A Cross Cultural Analysis of Textual and Interpersonal Metadiscourse Markers: The Case of Economic Articles in English and Persian Newspapers

Abstract

This study was an attempt to investigate the functional role of textual and interpersonal metadiscourse markers in English and Persian Economic news reports. To this end, 10 news articles, 5 in each language, were randomly selected from the Economic sections of the leading newspapers published in 2013-2014 in Iran and the United States. Based on Kopple’s (1985) taxonomy, the type and frequency of metadiscourse markers used in the texts were analyzed to find out their functions in the text. The findings revealed that the textual markers used by Persian authors were considerably more frequent than those employed by the American writers. Interestingly, unlike the Persian writers, the American authors enlisted a larger number of interpersonal markers, which made their angle of the subject treatment different. It is evident that the differential use of metadiscourse markers by nationally different authors could be attributed to culture-specific norms governing the development and organization of discourse.