INTERACTING WITH READERS THROUGH THE USE OF METADISCOURSE IN COVID-19 NEWS

COVID-19 news, metadiscourse, students, writing prompts

Authors

  • Darryl Chow Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman
  • Dr. Hooi Chee Mei
    hooicm@utar.edu.my (##journal.primary_contact##)
    Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman
  • Dr. Sharon Wilson Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman
  • Tan Yee Woon Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman
  • Henry Tan Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman
2023-10-24

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Metadiscourse is the way in which writers engage the readers to the discourse and reveal the writers’ authority towards the content of the discourse making it credible (Crismore, 1989; Hyland, 1998, 2000). These features are investigated in this study due to the lack of appropriate guidelines in reference books, manuals or websites on journalism to write news specifically (Khattak, Yaqoob, & Basri, 2003). This study aims to find out how important metadiscourse features is in COVID-19 news. Two sets of news printed versions with and without metadiscourse, as well as writing prompts were given to 11 students from journalism courses and 11 students from non-journalism course from a local university to read in order to obtain their perceptions of the use and importance of metadiscourse features in COVID-19 news. This study will compare the students’ responses to the COVID-19 news to gauge their feedback on which news is more engaging.