Abstract Metadiscourse has been a major focus of research over the last twenty-five years, attracting methodological approaches from the areas of textual pragmatics and discourse studies, many of which are supported by corpus linguistics. A major challenge in corpus-based discourse studies, however, is subjectivity, which may affect their quality and undermine their methodological rigor. To reduce subjectivity and guarantee consistency, assessing reliability of coding is essential. This study advocates combining quantitative with qualitative approaches to reliability. We argue that this mixed-method approach will provide a better assessment of reliability. To this aim, this methodological synthesis surveyed research covering empirical corpus-based studies on metadiscourse published in indexed and peer-reviewed journals. One major finding is that most studies did not report conducting any reliability measure. Issues in reliability accounts were also identified for those that did. Another major finding is a pervasive lack of transparency and comprehensiveness in reliability reports. Recommendations for enhancing reliability are listed.

Abstract Student injury incidents serve as institutional nexuses where health emergencies intersect with peer conflicts, requiring teachers to negotiate the competing demands of medical immediacy and moral culpability. Drawing on conversation analysis of audio-recorded student incident calls between teachers and parents, this study investigates how teachers navigate these challenging scenarios through the systematic management of agency and urgency . Analysis reveals two distinct yet interrelated patterns in teachers’ reporting practices. First, teachers treat agency (injurer) and urgency (injured student) as discrete components linked to responsibility attribution; they systematically background both elements when reporting to injured students’ parents while foregrounding them in communications with injurers’ parents. Second, the initial attenuation of urgency, while serving to mitigate conflict, necessitates subsequent upgrades to secure immediate involvement from injured students’ parents. These findings illuminate how teachers’ institutional practices systematically prioritize conflict mediation over medical urgency.

Abstract This paper explores whether denial strategies can rebuild public trust, using evidence from a hospital’s statement regarding cancer incidents in its laboratory. A discourse analysis of the hospital’s statement reveals that explicit and implicit denial strategies are used to rebuild public trust. Specifically, the hospital uses explicit denial to refute the identity or severity of the affected individuals. Besides, the hospital uses implicit denial to construct a trustworthy image of ability, transparency, and benevolence, thereby addressing public concerns. Further experimental studies indicate that neither explicit nor implicit denial alone is sufficient to rebuild trust. Instead, a combination of both strategies is essential for effectively rebuilding trust. Based on these findings, this paper offers suggestions for rebuilding public trust.

Abstract Sacks and Schegloff ( 1979 ; Schegloff 1996 ) identify a preference for recognitional references to persons over non-recognitional forms of references. Furthermore, they identify as a subsidiary preference that, among recognitional forms, personal names are preferred over recognitional descriptors. However, as Sacks and Schegloff indicate, these preferences in no way limit the use of names to conclusively recognizable persons, nor do they even inhibit references to persons by name when recognition is not at all practicable. In this report, we first describe those practices that manage (and thereby exhibit) levels of confidence regarding the recognizability of personal names. We then examine several environments in which personal names are employed in introducing persons as previously unknown to recipients, and we describe one family of practices for doing so. Finally, we identify storytelling as a principal environment in which personal names are used, and we describe where unknown persons are introduced by storytellers.

Abstract This paper presents a study examining the pragmatic strategies employed by Zeng Guofan in his renowned family letters to craft qici ( 启辞 , ‘salutation’), as well as the potential relationship between social hierarchies and the specific wording used in these opening phrases. The study reveals that, across 1,449 letters containing salutations, Zeng Guofan deployed seven distinct patterns of salutation. Significant differences were observed in his use of third-person address terms, ticheng yu ( 提称语 , ‘elevated address terms’), verbs, self-address terms, and expressions of good wishes and well-being, depending on the recipient of the letter. These variations suggest clear metapragmatic efforts to maintain respect and deference in his communications, providing evidence that certain patterns of polite salutations were shaped by the perceived social status between the addresser and the addressee in ancient China.

Abstract Research on self-disclosure is well-established in psychology and communication studies; however, unprompted self-disclosure as an action in conversation has not received as much attention. First encounters are often marked by social uncertainty, and self-disclosure plays a crucial role in facilitating conversation. Using a qualitative approach informed by insights from pragmatics and Conversation Analysis, and complemented by an analysis of frequencies of acts performed in conversation, this study analyzed video conference recordings of twenty-two dyads of unacquainted international postgraduate students in Malaysian universities. This paper describes how interlocutors use unprompted self-disclosure as interactional strategy in first encounters, focusing on the patterns of self-disclosure that emerge and the functions they serve. The findings extend understanding of how interactants navigate epistemic territories to achieve interactional goals in initial conversations, where knowledge about one another is limited.

Abstract This study investigates the pragmatic functions of custom WhatsApp stickers, with a particular focus on those integrating images and text. Building on prior research, the study develops a classification scheme that highlights three core dimensions: the sender’s intention, the sticker-centred act of communication, and the audience’s interpretation of its meaning. The analysis is based on a corpus of 598 user-generated stickers from Spanish WhatsApp conversations, comprising 496 multimodal and 102 text-only stickers. The analysis reveals that stickers predominantly serve to clarify or emphasise the sender’s intention (56.9%), including self-representation, social status, group identity, and humour. A second set of functions is related to the sticker’s role in the act of communication (24.67%), such as substituting text, conveying emotion, and mimicking nonverbal behaviour. Lastly, stickers play a part in audience inference (18.41%), helping to soften, challenge, or elucidate messages, thereby enhancing overall message clarity.

Abstract The article systematically examines metaphor-motivated zeugmatic constructions in web-based promotional tourism discourse, drawing on texts from the official destination websites of Georgia, the UK, and the USA. Employing a mixed-method research design, which combines quantitative data inspection and qualitative discourse analysis, the study identifies formal, functional, and positional peculiarities of zeugmas in the analysed material. These findings corroborate, enrich, and challenge prevailing assumptions in contemporary scholarly literature on zeugma and metaphor (Lanham 1991; Steen 2016; Tartakovsky and Shen 2023). The paper highlights that metaphor-motivated zeugmas represent another form of deliberate metaphor, thereby broadening the scope of its manifestation patterns. Furthermore, the study reveals that such zeugmas are often strategically used at key points in promotional texts to frame and emphasise essential messages. These insights may provide valuable guidance for marketers in developing comprehensible, impactful, and emotionally resonant promotional content, which is essential in cross-cultural contexts of tourism promotion.

Abstract In the framework of the socio-cognitive approach, this article investigates how Chinese doctors’ use of metapragmatic expressions (MPEs) facilitates the construction of emergent common ground (ECG) in oncological consultations. Based on extracts from our medical corpus, this paper reveals that doctors primarily employ eight types of MPEs as ECG construction builders in interactions, i.e., commentaries, message glosses, evidentials, hedges, performatives, stance displayers, signaling expressions, and rapport indicators. It is found that oncologists use them to (1) construct ECG of information for clarifying the patients’ life-threatening condition, correcting patients’ misconceptions, and justifying treatment recommendations; and (2) construct ECG of (dis)affiliation for preemptively or retrospectively reconciling their institutional needs with the addressees’ emotional needs. This article aims to shed light on our understanding of the functioning mechanism of MPEs in ECG construction for the accomplishment of communicative tasks in highly sensitive Chinese oncological consultations.