The use of multimodal interactional metadiscourse for CSR communication on Chinese companies’ corporate websites

Abstract

This study aims to examine how multimodal interactional metadiscourse are used for CSR communication on Chinese companies’ websites. The corpus consists of 153 CSR webpages presented by 30 leading Chinese energy, metal, equipment, and chemistry companies on their English websites. The results indicate that the CSR webpages are rich in interactional metadiscourse devices, with engagement markers and attitude markers being the most salient ones. A variety of non-textual markers, such as pictures, videos, company logos, icons, facial expressions, interaction-initiating resources, are deployed along with textual markers to achieve the promotional and persuasive purposes of the genre. The results reveal the characteristics of employing digital media for business communication, adding more interactivity, visibility, and creativity in the construction of CSR discourse. The study may enrich business discourse literature by introducing a multimodal framework to explore interpersonal resources used in digital business genres.