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he justification for MD&A originates from the demand for accounting information inthe capital market. Free-market economy theories assume that market forces candetermine an equilibrium price (Kam, 1980), provided that the free flow ofinformation remains intact. In this ideal “efficient market,” both buyers and sellers ofpublicly-traded securities can have equal access to all necessary information fordecision-making (Bagby, Kintzele & Kintzele, 1988). Therefore, accountinginformation is often regarded as a public good (Hooks & Moon, 1993).

However, due to the self-interests of corporate managers (Bagby, Kintzele &Kintzele, 1988; Qian & Wang, 2014; Rutherford, 2016), they are often reluctant tolose monopoly of control over information by releasing too much information of thecompany (Hooks & Moon, 1993), and when they do release, they tend to highlight thefavorable information and hide the unfavorable one, which might result in marketfailure. To improve the transparency and efficiency of the market as well as protectthe rights and interests of investors, regulators around the world generally mandatepublic companies to release certain forms of financial disclosure.

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2.2 Previous studies on metadiscourse

Metadiscourse is currently one of the most widely adopted methods in studies onspecialist written texts (Hyland, 2017). As opposed to traditional belief aboutmetadiscourse as an inessential element of texts, an element language can do without,many linguists start to believe that the delivery and presentation of the content isequally, if not more, important than the content itself (Taylor, 2000). Before adoptingthe metadiscourse approach to the current study on MD&A, it is necessary to firstrevisit the previous definitions and classifications of the term. Meanwhile, it is alsoworthwhile to review the adaptation of metadiscourse approach in other businesswritings as a reference.

2.2.1 Definitions and classifications of metadiscourse

While linguists generally agree upon its non-propositional nature, there is still noconsensus reached on a clear definition of metadiscourse, which is determined by theinherent fuzziness of the term. Since it was first introduced by structural linguistZellig S. Harris in 1959 to refer to the part of a text which contains information ofonly secondary importance (Beauvais, 1989), metadiscourse has undergone variousinterpretations. From the perspective of semiotics, metadiscourse is regarded as a signwhich signals the semiotic interpretation of a text or discourse (Gao, 2009). From thephilosophical perspective, the concept of metadiscourse is broadly defined as“people’s knowledge about language and representations of language” (Hyland, 2017),which is more often referred to as metalanguage, as opposed to object language,which refers to the reality. Furthermore, metadiscourse is also considered as‘communication about communication’ by speech communication theorists andcommentary of a text by rhetoricians (Gao, 2009). Although these interpretations haveprovided valuable insights into the nature of metadiscourse and of language andcommunication in general, they remain too vague to achieve the explanatory potentialof metadiscourse.

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