| The present study, adopting Hyland’s interpersonal model of metadiscourse asthe theoretical basis and taking the three modes of persuasion as the analysisframework, makes an analysis of how metadiscourse helps realize persuasion ineconomic news opinion from New York Times.On the basis of earlier definitions and classifications of metadiscourse andconsidering the characteristics of economic news opinion and the connection betweenthe writer, the reader and the text, the author reclassifies metadiscourse into threecategories, namely, text-organizing metadiscourse, writer-present metadiscourse andreader-present metadiscourse. Text-organizing metadiscourse includes transitions,frame markers, endophoric markers, evidentials and code glosses, which signals thestructural links between different arguments. Writer-present metadiscourse shows thewriter’s presence in the text including hedges, boosters, attitude markers and selfmentions. Reader-present metadiscourse includes engagement markers which indicatethe reader’s presence.Logos, ethos, and pathos are three means to realize persuasion. Logos is logicalappeals, which concerns the proposition of the text. Ethos, which relates to credibleappeals, is realized by building a credible, confident and authoritative image. Pathosmeans affective appeals and is realized by involving readers into the text andpromoting their affective feelings.Through the identification of metadiscourse markers in economic news opinion, itis found that all subcategories of metadiscourse are used by the writer. The examples oftransitions including and, but, moreover, in addition, while, in contrast show theconnection between arguments. Frame markers include first, second, what I amtalking is, want to, well which are used to sequence arguments, label stages andannounce goals. Endophoric markers are as I said, as I said before referring to earlierarguments. Such items as according to X, X said are counted as evidentials which tell the source of certain arguments. Code glosses which explain and paraphrase what hasbeen said include for example, like, which means that and so on. Hedges (would,might, perhaps, almost) and boosters (indeed, certainly, of course, in effect) indicatethe degree of certainty or commitment to arguments. Attitude markers such asunfortunately, astonishingly, remarkable show the writer’s affective attitude. Selfmentions signaling the explicit presence of the writer are expressed by I, and my, etc.Engagement markers include you, we, imagine, consider, questions and so on.The present study then makes the quantitative analysis. And the results show thatthough each subcategory of metadiscourse is used, its frequency is different. The mostfrequently used metadiscourse markers are transitions (31.8%), engagement markers(20.6%), boosters (12.2%) and hedges (12.0%) followed by code glosses (10.8%),attitude markers (3.9%), self mentions (3.6%), frame markers (2.6%), evidentials(2.4%) and endophoric markers (0.1%).Based on the results of quantitative analysis, the present study makes thequalitative study to see how each subcategory helps realize persuasion through meansof logos, pathos and ethos. The qualitative study finds that each subcategory ofmetadiscourse markers plays an important role in helping achieve persuasion ineconomic news opinion. To put it more specifically, transitions, frame markers,endophoric markers, evidentials and code glosses which belong to text-organizingmetadiscourse aiming to link arguments, help the reader to understand the text in alogical, coherent, and reasonable way so as to achieve logical appeals. Hedges,boosters, self mentions as well as evidentials function to achieve credible appeals bycreating a confident, credible, and responsible image. At last, attitude markerstogether with engagement markers help realize affective appeals by involving thereader into the text as participants. |
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