A genre analysis in english editorials regarding hard news in broadsheet and tabloid newspapers

Abstract

This study presents a genre analysis of English editorials regarding hard news in broadsheet and tabloid newspapers focusing on move analysis. It aims to investigate structural organization of those editorials through examination of common move structures, the similar and different attributes in the move structures of the genre, and communicating intentions of the genre. The data consist of 30 English editorial texts of broadsheet newspaper and 30 texts of tabloid newspaper. Analysis of the moves reveals that there is one common move structure in the broadsheet newspaper’s editorials, which consists of four moves. In editorials of the tabloid newspaper, there are two common move structures. The first is similar to the structure of the broadsheet newspaper’s editorials. However, the other common move structure is different. Six similar features were found in genre analysis of the editorials in broadsheet and tabloid newspapers: 1) the total number of moves found in texts of both The Washington Post and New York Post, 2) the number of common moves, 3) the number of optional moves, 4) the communicative purposes of common moves, 5) the communicative purposes of an optional move, and 6) the writing style of the text. On the other hand, there are three different features in those texts. Those features are: 1) the number of common moves, 2) the number of common move structures, and 3) the consistence of a common move structure. In addition, the study discovered that the communicating intentions of the in English editorials genre mainly is to motivate and persuade readers to consider ideas or to give opinions that oppose or support the information provided in those editorials as well as to express strong opinions in order to stimulate some reaction from readers.