Examining the Representation of Imran Khan in selected National and International Newspapers: A Corpus-Based Analysis

Abstract

Newspapers are widely regarded as a highly influential and widely read form of print media that plays a crucial role in informing mass about recent situations in any country. The present study is examining the presence of metadiscourse markers in international and national newspaper articles and explains their implication in the data. This research has chosen one renowned national newspaper ‘Dawn’ and one international newspaper ‘New York Times’.  The data of the study comprises the writings from six international newspaper articles and an equal number of selected articles from national newspapers published from March 06, 2020, to March 19, 2023. The study selected five markers; two from interactional markers such as Hedges, and engagement markers, and three from interactive metadiscourse markers such as evidential, transition marker, and frame marker label stages. For analysis, Metapak software developed by Akhtar Abbas was used. The implications of the metadiscourse markers were studied using the Hyland model (2005) of metadiscourse markers. With the help of software, it was observed that hedges, engagement markers, and transition markers were used more in national newspaper articles while international articles include more evidential and frame marker label stages. These findings show that national authors consider their readers as active participants of the discourse, they keep their text organized by using transition markers however, they are less certain about their propositions. On the other side, international authors use more frame marker label stages to keep readers focused on a point and with the help of evidential markers make their argument more authentic than that of national authors.