The construction of stance in English and Arabic newspaper editorials: a case study

Abstract

Abstract This study explores the construction of authorial stance in English and Arabic newspaper editorials. To achieve this objective, the study examines a corpus of 80 newspaper editorials retrieved from two newspapers: The first publishes in English (The Guardian, the UK), and the second publishes in Arabic (Addustour, Jordan). The study adopts Hyland’s taxonomy of stance, which includes features of hedges, boosters, attitude markers and self-mentions. To analyse the data, the study follows a mixed-methods approach to identify differences, if any, in the construction of authorial stance in the two languages in the editorial genre. A functional analysis is carried out to capture these markers within contexts. The results reveal that the most frequently used stance devices in Arabic editorials are the attitude markers, followed by boosters, hedges and self-mentions. Contrariwise, the findings showcase that the most frequently used stance device is hedging, followed by attitude markers, boosters, and self-mention. The study concludes that the two languages differ in the way they construct stance in editorials, a conclusion that provides implications for second-language professional writing teachers and students. The findings provide insights that might enhance the skills of argumentative writing in English for media courses.