We conduct a close reading and micro-level analysis of a market update released by Restaurant Group Plc, a UK leisure firm, during the COVID-19 pandemic to examine its communication functions. While the market update aligns with communicative action theory by enhancing information transparency, it also deploys various rhetorical strategies, including impersonalization, positive self-evaluation, and metaphors consistent with impression management. The overly optimistic tone bears no relation to subsequent corporate outcomes. This study provides valuable insights for business and professional communication practitioners and students, enabling them to interpret the linguistic characteristics of market updates as a distinct genre of corporate communication.

Using a mixed methods approach that relies on conceptual metaphor theory, corpus linguistics, and discourse analysis, the study investigates the use and function of metaphor in a self-constructed corpus of U.K. bank chairman’s letters to shareholders during the study period, covering a state of relative stability (2002-2007), financial crisis and scandals (2008-2019), and the coronavirus pandemic (2020). We find evidence that bank chairmen use conventional metaphors to communicate with shareholders. Additionally, the choice of metaphors is conditional on the contextual environment in which banks operate. Further qualitative analysis of the metaphors supports a persuasive role that depends on the contextual environment.