the occurrence of metadiscourse (MD) elements had been taken into account in developing ESP textbooks in Iran. To do so, three distinct disciplines, namely, psychology, medicine, and mechanical engineering were chosen for investigation. For each discipline, two textbooks were analyzed; one content book, and one ESP textbook developed for students in the Iranian academic context. To analyze the six textbooks, Hyland’s (2005) taxonomy of MD markers was adopted. The occurrence and frequency of each type of MD marker in the corpus were then identified and counted by a computational software (Anticon 2.3). The obtained results were further analyzed through SPSS (18) to see if the differences between the frequencies of different types of MD elements in the three disciplines and two textbook types in each discipline were statistically significant. Regarding variations across the disciplines, the results showed that MD markers were used in medicine and psychology texts the most and in mechanical engineering ones the least. As to the differences between content textbooks and ESP ones, the results indicated that MD markers occur significantly fewer in the ESP textbooks than in the content ones in all three disciplines. This may have some implications for ESP material developers to incorporate the metadiscoursal aspects of English in general and those of each discipline in particular into the ESP textbooks.

It is believed that students from different societies and cultural background have their own preferred rhetorical style of interaction. In writing, such distinctive preference is usually exhibited through the use of linguistic features, of which metadiscourse (MD) markers are considered as one of the signposts to the interpretation of writing style preferences. This study aims to investigate the use of interactional metadiscourse (MD) features and its relevance to the rhetorical style preferences in academic writing of Thai and Malaysian master’s students. Using Hyland’s (2005) taxonomy, their thesis discussions were manually analysed in terms of interactional MD markers to determine their frequency of occurrence and to relate the results to the rhetorical styles of writing preferred by each group of students. The analysis revealed that of all five types of interactional MD features, hedges were the most frequently used device followed respectively by boosters, attitude markers, engagement marker and self-mention. In terms of the rhetorical style of writing, the frequency of MD features suggests that tentative and indirect statements, reader-responsibility, distant-relationship between writer and readers, and less writer-involvement in the texts were the preferred rhetorical styles of interaction of both Thai and Malaysian students. The writing conventions and rhetorical styles of the students can be explained from a sociocultural point of view that they are relevant to the oriental style of interaction from which both groups of students originated. The study draws attention to the pedagogical implications that students in Thai and Malaysia should be given more instructional focus on how to utilize MD features in making academic writing more persuasive and interactive.