Act Together To End COVID-19”: Interactional Metadiscourse in The WHO’s Speeches During The COVID-19 Pandemic

Dunya Aljazrawi

doi:10.47191/ijmra/v4-i11-26

Abstract

Since the outbreak of the pandemic COVID-19, a huge amount of information has been released and shared by individuals, communities and specialized organizations. Language serves as a powerful tool on which information providers depend to convey their advice and instructions. In this study, the researchers examined the frequency of interactional metadiscourse markers in the WHO's director general's speeches regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and how those markers are used for communicative and persuasive effects. The corpus included 91 scripts with a different number of words making a total of 84,372 words. Hyland's (2005) model of metadiscourse was used to analyse the corpus. Data analysis revealed that interactional metadiscourse markers are heavily used by WHO director to deliver coherent speeches and to make his speeches persuasive. Moreover, the findings show that the speaker relied intensively on the use of self-mention marker and boosters to reflect the collaborative and assured attitude of the organization concerning the situation of the pandemic.

Highlights

As a multi-disciplinary field, discourse analysis researches from numerous disciplines are rapidly growing
The aims of the study This study aims to analyse the interactional metadiscourse markers in the public health discourse proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO)'s director-general at the media briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic
Data analysis revealed that the total number of interactional metadiscourse markers that appeared in the corpus is 5,678 as indicated in Table 2 below: Table 2

Summary

Introduction

As a multi-disciplinary field, discourse analysis researches from numerous disciplines are rapidly growing. Speakers and writers endeavour to certify that the information they present is understood, accepted and acted upon This can be achieved systematically by identifying the linguistics features of metadiscourse which provides a framework for understanding communication as a kind of social engagement. The persuasive function of metadiscourse in a text was sufficiently discussed and proven (see Hyland 1998, 2005; Mauranen 1993; Dafouz 2003). In such interpersonal dimension, the addresser takes in his consideration the addressees' reaction towards the discourse, how they will comprehend and respond to the information and how they are engaged in the interaction (Hyland 2005)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion