Metadiscourse Markers: A Contrastive Study of Translated and Non-Translated Persuasive Texts
Subject Areas : All areas of language and translation
1 - Young Researchers and Elite Club, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran
Keywords: Metadiscourse Markers, Iranian columnists, Newspaper discourse, Persian translators, Persuasive writing,
Abstract :
Metadiscourse features are those facets of a text, which make the organization of the text explicit, provide information about the writer's attitude toward the text content, and engage the reader in the interaction. This study interpreted metadiscourse markers in translated and non-translated persuasive texts. To this end, the researcher chose the translated versions of one of the leading newspapers in the United States, The New York Times, and the original versions of Hamshahri newspaper (an Iranian newspaper). Qualitative and quantitative analysis of both textual and interpersonal metadiscourse markers in second language (L2) translated and non-translated version of the opinion articles from The New York Times and Hamshahi (6 from each), found out how the translators organize their texts and how these organizations were related to the non-translated texts. Findings of the study revealed that textual and interpersonal metadiscourse markers were seen in both sets of data. Regarding the occurrences of textual metadiscourse categories and subcategories, the results showed significant differences between the two groups. It was, however, found that the Iranian writers used interpersonal markers significantly more than the Iranian translators did. The results suggested that metadiscourse markers have a prominent role to help the translators of opinion articles to understand the original texts.
Bunton, D. (1999). The use of higher-level metatext in PhD thesis. English for specific purposes, 18, S41-S56.
Caldas-Coulthard. (1996). Texts and practices: Reading in critical discourse analysis. London: Routledge.
Crismore, A. (1984). The rhetoric of textbooks: Metadiscourse. Journal of curriculum studies, 16(3), 279-296.
Crismore, A. (1989). Talking with readers: Metadiscourse as rhetorical act: Lang.
Crismore, A., & Farnsworth, R. (1990). Metadiscourse in popular and professional science discourse (pp. 45-68). Newbury
Park, CA: Sage.
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. Journal of pragmatics, 40(1), 95-113.
De Oliveira, J. M., & Pagano, A. S. (2006). The research article and the science popularization article: A probabilistic functional grammar perspective on direct discourse representation. Discourse studies, 8(5), 627-646.
Fairclough, N. (1989). Discourse and power. London: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. London: Longman.
Fowler, R. (2013). Language in the news: Discourse and ideology in the press: Routledge.
Fuertes-Olivera, P. A., Velasco-Sacristan, M., Arribas-Bario, A., & Samaniego-Fernandez, E. (2001). Persuasion and advertising English: Metadiscourse in slogans and headlines. Journal of pragmatics, 33(8), 1291-1307.
Hall, S. (1982). The rediscovery of ideology: Return of the repressed in media studies. Cultural theory and popular culture: A reader.
Hodge, R., & Kress, G. (1993). Language as ideology (2nd edition ed.): Routledge.
Hyland, K. (1994). Hedges in academic writing and EAF textbooks. English for specific purposes, 13(3), 239-256.
Hyland, K. (1998). Persuasion and context: The pragmatics of academic metadiscourse. Journal of pragmatics, 30(4), 437-455.
Hyland, K. (1999). Talking to students: Metadiscourse in introductory course books. English for specific purposes, 18(1), 3-26.
Hyland, K. (2001). Humble servants of the discipline? Self-mention in research articles. English for specific purposes, 20(3), 207-226.
Hyland, K. (2004). Disciplinary interactions: Metadiscourse in L2 postgraduate writing. Journal of second language writing, 3(2), 133-151.
Hyland, K. (2005). Metadiscourse: Exploring interaction in writing. London, New York: Continuum.
Kopple, W. J. V. (1985). Some exploratory discourse on metadiscourse. College composition and communication, 36, 82-93.
Markkanen, R., Steffensen, M. S., & Crismore, A. (1993). Quantitative contrastive study of metadiscourse problems in design and analysis of data. Papers and studies in contrastive linguistics, 28 (137-151).
Mauranen, A. (1992). Cultural differences in academic rhetoric: A textlinguistic study: University of Birmingham.
Moreno, A. I. (1997). Genre constraints across languages: Causal metatext in Spanish and English RAs. English for specific purposes, 16 (3), 161-179.
Mur Duenas, P. (2007). A contribution to the intercultural analysis of metadiscourse in business management research articles in English and in Spanish: A corpus-driven approach. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza.
Myers, G. (1989). The pragmatics of politeness in scientific articles. Applied linguistics, 10(1), 1-35.
Rahimpour, S., & Faghih, E. (2009). Contrastive rhetoric of English and Persian written texts: Metadiscourse in applied linguistics research articles. Rice working papers in linguistics, 1.
Salager-Meyer, F. (1994). Hedges and textual communicative function in medical English written discourse. English for specific purposes, 13(2), 149-170.
Schiffrin, D. (1980). Meta-talk: Organizational and evaluative brackets in discourse. Sociological inquiry, 50(3-4), 199-236.
Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings: Cambridge University Press.
Van Dijk, T. (1991). Racism and the press: Routledge.
Van Dijk, T. (1993). Analyzing racism through discourse analysis: Some methodological reflections: University of Amsterdam, program of discourse studies.
Williams, J. M. (1982). Style: Ten lessons in clarity and grace: Longman.