scholarly journals Using Metadiscourse to Enhance Persuasiveness in Corporate Press Releases: A Corpus-Based Study

SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402110321
Author(s):  
Shuai Liu ◽  
Jingyuan Zhang

Previous studies have explored the genre characteristics and persuasive nature of press releases. However, systematic analyses of the metadiscursive devices for persuasive purposes are lacking for corporate press releases. Following a corpus-assisted approach, this study investigates the distribution patterns of different types of metadiscourse resources used to achieve persuasiveness in the corporate press release genre. A quantitative analysis of the corpus under study reveals the different frequencies of metadiscourse devices in corporate press releases, and comparisons are made across different genres with similar persuasive attempts. The factors underlying the similarities and differences in metadiscourse use across genres are also examined. A qualitative analysis supported with examples illustrates how different types of metadiscourse devices contribute to the rhetorical appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos and help to enhance persuasiveness. Major findings and their implications for business discourse learners and researchers as well as business practitioners are presented. The article ends with its limitations and recommends avenues for further research in this line of inquiry.

2017 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Erika Jasionytė-Mikučionienė ◽  
Jolanta Šinkūnienė

The focus of the paper is on the frequency, distribution patterns and semantic profile of the necessitive impersonal reik(ė)ti ‘need’ in old and contemporary Lithuanian texts. The study employs corpus based quantitative and qualitative analysis to investigate the patterns of use of reik(ė)ti ‘need’ in the Database of Old Writings (16th-17th centuries) as well as the fiction sub-corpus of the Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language and the humanities and biomedical sciences sub-corpora of the Corpus of Academic Lithuanian (CorALit). The study follows van der Auwera and Plungian’s (1998) modality framework. The quantitative analysis shows that the present tense form reikia ‘need.PRS.3’ is the dominating one across all the sub-corpora analysed. The results of the qualitative study indicate that the deontic sub-type of participant external modality is prevailing in the old Lithuanian texts as well as in the fiction sub-corpus and in the biomedical sciences texts of the contemporary Lithuanian. The discourse of the humanities displays a fairly frequent employment of reik(ė)ti ‘need’ for discourse organising functions alongside the deontic uses. Although the usage patterns of reik(ė)ti ‘need’ in the biomedical sciences and the humanities share certain common features, they also point to discipline specific trends of argumentation. It is also important to observe that the objective deontic reik(ė)ti ‘need’ seems to gradually acquire the features of subjective deontic modality over time, which corresponds to the typical subjectification cline (cf. Traugott 1989).


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Esmeralda Sherko

This study concentrates on compound pronouns in English and Albanian. Compounding is considered as one of the most prolific word formation techniques in both languages. The study is made up of three basic parts: compounding is analysed theoretically; compound pronouns collected by the Dictionary of Contemporary Albanian Language and Oxford Student’s Dictionary are analysed; conclusions are drawn as of their similarities and differences. Albanian language provides interesting results as it includes a specific category of pronouns under a different heading than compounding and that is agglutinated pronouns. Compound pronouns are analysed quantitatively and qualitatively in both languages. Quantitative analysis deals with their positioning in relation to all compound words per each dictionary. Qualitative analysis deals with the elements constituting the compound pronouns. The study also pinpoints the differences and similarities between compound pronouns when translated from English into Albanian and vice versa. The study is illustrated with abundant examples in both languages. Statistic results of the study show that Albanian compound (agglutinated) pronouns outnumber the English compound pronouns→ 81: 18; also constituent structures of Alb. vs Eng. pronouns are →9:2. Translation of pronouns from one language into the other: one English pronoun – different Albanian pronouns and vice versa.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Pao-Nan Chou

This study aims to design different types of reflection questions to support college students’ electronic reflection. Whether or not the reflection question structure may influence students’ reflection outcomes is the research focus. According to various cognitive learning concepts, three types of reflection questions, which include surface, medium and deep questions, are designed and implemented in three weeks of the class. Forty college students majoring in instructional technology participated in this study. The results of the qualitative analysis showed that the surface reflection question yields swallow reflection works, and the medium and deep reflection questions allow students to produce meaningful reflection contents. The results of the quantitative analysis showed that the medium and deep reflection questions are better than the surface reflection question in terms of critical thinking. However, no significant difference is found between the medium and deep reflection questions.


Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Nikolas Koch ◽  
Katharina Günther

Usage-based approaches suggest that children gradually build abstract syntactic patterns, called constructions, through processes of abstraction and schematization from the input they receive. Bilingual children have the challenge of learning two sets of non-equivalent constructions when they build their constructicon. This can result in deviations from monolinguals, which are commonly referred to as transfer. Targeting the expression of the caused-motion construction, the present study focuses on idiosyncratic utterances, those that do not correspond to monolingual adult language use, in three different age groups (4, 6, and 8 years old) of German–French bilingual children in comparison to monolingual control groups. The quantitative analysis showed that idiosyncrasies could be found in both groups, but with significantly higher rates in bilinguals at all ages. In a qualitative analysis, idiosyncratic utterances were clustered into three different types: syntactic patterns, use of verbs, and directional phrases. Regarding the analysis of these types, the influence of French could be shown. In order to classify this linguistic phenomenon in a usage-based approach, we propose to consider transfer as a form of overgeneralization within the bilingual constructicon.


