Abstract
Metadiscourse is an important linguistic resource in business news because it guides readers throughout the text. Business news is vital to keep people abreast of how the economy affects job opportunities, how high or low interest rates may go, and whether layoffs are imminent in local industries. However, it is the news that people read the least because it is not engaging to them. The study aims to investigate The Star Online and Focus Malaysia business news writers’ awareness on the use of metadiscourse features. Metadiscourse Awareness Test was given to 10 business news writers from The Star Online and Focus Malaysia respectively. The findings showed that sequencers had the lowest mean score (M=2.334) for textual metadiscourse, while certainty markers had the lowest mean score (M=2.667) for interpersonal metadiscourse. Although The Star Online and Focus Malaysia writers exhibited the lowest mean score in identifying sequencers and certainty markers, they still demonstrated a high awareness in identifying all the categories of textual and interpersonal metadiscourse. The findings revealed the importance of metadiscourse features for the business news writers to fully utilise them in the news industry.
References
Abdullah, N. A. A., Rahmat, N. H., & Zawawi, F. Z. (2020). Interactional discourse analysis of Malaysian and South Korean newspaper articles on online learning during COVID-19. European Journal of Applied Linguistics Studies, 3(1), 1-16.
Beziat, T. L. R. (2012). The testing effects and judgments of learning: Their effects on reading comprehension [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University of Ohio]. https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?accession=kent1332772478&disposition=inline
https://doi.org/10.1037/e633262013-445
Boshrabadi, A. M., Biria, R., & Zavari, Z. (2014). A cross-cultural analysis of textual and interpersonal metadiscourse markers: The case of economic articles in English and Persian newspapers. Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 5(2), 59-66.
https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.2p.59
Bowman, S., & Willis, C. (2003). We media: How audiences are shaping the future of news and information. The Media Center at the American Press Institute. http://www.hypergene.net/wemedia/weblog.php
Clark, L. S., & Marchi, R. (2017). Young people and the future of the news. Cambridge University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108116015
Dafouz-Milne, E. (2008). The pragmatic role of textual and interpersonal metadiscourse markers in the construction and attainment of persuasion: A cross-linguistic study of newspaper discourse. Journal of Pragmatics, 40, 95-113.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2007.10.003
Derrick, B., Toher, D., & White, P. (2017). How to compare the means of two samples that include paired observations and independent observations. The Quantitative Methods in Psychology, 13(2), 1-12.
https://doi.org/10.20982/tqmp.13.2.p120
Farahani, M. V. (2018). The usage and distributional pattern of metadiscourse features in research articles in Applied Linguistics based on Hyland's classification. Applied Linguistic Research Journal, 2(1), 35-51.
Farnia, M., & Mohammadi, N. (2018). Cross-cultural analysis of interpersonal metadiscourse markers in persuasive local newspaper articles. Discourse and Interaction, 11(2), 27-44.
https://doi.org/10.5817/DI2018-2-27
Ghazaei, M., Khaki, M., Naderi, S., & Shams, S. (2016). The study of relationship between the awareness level of management tasks with self-efficacy in sport managers of Isfahan City. Bulletin de la Société Royale des Sciences de Liège, 85, 678-689.
https://doi.org/10.25518/0037-9565.5585
Hashemi, M. R., & Golparvar, S. E. (2012). Exploring metadiscourse markers in Persian news reports. International Journal of Social Science Tomorrow, 1(2), 1-6.
Hewitt, J. (2002). Air words: Writing for broadcast news (3rd ed.). The McGraw-Hill Education.
Higgins, E., & Tatham, L. (2003). Exploring the potential of multiple-choice questions in assessment. Learning & Teaching in Action, 2(1), 1-12.
Hoque, R. (2017). Satisfaction with and perceptions of news media performance with alienation from government and business corporations: An Ohio case study [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. https://etd.ohiolink.edu/ apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?accession=bgsu1557843668747244&disposition=inline
Hudson, G., & Rowlands, S. (2012). Broadcast journalism handbook (2nd ed.). Pearson Education Limited.
Hyland, K., & Tse, P. (2004). Metadiscourse in academic writing: A reappraisal. Applied Linguistics, 25(2), 156-177.
https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/25.2.156
Hyland, K. (2005). Metadiscourse: Exploring interaction in writing. Continuum.
Hyland, K., Wang, W., & Jiang, F. K. (2022). Metadiscourse across languages and genres: An overview. Lingua, 264, 1-20.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2021.103205
Itule, B. D., & Anderson, D. A. (2008). News writing & reporting for today's media. McGraw-Hill Companies.
Karakus, N. (2020). EFL teachers' awareness and attitude towards personal and impersonal metadiscourse markers in L2 academic writing [Master's thesis, Middle East Technical University]. https://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12625206/index.pdf
Khattak, H. K., Yaqoob, S., & Basri, R. (2003). Communication skills module. http://www.hec.gov.pk/InsideHEC/Divisions/LearningInnovation/Documents/Learning%20Portal/NAHE/communication%20skills%20module.pdf
Kuhi, D., & Mojood, M. (2014). Metadiscourse in newspaper genre: A cross-linguistic study of English and Persian editorials. Procedia- Social and Behavioral Sciences, 98, 1046-1055.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.03.515
Mardani, T. (2017). Metadiscourse markers: A contrastive study of translated and non-translated persuasive texts. Journal of Languages and Translation, 7(2), 73-79.
