Engagement strategies in English and Arabic newspaper editorials

The study examines how editorialists engage readers in English and Arabic newspaper editorials, a genre central to shaping public opinion while maintaining an institutional voice. Engagement strategies are used to acknowledge and position readers in argumentation, including reader pronouns, interjections, questions, directives, and appeals to shared knowledge. Addressing a gap in metadiscourse research where engagement has been less examined than stance and voice, the study conducts a contrastive functional analysis across two languages and cultures. The research questions are: (1) How do newspaper editorialists connect with their readers in English and Arabic? (2) What are the similarities and/or differences (if any) in the use of engagement strategies between English and Arabic newspaper editorials?

Engagement has historically received less attention than stance and voice in metadiscourse research. Recent work has begun to address this, including Guinda (2019) on professional genres and Paltridge (2020) on reviewers’ reports, which found directives common and reader pronouns frequent. Hyland and Zou (2021) showed hearer mention prevalent in 3MT presentations, with directives more common in hard sciences and questions used similarly across fields. He and Abdul Rahim (2019) found more engagement markers in economics research articles than opinion pieces, with directives most frequent and questions/personal asides least. Lafuente-Millán (2014) demonstrated effects of language, publication context, and culture on engagement in business research articles, with national culture especially influential and possible L1 rhetorical transfer. Yang (2021) observed consistent use of engagement markers across Chinese governmental and hospital letters of advice during COVID-19, regardless of audience role. Overall, contrastive analyses, especially across English and Arabic editorials, remain scarce, motivating the present study.

Data comprised 80 editorials (40 English from The Guardian, UK; 40 Arabic from Addustour, Jordan) published in 2020–2021. Texts were retrieved from the newspapers’ websites and compiled into Microsoft Word files. Using Paltridge’s (2020) taxonomy (adapted from Hyland 2001, 2005; Hyland & Jiang 2016), the study employed a mixed-method approach. First, a list of potential engagement markers in English and Arabic was prepared by reviewing prior studies. Quantitatively, frequencies, percentages, and frequencies per 1000 words were computed, following metadiscourse conventions, and the Mann–Whitney U test was used to assess differences between corpora. Qualitatively, a functional analysis emphasized meanings in context to confirm instances as engagement strategies and categorize them into five types (reader pronouns, personal asides, appeals to shared knowledge, directives, questions). Arabic examples were translated into English for presentation. The analysis was validated by three experts in discourse studies.

Quantitative results: English editorials contained 240 engagement markers (9.73 per 1000 words): personal asides 116 (48.3%; 4.70/1000), reader pronouns 49 (20.4%; 1.99/1000), directives 21 (20.4%; 1.99/1000), questions 21 (8.8%; 0.85/1000), appeals to shared knowledge 5 (2.1%; 0.20/1000). Arabic editorials contained 233 markers (17.48 per 1000 words): reader pronouns 219 (94%; 16.43/1000), directives 6 (2.6%; 0.45/1000), appeals to shared knowledge 5 (2.1%; 0.38/1000), personal asides 3 (1.3%; 0.23/1000), questions 0 (0%). Mann–Whitney U tests indicated significant differences between corpora for reader pronouns (p=0.013), appeals to shared knowledge (p=0.041), directives (p=0.015), questions (p<0.001), and total engagement strategies (p<0.001); no significant difference for personal asides (p=0.990). Inclusive we was prominent in both corpora but much more frequent in Arabic (English: 26 instances; Arabic: 147). Functionally, English editorials used questions to transmit information and circulate knowledge, a strategy absent in the Arabic corpus; Arabic editorials relied heavily on reader pronouns and used fewer personal asides and directives.

Findings show clear cross-linguistic differences in how editorials engage readers. Arabic editorials rely overwhelmingly on reader pronouns—especially inclusive we—suggesting collectivist alignment and solidarity-building with readers, while minimizing potentially face-threatening moves such as directives and avoiding questions. English editorials engage readers with more varied strategies, notably personal asides and questions, which position readers in the argumentative flow and help guide interpretation. The absence of questions in Arabic editorials and the lower use of directives may reflect cultural and politeness considerations in Arabic journalistic norms. Despite differences, both corpora use appeals to shared knowledge to establish common ground. These patterns directly address the research questions by detailing how editorialists in each language connect with readers and by identifying statistically significant differences in strategy use across languages and cultures.

The study advances understanding of engagement strategies in persuasive editorial writing across English and Arabic. It shows that Arabic editorials strongly favor reader pronouns, whereas English editorials employ more personal asides and use questions to circulate knowledge. The contrastive analysis enriches intercultural rhetoric research and has pedagogical implications: training in professional and journalistic writing should foreground engagement strategies, integrating examples and exercises in language-for-journalism curricula to enhance clarity, persuasion, and audience inclusion. Raising awareness of underused strategies (e.g., questions in Arabic editorials) could broaden engagement repertoires. The findings can inform material design and writing workshops for novice journalists and improve reader-oriented practices in editorial writing.