Abstract

The objective of this research is to investigate the language used by male and female Pakistani journalists by focusing on the use of interaction markers. This study aims to explore the meta-discourse features in the writings of the Pakistani English newspaper journalists. The data is collected from Dawn, The News, The Nation and The Express Tribune newspapers. The corpus for the research consisted of two hundred (200) columns written by forty Pakistani journalists including both males and females. Hyland’s (2005a) model of interactional meta-discourse was used as a theoretical framework. Mixed methodology will be used to analyze the data qualitatively and quantitatively to find out the gender-based differences in the use of interaction markers in the writings of Pakistani journalists. First, the data collected are quantified quantitatively then for the elaboration of gender-based differences in the use of interaction markers, qualitative research methodology is used. Moreover, Antconc, a corpus-based research tool, is employed to statistically analyze the corpus of the study. The study provides the analysis of interactional markers in the Pakistani journalistic discourse by employing Hyland’s (2005a) model of interaction. The results show that there exists a gender-based difference in the use of interaction markers. The female Pakistani columnists use interaction markers more frequently than the male counterparts. The research provides new insight to the national and international researchers about gender-based differences in media discourse within the Pakistani context.

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