1994 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 385-400
Author(s):  
B.G. Marsden

Past surveys are described in the logical sequence of (1) comets visually, (2) asteroids visually, (3) asteroids photographically and (4) comets photographically. Plots show the evolution of asteroid surveys in terms of visual discovery magnitude and ecliptic latitude, and similarities and differences between surveys for the different types of body are discussed. The paper ends with a brief discussion of more recent discovery methods and some thoughts on the future.


Vaccines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 734
Author(s):  
Xuhua Xia

The design of Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines involves many different types of optimizations. Proper optimization of vaccine mRNA can reduce dosage required for each injection leading to more efficient immunization programs. The mRNA components of the vaccine need to have a 5’-UTR to load ribosomes efficiently onto the mRNA for translation initiation, optimized codon usage for efficient translation elongation, and optimal stop codon for efficient translation termination. Both 5’-UTR and the downstream 3’-UTR should be optimized for mRNA stability. The replacement of uridine by N1-methylpseudourinine () complicates some of these optimization processes because is more versatile in wobbling than U. Different optimizations can conflict with each other, and compromises would need to be made. I highlight the similarities and differences between Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines and discuss the advantage and disadvantage of each to facilitate future vaccine improvement. In particular, I point out a few optimizations in the design of the two mRNA vaccines that have not been performed properly.


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 1602
Author(s):  
Ya-Ping Guo ◽  
Hong Yang ◽  
Ya-Li Wang ◽  
Xiao-Xiang Chen ◽  
Ke Zhang ◽  
...  

Crataegi folium have been used as medicinal and food materials worldwide due to its pharmacological activities. Although the leaves of Crataegus songorica (CS), Crataegus altaica (CA) and Crataegus kansuensis (CK) have rich resources in Xinjiang, China, they can not provide insights into edible and medicinal aspects. Few reports are available on the qualitative and quantitative analysis of flavonoids compounds of their leaves. Therefore, it is necessary to develop efficient methods to determine qualitative and quantitative flavonoids compounds in leaves of CS, CA and CK. In the study, 28 unique compounds were identified in CS versus CK by qualitative analysis. The validated quantitative method was employed to determine the content of eight flavonoids of the leaves of CS, CA and CK within 6 min. The total content of eight flavonoids was 7.8–15.1 mg/g, 0.1–9.1 mg/g and 4.8–10.7 mg/g in the leaves of CS, CA and CK respectively. Besides, the best harvesting periods of the three species were from 17th to 26th September for CS, from 30th September to 15th October for CA and CK. The validated and time-saving method was successfully implemented for the analysis of the content of eight flavonoids compounds in CS, CA and CK for the first time.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Cristina Biguetti ◽  
Joel Ferreira Santiago Junior ◽  
Matthew William Fiedler ◽  
Mauro Toledo Marrelli ◽  
Marco Brotto

AbstractThe aim of this systematic review was to perform qualitative and quantitative analysis on the toxic effects of chloroquine (CQ) and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) on skeletal muscles. We designed the study according to PRISMA guidelines. Studies for qualitative and quantitative analyses were selected according to the following inclusion criteria: English language; size of sample (> 5 patients), adult (> age of 18) patients, treated with CQ/HCQ for inflammatory diseases, and presenting and not presenting with toxic effects on skeletal muscles. We collected data published from 1990 to April 2020 using PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, and SciELO. Risk of bias for observational studies was assessed regarding the ROBIN-I scale. Studies with less than five patients (case reports) were selected for an additional qualitative analysis. We used the software Comprehensive Meta-Analysis at the confidence level of 0.05. We identified 23 studies for qualitative analysis (17 case-reports), and five studies were eligible for quantitative analysis. From case reports, 21 patients presented muscle weakness and confirmatory biopsy for CQ/HCQ induced myopathy. From observational studies, 37 patients out of 1,367 patients from five studies presented muscle weakness related to the use of CQ/HCQ, and 252 patients presented elevated levels of muscle enzymes (aldolase, creatine phosphokinase, and lactate dehydrogenase). Four studies presented data on 34 patients with confirmatory biopsy for drug-induced myopathy. No study presented randomized samples. The chronic use of CQ/HCQ may be a risk for drug-induced myopathy. There is substantiated need for proper randomized trials and controlled prospective studies needed to assess the clinical and subclinical stages of CQ/HCQ -induced muscle myopathy.


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