Environmental discussions have increased on social media, along with the rising interest in sustainability. This study introduces a modified procedure for a deliberate metaphor analysis of environmental metaphors in two U.S. energy companies’ Twitter (now X) accounts. Its findings suggest that the two U.S. companies used HUMAN, WEALTH, COLOR, JOURNEY, WAR, SPORTS, STEWARDSHIP, EVIL CREATURE, FOOD, and CRIME metaphors to fulfill publicizing, commercial, persuasive, evocative, and interactive functions, as well as to communicate their inherent environmental identities as protectors, stewards, competitors, and collaborators. These findings provide insights into corporate environmental communication and offer new perspectives on the communicative functions of deliberate metaphors.

<bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Introduction:</b> Efficient and effective business communication depends on appropriate communication adjustments that are at the core of communication accommodation theory. This theory has been used to explore the role of communication accommodation in driving business performance and organizational success. However, there has been no systematic survey of linguistic accommodation in business communication. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research questions:</b> 1. What are general characteristics of studies on the impact of linguistic accommodation in business communication? 2. What are the foci of linguistic accommodation in business communication? 3. What are the contexts, participants (actors and targets), transactional goals, and relational goals of linguistic accommodation in business communication? <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Methodology:</b> We conducted an integrative literature review based on journal articles from the database Web of Science Core Collection. After retrieving 32 articles corresponding to our research purpose, we conducted a qualitative content analysis to describe general characteristics of these articles and identify foci of linguistic accommodation, contexts, participants (actors and targets), transactional goals, and relational goals of linguistic accommodation. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results and conclusions:</b> In both external and internal business communication, actors tend to accommodate or nonaccommodate targets by choosing different languages and communication styles on different linguistic levels based on their language proficiency. We found that linguistic accommodation generally has a positive impact on transactional goals (such as service quality perceptions, negotiation effectiveness, and group performance) and relational goals (such as brand trust, consumer engagement, and cooperation intentions). This review may help business professionals adopt appropriate linguistic accommodation strategies to achieve transactional or relational goals, and aid teachers of business communication in developing students’ accommodation competence.

<bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Background:</b> There is a growing need for Chinese state-owned enterprises (CSOEs) to utilize Twitter, as an effective communicative tool in the professional business context, to build a credible image to the global community. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Literature review:</b> Little attention has been paid to measuring the discursive construction of message credibility through corporate Twitter. Therefore, based on the theoretical insights of message credibility from existing literature on communication and information science, our study has conceptually developed a broad framework to measure the message credibility of CSOEs’ Twitter discourse from two general aspects (content and form), four separate levels ({thematic}, {intrinsic}, {contextual}, and {representational}), and nine specific dimensions (<capability>, <morality>, <objectivity>, <authority>, <accuracy>, <informativeness>, <timeliness>, <consistency>, and <persuasiveness>). With the help of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and corpus tools (MAT, CLA, TAALES, GAMET, SÉANCE, and TAACO), the framework has been practically operationalized by a total of 62 discursive features, including 18 content-based themes (thematic features) and 44 form-based features. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research questions:</b> 1. What themes do CSOEs develop, and how do they express these themes to establish message credibility in their tweets? 2. Which dimensions of message credibility are significantly highlighted in CSOEs’ tweets? 3. Which enterprises establish the highest message credibility in their tweets? <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Methodology:</b> We collected tweets during the year 2020 from the official Twitter accounts of 15 CSOEs and applied our operationalized framework to conduct nine separate One-way ANOVAs, a principal component analysis (PCA), and a mean-value based descriptive statistics comparison, respectively. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results:</b> First, CSOEs developed themes including strength, power, cooperation, and legitimacy, among others, and used discursive features including nominalizations, mentions/@ , word length, time adverbials, hashtags/#, and semantic overlaps, among others when expressing these themes to establish message credibility. Second, CSOEs significantly highlighted the <capability>, <authority>, <informativeness>, and <consistency> dimensions of message credibility in their tweets. Last, China National Machinery Industry Co. (Sinomach), China Datang Co. (CDC), China Railway Engineering Co. (CREC), and China State Construction Engineering Co. (CSCEC) were found to have established the highest message credibility in their tweets. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Discussion and conclusion:</b> Our study may be the first to generate an NLP-cum-corpus-operationalized framework to quantitatively measure the discursive realization of message credibility in the context of business communication on social media. It also provides some practical insights into how relevant business professions can utilize certain discursive resources to establish message credibility in the B2C communication on social media.

<bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Background:</b> With the development of digital technologies, Twitter allows organizations to make better use of social media for impression management, advertising, and marketing. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Literature review:</b> As a recently developed register, Twitter has been researched as a personal-oriented communication method, but little research has been conducted on the register of corporate Twitter use. This study, exploring Twitter use by the 2020 US Fortune 500 banks and energy corporations, may be the first one to conduct register analysis of corporate Twitter. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Methodology:</b> This study used summary language variables of Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) as dimensions of register variation, and also conducted categorical multidimensional analysis (CMDA) of linguistic features and features specific to Twitter. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research questions:</b> 1. What are the patterns of register variation in the tweets of US banks and energy corporations based on the results of four LIWC summary variables and the CMDA method? 2. Are there any differences between tweets of the two industries within each pattern of register variation? <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results and conclusions:</b> Results showed that tweets of both industries tend to display a categorical, confident self-regulating style, and a mixed tone. Tweets of banks are more formal, self-regulating, and oriented toward narrative (congratulatory, positive informational, and effortful), while tweets of energy corporations are more authentic and oriented toward interaction (advisory, routine, and affiliative). Tweets having narrative functions tend to be formal in style and positive in tone, while tweets having interactive functions tend to display corporations’ confidence and leadership. Corporate Twitter is characterized by the integration of interaction and informational narrative, or “registerial hybridity.” Overall, this study strengthens the idea that corporations use Twitter to facilitate corporate communication with a broadcasting strategy and narrative perspective, and to improve digital communication with an engaging strategy. Findings may shed light on promoting products and corporate impression management on social media.

<roman xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><b>Introduction:</b></roman> Social media have been widely used for corporation-generated narratives. Corporate communication entails a “storytelling process” and a narrative perspective. Corporate narrative has taken on new forms with the emergence of social media, which is the object of this study and called corporations’ owned social media narrative (COSMN). To our knowledge, however, no research has systematically investigated studies on COSMN. Our study provides a synthesized review on the strategies and functions of COSMN. <roman xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><b>Research questions:</b></roman> 1. What are the general characteristics of studies on COSMN? 2. What strategies are usually adopted by corporations via their social media narrative? 3. What functions do corporations intend to achieve by their social media narrative? <roman xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><b>Methodology:</b></roman> We conducted an integrative literature review of studies on corporations’ owned social media narrative based on journal articles from the database of the Web of Science Core Collection. After retrieving 25 articles in accordance with our research purpose, we conducted a qualitative content analysis to describe general characteristics of the literature and identify narrative strategies and functions. <roman xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><b>Results and conclusions:</b></roman> When corporations undertake advertising, branding, and social networking activities (among others) on social media, they tend to use form-based narrative strategies (technical strategy and formality strategy), content-based narrative strategies (broadcasting strategy, reacting strategy, engaging strategy, and emotional strategy), and medium-based narrative strategy (transmedia strategy) to achieve functions of market communication, technical communication, and public relations work (identity construction, impression management, stakeholder endorsement, corporate social responsibility communication, and crisis communication). This integrative literature review provides theoretical implications for corporate social media research and practical implications for digital marketing practitioners.

<bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Background:</b> Social media, increasingly conceptualized as communicative genres, has become a tool for individuals to promote social bonds, as well as a platform for corporations to engage with the public and build corporate identity. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Literature review:</b> Genre analysis has seldom been used in investigating social media use and corporate identity construction, especially the relationship between corporate identity and the interaction of message content and communicative style. Therefore, this study intends to implement Lomborg's framework of genre analysis for social media studies to compare Weibo posts of Chinese banks with Twitter tweets of US banks in terms of thematic orientations (message content) and communicative styles (indicated by speech act use) and thus examine their corporate identities. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research questions:</b> 1. What thematic orientations do Chinese and American banks develop in their microblogging messages? 2. What communicative styles do Chinese and American banks develop in their microblogging messages? 3. How are corporate identities formed through the interaction of thematic orientations and communicative styles of the microblogging messages of Chinese and American banks? <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Methodology:</b> We collected posts and tweets from the official microblogging accounts of 10 Chinese and US banks on the Fortune Global 500 list, identified thematic orientations and communicative styles, and conducted a comparative analysis of corporate identities based on the interaction of thematic orientations and communicative styles. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results and conclusions:</b> In analysis of thematic orientations, Chinese banks are more likely to post messages of <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">entertainment, operation,</small> and <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">product</small> . In terms of communicative styles, their messages are more likely to be characterized by directness, inexpressiveness, and independence politeness overall. Specifically, they tend to send <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">entertainment</small> posts directly and in the involvement politeness style, <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">operation</small> posts indirectly and in the independence politeness style, and <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">product</small> posts in the independence politeness style. As such, Chinese banks may best be described as the audience's friendly companions, objective and authoritative press spokesmen, and competitive innovators, a combination that implies values of relationship, authority, and competition in collectivism-oriented, high-power distance, and high-context cultures. By contrast, US banks are more likely to tweet messages of <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">service</small> . Overall, their messages are more likely to be characterized by indirectness, expressiveness, and involvement politeness. Specifically, they tend to send <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">service</small> tweets indirectly and in the involvement politeness style. As such, US banks may best be described as financial product sellers and considerate service providers, a combination that suggests customer-oriented values in individualism and high uncertainty avoidance cultures. In addition, both Chinese and US banks claim to be good corporate citizens. This comparative analysis sheds light on identity construction and provides instructive frameworks for cross-cultural communication on social media platforms.

Background: The cognitive load involved in research article (RA) reading can be overwhelming for L2 novice readers. RA section headings can be used as signals to help novices focus on essential information related to their learning goals to reduce extraneous cognitive processing. There is a need to examine RA macrostructures to inform RA reading instruction. Literature review: RAs do not always follow the Introduction-Methods-Results-Discussion (IMRD) model. Previous research has examined the macrostructure of articles in disciplines such as computer science, applied linguistics, and pure mathematics, but few have investigated the macrostructure of economics RAs. Research questions: 1. Are there any sections frequently used in economics articles apart from the conventional sections? 2. If yes, what are the views of expert economics RA readers on the communicative functions and propositional content of the newly identified sections of economics RAs? Research methods: Eighty RAs were collected from five economics journals using stratified random sampling. Following Yang and Allison's macrostructure analysis method, we conducted an analysis of the overall structure of the RAs based on section headings and the function and content of each section. Results: Compared with the IMRD model, we found six new section types: Background, Theoretical Model, Econometric Model, Robustness, Mechanisms, and Application. Interviews were conducted to explore expert RA readers' genre knowledge on the newly identified sections. Conclusion: The findings can be useful for RA reading and writing instruction and future research on part-genres of economics articles.

Background: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports are one of the vehicles for developing corporate images, namely, the cognitive representation of a company perceived by the concerned stakeholders. It would be interesting to compare the CSR reports of companies of the world's two largest economies: the US and China. Literature review: Previous studies of CSR reports tend to highlight their lexicogrammatical, semantic, and functional features at the discursive level, but few studies have examined the cognitive images that companies intend to develop at the level of conceptual structure (knowledge representation). This study investigates metaphor use as a discursive and cognitive strategy for developing corporate images in Chinese and American CSR reports from the perspective of corpus-based conceptual metaphor analysis, particularly based on the concept of genre-specific metaphors, the metaphors used to conventionally construe notions for a certain communicative purpose achieved by a particular discourse community. Research questions: 1. What are the major concerns of Chinese and American CSR reports? 2. What are the genre-specific metaphors used to construe major concerns of Chinese and American CSR reports? 3. What do the genre-specific metaphors reveal about the corporate images of Chinese and US companies? Are there differences in developing corporate images between Chinese and American CSR reports? Methodology: We collected CSR reports of the top companies in China and the US, identified genre-specific linguistic and conceptual metaphors, and conducted comparative analysis of metaphor-based corporate images. Results and conclusions: The conceptual metaphors genre-specific to CSR reports are businesses are objects, business is war, business is a journey, and business competition is competitive games/sports. Furthermore, CSR reports of both countries share most genre-specific metaphor parings and thus nearly the same mappings, which contribute to building corporate images of being economically competitive, ethically cooperative, and environmentally responsible. Although both stress self-development and taking a leading position, American companies seem to pay more attention to external cooperation with others. On the other hand, Chinese companies seem to stress internal cooperation and a well-organized hierarchy. Admittedly, this study may be limited in terms of analyzing only genre-specific metaphors and not balancing sector types of the companies in the two corpora.