Salience management

Abstract This article zooms in on metadiscourse resources to explore their salience management in online new product launch (hereafter NPL) conferences, adopting the salience theory of socio-cognitive approach (hereafter SCA) as the theoretical foundation. Drawing on data from 16 online NPL conferences presented by non-native English speakers, it is found that different types of metadiscourse resources are employed to manage the salience of specific contextual factors in metacognitive, metarepresentational and metacommunicative dimensions, motivated by the presenter’s inherent salience and awareness of recipient design. This article not only strengthens the assumption that the salience theory of SCA can provide a new perspective for metadiscourse research, but also sheds light on how to understand the effectiveness of online business communication in the intercultural context.