| Recent years have witnessed great popularity of the micro-linguistic structures in the flied ofpragmatics, with metadiscourse as a good case. Since the previous researches onmetadiscourse were crippled in either the narrow scope of data (such as academic writings,pharmaceutical packaging inserts, and cover letters, etc,) or lack both quantative andqualitative methods, in the present study, the author analyzes the use of metadiscourse in30English political news regarding2012U.S. election through both quantitative research andqualitative research methods in order to unveil the subjectivity of metadiscourse in Englishpolitical news. The thesis mainly addresses three ensuing aspects: the overall distribution ofmetadiscourse in English political news; various metadiscourse markers in English politicalnews embody subjectivity in different degrees; native English speakers interpretmetadiscourse and its subjectivity in English political news. The study results show thatmetadiscourses indeed exist in English political news and appear with varying frequencies.However, different metadiscourse markers contribute to the subjectivity in different degrees,among which the interactional metadiscourse resources presents distinct subjectivity withpriority for the interactional metadiscourse further reflecting the stance and attitude of thenews media. Interview scripts verify the validity of the results from quantitative analyses,showing that the writers of political news guide the reader to accept his/her point of view,based on objective facts, mainly through the conscious choice of using metadiscourse.Among all the metadiscourse resources, attitude markers, hedges and boosters can bestembody the subjectivity of English political news. It is hoped that the present research canoffer something to digest for further study of metadiscourse and a better understanding of thesubjectivity of copious metadiscourse in English political news. |
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