Is Gender a Factor in Variations in Meta Discourse on Political Matters in Zambia? An Investigation Based on Some Zambian Female and Male Written Discourses in Post Newspaper Opinion Articles

Abstract

This study sought to investigate metadiscourse(MD) variations in written discourseson political matters in form of newspaper opinion articlesproduced by some Zambian females and malesin Post newspaper. It compared the frequencies of interactive MD markers as well as interactional MD markers used by females and males in opinion articles. Additionally, it described the interactive MD markers and interactional metadiscourse markers that were unique to females and males in the articles. Maximum variation technique was used to sample a total of 150 articles (75 written by females and 75 written by males) published in Post newspaper during the period 2011 to 2015.A phone camera was used to capture the articles which were later printed out to constitute a corpus of 120 000 words.A mixed methods approach was employed in the collection and analysis of data. The results revealed thatfemales and males exhibited MDvariations in their discourses some of which were statistically significant. However, more similarities than differences in the use of MD markers were found. The study concludes that gender is an important variable in the use of MD markers; nonetheless, it is not the only factor that influences MDvariations but the genre, the culture of the writers and their writing styles too, play a major role in the choice of MD markers. Therefore, for pedagogy, a genre-specific approach is recommended.