Using metadiscourse in making persuasive attempts through workplace request emails

This paper reports on and discusses the way professionals use metadiscourse in an attempt to achieve persuasion through workplace emails. Drawing upon the interpersonal model of metadiscourse, a total of 659 workplace request emails collected from professional contexts in Hong Kong were analyzed. The type and abundance of the various metadiscourse categories used in this computer-mediated communication genre were first identified and then compared with those found in non-computed mediated ones that also aim to persuade others. The results suggest (1) email offers professionals a convenient channel to persuade colleagues to comply with requests by appealing to rationality, credibility and emotions; (2) persuasive attempts made via email differ from those made via other channels in terms of the pattern of use of metadiscourse; and (3) there may be a preferred pattern of use of persuasive strategies in different moves of the workplace request email genre.