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Web of Proceedings - Francis Academic Press
Web of Proceedings - Francis Academic Press

Metadiscourse in Corporate Press Releases

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DOI: 10.25236/soshu.2020.008

Author(s)

Xi Chen

Corresponding Author

Xi Chen

Abstract

Companies issue press releases in an attempt to communicate news about themselves to the public and the business world. Corporate press releases thus occupy the middle ground between business discourses and newspaper articles. This study reports the distribution of metadiscourse markers in corporate press releases based on the comparison between corporate press releases corpus and business news report corpus. It is found that there are less interactive metadiscourse markers in corporate press releases mainly due to the lower normalized frequency of transitions and evidentials, and that more interactional metadiscourse markers are employed in corporate press releases, especially attitudes, self mentions and engagement markers. The results reveal that corporate press releases emphasize more on writer-reader interaction, aiming to promote the company and build positive corporate image.

Keywords

Corporate press releases, business news reports, rhetorical functions, interactive metadiscourse, interactional metadiscourse