A corpus-based study of English editorials: register variation, metadiscoursal markers, and syntactic complexity

This study investigates the linguistic features of newspaper editorials written by Arab writers for the Jordan Times, Arab News, Al-Ahram, and Morocco World News. It compares them with editorials from The Guardian. The study employed a multidimensional analysis (MDA) approach to examine patterns in syntactic complexity and metadiscourse. This study analyzes a corpus of 1,500 English newspaper editorials authored by Arab writers for The Jordan Times, Arab News, Al-Ahram, and Morocco World News, and compares them with editorials from The Guardian. MDA found that all five editorials exhibit a primarily informational, non-narrative style. In addition, differences were found in the use of persuasive language, showing that The Guardian employs a more explicit style than the other editorials. Regarding the metadiscourse analysis, it highlights that although all editorials tend to use interactive markers, the distribution and frequency of specific international markers, including self-mentions, differ across the editorials. In terms of metadiscourse analysis, the study found that editorials written in British English are less complex than those written in Arabic. This implies that a writer’s rhetorical decisions are influenced by their linguistic and cultural background, underscoring the importance of a comprehensive approach in understanding stylistic variety across languages and cultures.