Metadiscourse is a pragmatic linguistic device that writers use to engage with their readers. For decades, research on metadiscourse has mostly centred on academic texts. There were also attempts to examine its use in editorials. However, in this study, attempts are made to investigate the readers' responses on the use and non-use of metadiscourse in online business news. To gain insights on this objective, thirty participants from a local public university in Malaysia participated in the study. The findings showed that most of the participants preferred to read news with textual metadiscourse because it was clearer, while 16.67% of the participants preferred to read news without textual metadiscourse. The findings also revealed that 93.33% of the participants preferred to read news with interpersonal metadiscourse because it was more engaging, while only 6.67% of the participants preferred to read news without interpersonal metadiscourse. The findings revealed the importance of metadiscourse in business news writings, and as such, texts constructed with and without the presence of metadiscourse could be useful teaching resources for writing instructors in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) writing classrooms.

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Metadiscourse is an important linguistic resource in business news because it guides readers throughout the text. Business news is vital to keep people abreast of how the economy affects job opportunities, how high or low interest rates may go, and whether layoffs are imminent in local industries. However, it is the news that people read the least because it is not engaging to them. The study aims to investigate The Star Online and Focus Malaysia business news writers’ awareness on the use of metadiscourse features. Metadiscourse Awareness Test was given to 10 business news writers from The Star Online and Focus Malaysia respectively. The findings showed that sequencers had the lowest mean score (M=2.334) for textual metadiscourse, while certainty markers had the lowest mean score (M=2.667) for interpersonal metadiscourse. Although The Star Online and Focus Malaysia writers exhibited the lowest mean score in identifying sequencers and certainty markers, they still demonstrated a high awareness in identifying all the categories of textual and interpersonal metadiscourse. The findings revealed the importance of metadiscourse features for the business news writers to fully utilise them in the news industry.