Mencher, M. (2011). Melvin Mencher's news reporting and writing. The McGraw-Hill Education.
Moghadam, F. D. (2017). Persuasion in journalism: A study of metadiscourse in texts by native speakers of English and Iranian EFL writers. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 7(6), 483-495.
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0706.11
Noorian, M., & Biria, R. (2010). Interpersonal metadiscourse in persuasive journalism: A study of texts by American and Iranian EFL columnists. Journal of Modern Languages, 20(1), 64-79.
Nugrahani, V. E., & Bram, B. (2020). Meta-discourse markers in scientific journal articles. Journal of the Association for Arabic and English, 6(1), 1-16.
https://doi.org/10.31332/lkw.v6i1.1528
Nugroho, A. (2020). Investigating the use of metadiscourse markers by American and Indonesian writers in opinion and business articles. Journal of English Language and Culture, 10(2), 75-87.
https://doi.org/10.30813/jelc.v10i2.2138
Oeldorf-Hirsh, A. (2011). Engagement with news content in online social networks [Doctoral dissertation, The Pennsylvania State University]. Electronic Theses and Dissertations for Graduate School. https://etda.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/12094
Pronmas, P. (2020). Metadiscourse in postgraduate writing [Master's Thesis, Victoria University of Wellington]. https://openaccess.wgtn.ac.nz/ articles/thesis/Metadiscourse_in_postgraduate_writing/17147801
Ryan, M., & Tankard Jr. J. W. (2005). Writing for print and digital media. McGraw-Hill.
Sahin, S. (2019). An analysis of English language testing and evaluation course in English language teacher education programs in Turkey: Developing language assessment literacy of pre-service EFL teachers [Doctoral dissertation, Middle East Technical University]. https://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12622940/index.pdf
Taber, K. S. (2017). The use of Cronbach's alpha when developing and reporting research instruments in Science education. Research in Science Education, 48, 1273-1296.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-016-9602-2
Treptow, M. A., Burns, M. K., & McComas, J. J. (2007). Reading at the frustration, instructional, and independent levels: The effects on students' reading comprehension and time on task. School Psychology Review, 36(1), 159-166.
https://doi.org/10.1080/02796015.2007.12087958
Vegada, B., Shukla, A., Khilnani, A., Charan, J., & Desai, C. (2016). Comparison between three option, four option and five option multiple choice questions for quality parameters: A randomized study. Indian Journal of Pharmacology, 48(5), 571-575.
https://doi.org/10.4103/0253-7613.190757
Xi, C. (2020). Metadiscourse in corporate press releases. 3rd International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences & Humanities (pp. 37-43). Francis Academic Press.https://webofproceedings.org/proceedingsseries/ESSP/SOSHU%202020/SOSHU20008.pdf
Copyright Transfer Statement for Journal
1) In signing this statement, the author(s) grant UNIMAS Publisher an exclusive license to publish their original research papers. The author(s) also grant UNIMAS Publisher permission to reproduce, recreate, translate, extract or summarize, and to distribute and display in any forms, formats, and media. The author(s) can reuse their papers in their future printed work without first requiring permission from UNIMAS Publisher, provided that the author(s) acknowledge and reference publication in the Journal.
2) For open access articles, the author(s) agree that their articles published under UNIMAS Publisher are distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-SA (Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, for non-commercial purposes, provided the original work of the author(s) is properly cited.
3) For subscription articles, the author(s) agree that UNIMAS Publisher holds copyright, or an exclusive license to publish. Readers or users may view, download, print, and copy the content, for academic purposes, subject to the following conditions of use: (a) any reuse of materials is subject to permission from UNIMAS Publisher; (b) archived materials may only be used for academic research; (c) archived materials may not be used for commercial purposes, which include but not limited to monetary compensation by means of sale, resale, license, transfer of copyright, loan, etc.; and (d) archived materials may not be re-published in any part, either in print or online.
4) The author(s) is/are responsible to ensure his or her or their submitted work is original and does not infringe any existing copyright, trademark, patent, statutory right, or propriety right of others. Corresponding author(s) has (have) obtained permission from all co-authors prior to submission to the journal. Upon submission of the manuscript, the author(s) agree that no similar work has been or will be submitted or published elsewhere in any language. If submitted manuscript includes materials from others, the authors have obtained the permission from the copyright owners.
5) In signing this statement, the author(s) declare(s) that the researches in which they have conducted are in compliance with the current laws of the respective country and UNIMAS Journal Publication Ethics Policy. Any experimentation or research involving human or the use of animal samples must obtain approval from Human or Animal Ethics Committee in their respective institutions. The author(s) agree and understand that UNIMAS Publisher is not responsible for any compensational claims or failure caused by the author(s) in fulfilling the above-mentioned requirements. The author(s) must accept the responsibility for releasing their materials upon request by Chief Editor or UNIMAS Publisher.
6) The author(s) should have participated sufficiently in the work and ensured the appropriateness of the content of the article. The author(s) should also agree that he or she has no commercial attachments (e.g. patent or license arrangement, equity interest, consultancies, etc.) that might pose any conflict of interest with the submitted manuscript. The author(s) also agree to make any relevant materials and data available upon request by the editor or UNIMAS Publisher.