Exploring Interactions in L2 Blogging: Metadiscourse in Philippine Investigative Journalism Blogs

Although metadiscourse has been examined in different genres, such as academic papers, newspaper editorials, school textbooks, and the like, still relatively little attention has been given to the discourse of cyber-genres, particularly blogs or weblogs. Using Hyland’s (2005) model, this paper examined the interactive and the interactional metadiscourse in Philippine investigative journalism blogs where English is used as a second language or L2. The corpus analyzed was taken from 20 investigative journalism blogs published in http://pcij.org/blog/, the official website of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) blogs. Based on the findings of the study, it can be inferred that there is much evidence in the use of metadiscourse in Philippine investigative journalism blogs; thus, the use of metadiscourse as an appropriate linguistic resource is supplemental and essential. The data revealed that the investigative journalism blogs have a higher frequency of use of interactive resources, allowing writers to organize and structure their propositions so that the text becomes more coherent to the readers. Among the five categories of interactive resources, the use of evidentials has the highest frequency. As regards the use of interactional resources, hedges are the most frequent. The findings of the study likewise provide pedagogical implications for ESL writing.