A comparative study of interactional metadiscourse used by American and Chinese corporate leaders in corporate social responsibility (CSR) statements

Abstract The study compares interactional metadiscourse used by American and Chinese corporate leaders in corporate social responsibility [CSR] statements to serve the interpersonal and persuasive purposes of the genre. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted on the corpus of English CSR statements made respectively by corporate leaders of 21 Chinese and 21 American companies from 2015 to 2019. The results indicate that although both American and Chinese sub-corpora are rich in interpersonal resources, the American CSR statements overall utilize remarkably more interactional metadiscourse features than the Chinese CSR statements. Specifically, the American CSR statements employ more hedges and boosters for argumentation and persuasion. They also use more polarized attitude markers for overt expressions of emotions, in comparison to the Chinese CSR statements which favor moderate emotional appeals through centralized attitude markers. The American CSR statements use more first-person pronouns to accentuate authorial stance, whereas the Chinese CSR statements utilize more third-person pronouns to play down authorial presence. These differences can be traced to the influences of different social-cultural backgrounds and communication traditions rooted in the Chinese and American contexts.