1. Engaging readers across participants: A cross-interactant analysis of metadiscourse in letters of advice during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Author
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Yang, Na
- Subjects
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COVID-19 pandemic , *INGROUPS (Social groups) , *ENGAGED reading , *PUBLIC hospitals , *COVID-19 , *BOOSTER vaccines - Abstract
Reader engagement has often been explored from a metadiscourse perspective, but little research has been conducted on the variation in engagement across participants, especially readers. Based on data from a collection of 120 Chinese letters of advice from governments and hospitals produced during the COVID-19 pandemic, a cross-interactant analysis of metadiscourse is conducted in this paper, and the interactants' impacts on reader engagement are discussed. The findings reveal that (1) both governments and hospitals utilize engagement markers, boosters, attitude markers, and frame markers more than other types of metadiscourse items; (2) differences exist in the use of metadiscourse among the issuing agencies; (3) as reader identity varies from ingroup to outgroup membership, the probability of booster use by a hospital is higher than that by a government; and (4) the likelihood of using frame, transition and attitude markers is higher for governments than for hospitals. The paper concludes by discussing different communicative styles adopted by two agencies in a crisis context. • This article studies reader engagement in crisis from a metadiscourse perspective. • It conducts a cross-interactant analysis of metadiscourse in letters of advice. • Letters of advice play a pivotal role in the Chinese fighting against COVID-19. • As the interpersonal variables change, the public agencies' engagement style varies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021
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