Gender Differences in the Use of Boosters in the Pakistani Opinion Columns: A Corpus-Based Study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53057/lingo/2024.6.1.1Keywords:
boosters, Gender, corpus analysis, Metadiscourse, Pakistani English opinion columns, Hyland's (2004) interpersonal modelAbstract
Prior research has extensively explored gender differences in linguistic strategies across various genres; however, the specific use of boosters in opinion columns by different genders remains under-examined. This corpus-based study investigates whether Pakistani male and female authors exhibit distinct patterns in the utilization of boosters within opinion texts. Analyzing a corpus of 500 opinion columns authored by Pakistani writers of both genders, this study employs Hyland's (2005) framework to identify boosting devices and adopts quantitative methods for data analysis. The analysis is facilitated by the use of MetaPak (2017), a specialized tool for textual analysis. Contrary to expectations, the findings reveal no significant differences in booster usage between male and female opinion writers, suggesting that the prevalence and distribution of boosters are influenced more by genre conventions than by gender. This study contributes to the understanding of linguistic choices in gendered writing within the specific context of Pakistani opinion columns.
Downloads
References
Ädel, A. (2006). Metadiscourse in L1 and L2 English. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing.
Akhter, I. (2014). Differences in language use by male and female students in tertiary academia in Dhaka city.
Alsubhi, A. S. (2016). Gender and Metadiscourse in British and Saudi Newspaper Column Writing: Male/Female and Native /Nonnative Differences in Language Use [Doctoral dissertation, University College Cork].
Batool, S. F., Majeed, H., & Zahra, T. (2019). An investigation of hedges and boosters in Pakistani opinion articles: A corpus-based study. Corporum: Journal of Corpus Linguistics–CJCL, 2(1), 1-12.
Beauvais, P. (1989). A Speech-Act Theory of Metadiscourse. Written Communication, 61, 11-30.
Bhatia, V., Garzone, G., & Degano, C. (2012). Arbitration Awards: Generic Features and Textual Realisations. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press.
Bunton, D. (1999). The Use of Higher Level Metatext in PHD theses. Journal of English for Specific Purposes, 18, 41-56.
Chipeta, N. (2021). Metadiscourse Variations in Some Zambian Female and Male Written Discourses on Political Matters: The Case of Post Newspaper Opinion Articles [Doctoral dissertation, The University of Zambia].
Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches (4th ed.). London: SAGE Publications.
Crismore, A., & Fransworth, R. (1989). Mr. Darwin and His Readers: Exploring Interpersonal Metadiscourse as a Dimension of Ethos. Rhetoric Review, 8(1), 91-112.
Crismore, A. (2004). Fundraising Letters: A Corpus Linguistic. Discourse in the Professions: Perspectives from Corpus Linguistics, 24, 307.
Crismore, A., Makkannen, R., & Steffensen, M. (1993). Metadiscourse in Persuasive Writing: A Study of Texts Written by American and Finnish University Students. Written Communication, 10, 39-71.
Enkvist, N. E. (1978). Stylistics and Text Linguistics. In Current Trends in Text Linguistics (pp. 174-190).
Francis, B., Robson, J., & Read, B. (2001). An Analysis of Undergraduate Writing Styles in the Context of Gender and Achievement. Studies in Higher Education, 26(3), 313-326.
Harris, Z. S. (1959). The Transformational Model of Language Structure. Anthropological Linguistics, 27-29.
Hyland, K. (1998). Persuasion and Context: The Pragmatics of Academic Metadiscourse. Journal of Pragmatics, 30, 437–455.
Hyland, K. (2004). Genre and Second Language Writing. University of Michigan Press.
Hyland, K. (2005). Metadiscourse: Exploring Interaction in Writing. London: Continuum.
Intaraprawat, P., & Steffensen, M. S. (1995). The Use of Metadiscourse in Good and Poor ESL Essays. Journal of Second Language Writing, 4(3), 253-272.
Kopple, W. J. V. (1985). Some Exploratory Discourse on Metadiscourse. College Composition and Communication, 82-9.
Lautamatti, L. (1978). Observations on the Development of the Topic in Simplified Discourse. A Finlan vuosikirja, 71-104.
Lyons, J. (1977). Semantics: Volume 2. Cambridge University Press.
Mauranen, A. (1993). Contrastive ESP Rhetoric: Metatext in Finnish-English Economics Texts. English for Specific Purposes, 12(1), 3-22.
Memon, M. A., Pathan, H., & Memon, S. A. (2021). An Intercultural Investigation of Interactive Metadiscourse Markers in Research Articles by Pakistani & British Engineers. CORPORUM: Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 3(2), 51-72.
Mirzapour, F. (2016). Gender differences in the use of hedges and first person pronouns in research articles of applied linguistics and chemistry. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 5(6), 166-173.
Mokhtar, M. M., Hashim, H., Khalid, P. Z. M., Albakri, I. S. M. A., & Jobar, N. A. (2021, April 20). A Comparative Study of Boosters between Genders in the Introduction Section.
Oskouei, L. K. (2011). Interactional Variation in English and Persian: A Comparative Analysis of Metadiscourse Features in Magazine Editorials [Doctoral dissertation, University of East Anglia Norwich].
Pakzadian, M., & Tootkaboni, A. A. (2018). The role of gender in conversational dominance: A study of EFL learners. Cogent Education, 5(1), 1560602.
Pasaribu, T. A. (2017). Male and female students’ use of textual discourse markers in writing academic essays. Journal of Language and Literature, 17(1), 74-81.
Rafi, M. S. (2008). SMS text analysis: Language, gender and current practices. Gender and current practices.
Schiffrin, D. (1980). Meta-Talk: Organizational and Evaluate Brackets in Discourse. Sociological Inquiry, 50.
Serholt, S. (2012). Hedges and Boosters in Academic Writing-A Study of Gender Differences in Essays Written by Swedish Advanced Learners of English.
Shafqat, A., Memon, R. A., & Khan, T. A. (2022). Do Pakistani English Writers Hedge more in Linguistics Research than Native English Writers? Journal of Humanities, Social and Management Sciences (JHSMS), 3(1), 243-257.
Siddique, A. R., Ahmad, M., & Ahmad, S. S. (2020). Frame Markers as Metadiscoursal Features in Pakistani English Newspapers’ Editorials: A Corpus-Based Study. Pakistan Social Sciences Review (PSSR), 4(3), 81-94.
Swale, J. M. (1990). Genre Analysis, English in Academic Settings and Research Settings. Cambridge: CUP.
Tse, P., & Hyland, K. (2008). ‘Robot Kung fu’: Gender and Professional Identity in Biology and Philosophy Reviews. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(7), 1232-1248.
Vande Kopple, W. J. (1985). Some Explanatory Discourse on Metadiscourse. College Composition and Communication 36, 82–93.
Williams, J. (1989). Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace (3rd ed.). Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.
Yağız, O., & Demir, C. (2015). A comparative study of boosting in academic texts: A contrastive rhetoric. International Journal of English Linguistics, 5(4).
Yazdani, S., Sharifi, S., & Elyassi, M. (2014). Exploring hedges and boosters in 9/11 English front page news articles. Asian Journal of Research in Social Sciences and Humanities, 4(3), 301-313.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Abdul Ali, Dr Aleem Shakir
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
License Terms
All articles published by MARS Publishers are made immediately available worldwide under an open access license. This means:
- everyone has free and unlimited access to the full-text of all articles published in MARS Publishers' journals;
- everyone is free to re-use the published material if proper accreditation/citation of the original publication is given.