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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]

Drawing on Hyland's model of interactional metadiscourse (2005; 2005a), this paper investigates the distribution of interactional metadiscourse in news commentaries of China Daily (CD) and The New York Times (NYT), two leading newspapers in China and the United States. The corpus retrieved includes 60 news commentaries on the topic of COVID-19 covering six months from January to June, 2022 when the resurgence of COVID-19 in China has aroused public debates and attracted world-wide media attention. This study reveals that both stance and engagement, are frequently employed in CD and NYT. Nevertheless, the occurrences of interactional features in NYT are far more frequent than those in CD, which reflects a higher level of explicit interaction of the former. Results of chi-square test of the sub-categorical interactional metadiscourse mark significant differences in the distribution of hedges, self-mention and engagement markers between the two corpora. NYT employs greater number of all the three subcategories, indicating NYT writers' attempts to both express a clear personal stance to their views and to closely align with readers, whereas CD shows a strong tendency of conveying their evaluations and commitment towards propositions by employing stance nearly three times as many as engagement. • Interactional metadiscourse is frequently used in news commentaries. • The New York Times employs both stance and engagement more frequently. • China Daily inclines to explicitly manifest its stance towards propositions. • The New York Times conveys a clear stance as well as closely aligns with readers. • Significant differences are marked in the use of hedges, self-mention and engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides some new insights into the dual function of expressive speech acts discussed in pragmatic theory as either expressions of genuine emotions or conventionalised acts of courtesy. Drawing on the framework of interpersonal pragmatics, it analyses signs displayed on the doors of closed businesses in Athens and London during the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic. These closure signs are characterised by a heavy use of relational features, including four expressive speech acts, namely greetings, apologies, thanks and wishes, which form the focus of the analysis. The relational work performed by these speech acts reflects the social changes brought about by the pandemic as well as the business owners' attempts to retain their customers. The expressive speech acts featured on the signs are evaluated against the norms set out by the genre of closure signs. The comparative angle of the study, on the other hand, links the discussion to norms related to the display of emotions and to the use of conventionalised formulae in the two countries under study, thus revealing culture-specific perspectives on the dual function of expressive speech acts. • Covid-19 signage displayed during the first lockdown contains numerous expressive speech acts performing relational work. • The functions of greetings, apologies, thanks and wishes on these signs are compared to their use on standard closure signs. • Expressive speech acts are more frequent and more effusive on signs found in the UK than on signs found in Greece. • The use of expressive speech acts as either expressions of emotions or formulaic acts of courtesy is culture-specific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides some new insights into the dual function of expressive speech acts discussed in pragmatic theory as either expressions of genuine emotions or conventionalised acts of courtesy. Drawing on the framework of interpersonal pragmatics, it analyses signs displayed on the doors of closed businesses in Athens and London during the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic. These closure signs are characterised by a heavy use of relational features, including four expressive speech acts, namely greetings, apologies, thanks and wishes, which form the focus of the analysis. The relational work performed by these speech acts reflects the social changes brought about by the pandemic as well as the business owners' attempts to retain their customers. The expressive speech acts featured on the signs are evaluated against the norms set out by the genre of closure signs. The comparative angle of the study, on the other hand, links the discussion to norms related to the display of emotions and to the use of conventionalised formulae in the two countries under study, thus revealing culture-specific perspectives on the dual function of expressive speech acts. • Covid-19 signage displayed during the first lockdown contains numerous expressive speech acts performing relational work. • The functions of greetings, apologies, thanks and wishes on these signs are compared to their use on standard closure signs. • Expressive speech acts are more frequent and more effusive on signs found in the UK than on signs found in Greece. • The use of expressive speech acts as either expressions of emotions or formulaic acts of courtesy is culture-specific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]