METADISCOURSE AND CULTURE: A CORPUS-BASED EXPLORATION OF METADISCOURSE IN PAKISTANI AND AMERICAN UNIVERSITY PROSPECTUSES

Abstract

Research on metadiscourse markers (MDMs) in promotional writing has grown over the past two decades, yet little consideration has been paid to their use in higher education prospectuses, particularly from a native vs. non-native perspective. This study investigates the functions and frequency of MDMs in the “About Us” sections of Pakistani and American universities’ online prospectuses, using Hyland’s (2005) model as a framework. A total of 498 MDMs were identified through “Metapak,” a tool developed by Abbas et al. (2017). Results show American prospectuses contain more MDMs than Pakistani ones. In both corpora, interactive MDMs help guide readers, while interactional MDMs reflect the writer’s presence. Interactive MDMs outnumbered interactional ones in both cases. It is evident from the results that natives are more aware of the significance of metadiscourse features in writing than non-natives. These findings offer insights for designing effective prospectuses, especially for international audiences, and open avenues for future research on how overseas students perceive MDMs in promotional texts.