Engagement Markers in Pakistani English Newspaper Editorials: A Corpus-Based Study.

Abstract

This study analyses and interprets engagement markers (EM) as metadiscourse features in four Pakistani English newspapers. For this purpose, it proposes a new model on engagement markers (EM) as metadiscourse from the existing models. The proposed model has been classified into inclusive expressions, personalization, expression of reader-address questions, asides, and anecdote and saying. A detailed list of engagement markers (EM) has been proposed. The results of this study revealed that the corpus of The Frontier (TF) used excessive engagement markers as compared to the other corpora: The News (TN), Dawn News (DN) and The Express Tribune (TET). Conclusively, the corpus of The Frontier (TF) is more reader friendly because of the excessive use of engagement markers (EM).