Metadiscourse Use in English Job Applications

Under the theoretical framework of Hyland’s interpersonal model of metadiscourse, an in-depth analysis of the distribution and characteristics of metadiscourse in English job applications is carried out. The findings show that metadiscourse is frequently used in English job applications and these resources have different occurrence frequencies. The writers use more interactional metadiscourse than interactive metadiscourse. Among all the metadiscourse subcategories, self-mentions, transitions and hedges are frequently used. The analysis demonstrates that all metadiscourse resources seem to stress the interpersonal potential in order to convey a persuasive message under an informative mask. It is also shown that metadiscourse use is genre-constrained and the writer’s writing purpose.