Metadiscourse Analysis on CEO-Speak in Public Interviews to Weather Company's Crisis

Public interview can serve as an effective means for companies to deal with crisis by answering the doubts and inquiries from the media and the public. With the United States increasing tariffs or other attacks on Chinese goods, more and more companies are facing a crisis. This paper focuses on the deployment of metadiscourse resources and their rhetorical features in almost 40 media’s interviews with a company’s CEO. Major findings are summarized as follows: (1) The CEO’s utterances are highly persuasive, in which self-mentions and transitions occur most frequently. (2) TheCEO pays more attention to the construction of credible appeals and affectiveappeals than rational sppeals. Rational appeals can be realized through transitions, code glosses, frame markers and endophoric markers; ethos through hedges, boosters, self-mentions and evidentials; affective appeals through engagement markers, attitude markers, hedges and self-mentions. (3) Metadiscourse items play an important role in The CEO’s efforts to weather the crisis.