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.

As the leading section in a research article (RA), the introduction typically leaves a lasting impression on the reader. It is thus necessary to make a well-crafted and organized introduction in the writing of successful RAs. However, a lack of studies has paid attention to the rhetorical moves in the non-Scopus and Scopus RA introductions in the linguistics area. Therefore, the present study first investigated the realization and essentiality of moves and steps of introductions from both corpora, and then it delved into the relationships of distributions of moves and steps of these two sources. A total of 100 English linguistics RA introductions were selected in this study. The non-Scopus and Scopus corpus each included 50 RA introductions taken from two journals. Based on the adapted Swales’ (1990) Create-A-Research-Space (CARS) model and Rasmeenin’s (2006) rationale, the analysis of the identification and essentiality of moves was conducted. The findings revealed that Move 3 Step 5 was a novel step used in both corpora. Besides, though there were no statistically significant relationships in the essentiality rate of moves and steps between the two corpora, divergence did exist in the essentiality categorization of Move 1, Move 3, Move 1 Step 3, Move 2 Step 1B and Move 3 Step 1A. The results of this study highlight the rhetorical convention and the essentiality of moves and steps in the common non-Scopus journals and the prestigious Scopus journals, providing a template for writers in constructing crafted introductions and getting them published in Scopus journals.

Gardner’s (1985) in his socio-educational model introduced the variable of ‘integrativeness’ as a construct that focuses on English as a Second Language (ESL) learners’ attitudes towards the native English community. Later, Yashima (2002) proposed ‘international posture’ as an affective construct that re-examined ‘integrativeness’. Research conducted to reach a common operationalisation of ‘international posture’ is very limited. Hence, our objective in this study is to determine the level of each measurement construct under the affective variable of International Posture as well as to validate the measurement constructs of this variable among Malaysian undergraduates. In this quantitative study, 540 undergraduate students from a public university were selected. These students responded to a questionnaire that contained the four measurement constructs. For analysing the data, we used Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). Our results have proven that the International Posture among Malaysian undergraduates is high, and the measurement constructs of this variable are valid and can be operationalised in the Malaysian English language learning context. The scale validated in the study can contribute to future studies on this variable in the Malaysian English language learning context.

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.

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