The use of interactional metadiscourse in job postings

Abstract

Interactional metadiscourse resources in various contexts have gained increasing attention recently. However, little work has ever been done in investigating the use of interactional metadiscourse in job postings. Based on Hyland’s (2005a, 2005b) model, I propose the taxonomy of interactional metadiscourse which consists of two broad categories: stance features and engagement features, and seven sub-categories: hedges, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions, reader-inclusive pronouns, questions and directives. Drawing on a detailed analysis of 220 job postings totaling about 77,100 words, together with 30 informants’ feedback of the attitude toward the use of interactional metadiscourse, the article explores the ways in which the writer interacts with the reader via interactional metadiscourse in this genre. The study has yielded some interesting results: in job postings, the occurrences of stance markers and engagement markers are close in frequency; within the genre, two sub-corpora of job postings (one is oriented to college students and the other is not) have demonstrated remarkable differences in terms of interactional metadiscourse use. Moreover, a distinction is made between macro-interactional metadiscourse and micro-interactional metadiscourse, which is useful in evaluating the interactionality of the text.