A Study on the Persuasive Function of Metadiscourse in Hotel Responses to Negative Reviews on TripAdvisor

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Introduction
The 21st century has witnessed the rise of the hospitality industry.Accommodation service in hospitality industry is intangible in essence, so travelers rely largely on electronic word-of-mouth when they book hotels in advance on travel websites.TripAdvisor is a popular global travel website based in America and its high popularity makes it possible for travelers' comments to reach a considerably large population of potential customers.However, as negative comments on such websites usually receive more scrutiny (Page, 2014), hotels need to take care of them to minimizes possible image damage.
Previous researchers have made contribution to the study of responses to negative reviews in terms of their linguistic features, move structure, functions, and effectiveness (e.g., Litvin & Hoffman, 2012;Zhang & Vásquez, 2014;Sparks et al., 2016;Sparks & Bradley, 2017;Ho 2017aHo , 2018a;;Zhao et al., 2020).As responding to negative reviews is a goal-oriented activity, it is only natural that previous research efforts have been focused on the study of their functions.One key feature of effective responses to negative reviews is their ability to win the trust of both the customers who wrote the reviews and those potential ones who read the review-response pairs online (e.g., Sparks et al., 2016;Ho, 2019) In the studies concerning hotel responses, it is found that hotels aim to effectively neutralize the negativity of the comments, negotiate corporate identity, brand reputation, customer relations, loyalty, and trust so as to achieve service recovery (Zhang & Vasquez, 2014).These previous studies suggest the great importance in the study of persuasive function in hotel responses to negative reviews.
Metadiscourse is kind of linguistic resource that help organize the discourse and engage the reader by commenting explicitly on both the content and the reader.Metadiscourse concerns how rationality appears, how the speaker is made trustworthy, and how the readers are drawn closer emotionally, so it has been acknowledged to be effective for persuasion (Crismore et al., 1993;Hyland, 1998Hyland, , 2005Hyland, , 2017;;Fuertes-Olivera et al., 2001;Dafouz-Milne, 2008;Lee & Deakin, 2016;Ho, 2016Ho, , 2018b;;Ho & Li, 2018).The role metadiscourse plays in persuasion in hotel responses to negative reviews cannot be overlooked.Yet few studies have paid enough attention to the role metadiscourse in making hotel responses to negative reviews persuasive (Ho, 2018a(Ho, , 2020)).To fill this gap, this study aims to find out what metadiscourse resources in hotel responses to negative reviews are adopted and how they help hotels achieve their persuasive purposes with the data on TripAdvisor for illustration.By doing so, it is hoped that hotels will be inspired to apply metadiscourse resources in their responses to negative reviews on line in order to strengthen persuasion effectiveness.This paper starts with the introduction of research background and rationale, followed by a review of relevant literature on hotel responses and metadiscourse and a presentation of research questions and data collection process.Then it proceeds to analyze the data and discuss the results.Finally, based on the analyses and discussion, this paper concludes by summarizing the research findings and pointing out the research limitations.

Persuasiveness in Hotel Responses to Negative Reviews
The persuasive goals hotels intend to achieve by responding to negative reviews online can be roughly categorized into 1) restoring the damaged reputation, 2) winning customers' trust, and 3) enhancing rapport with customers.
First, online reputation management represents a primary goal (Zhang & Vásquez, 2014).Negative reviews can damage a company's reputation and give rise to revenue decline (e.g., Sparks & Browning, 2011;Vermeulen & Seegers, 2009).Ho (2017b) pointed out that websites such as TripAdvisor provide service providers with a channel to restore the damaged reputation caused by negative comments (e.g., Litvin & Hoffman, 2012;O'Connor, 2010;Zhao et al., 2020).In addition to reputation management, winning trust remains yet another important goal.If exposed to negative comments, consumers are less likely to trust the hotel ad have lower booking intention (Ladhari & Michaud, 2015).Therefore, one key feature of effective responses to negative reviews is their ability to win the trust of both the original reviewers and those reading the review-response pairs from the website (e.g., Ho, 2019;Sparks et al., 2016), thus suggesting the importance of the hotels' ability to provide persuasive responses.Lastly, hotels are tasked with maintaining a healthy and lasting relationship with customers.Hotels need to provide persuasive responses, and the persuasiveness of these responses is related to how the hotels try to manage rapport with unhappy customers (Ho, 2020).Rapport management is "the use of language to promote, maintain or threaten harmonious social relations" (Spencer-Oatey, 2008, p. 3).
From previous studies, we can see that appropriate responses to negative reviews can positively influence customer satisfaction, trust, repurchase intention, and sales.

Definitions and Categorizations
The term "metadiscourse" was coined by Zellig Harris in 1959, referring to a writer's or speaker's attempts to direct how a reader perceives the text.Drawing on the three macro-functions of language Halliday (1973) identified, Vande Kopple (1985) divided metadiscourse into interpersonal and textual.Hyland (2005) defined metadiscourse as "a cover term for self-reflective expressions used to negotiate interactional meanings in a text, assisting the writer/speaker to express a viewpoint and engage with readers as members of a particular community" (p.37) and suggested that all metadiscourse is interpersonal in that it takes into consideration the reader's knowledge, textual experiences, and processing needs (Hyland & Tse, 2004, p. 161).Previously it was stated that textual metadiscourse organizes the text, which, in fact, shows that the writer wants the readers to understand what was said, which implies the interpersonal feature of the text.
Interactive metadiscourse helps readers understand a text by explaining, orienting, and guiding them through the information to understand the text the way the writer/speaker intended (Hyland, 2005, p. 75).There are five sub-categories: transition markers, frame markers, endophoric markers, evidentials, and code glosses.Interactional metadiscourse expresses the writer's stance and turns readers into discourse participants.There are five sub-categories: hedges, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions, and engagement markers.Ho (2018a) has modified this model by eliminating evidentials which, according to Hyland himself, explicitly mark a text's external relation.The idea of referring to ideas from other texts contradicts the third principle put forward by Hyland himself "that metadiscourse refers only to relations which are internal to the discourse " (2005, p. 38).This modified model will be adopted since the present study concerns only relations internal to the discourse.

The Pragmatic Functions of Metadiscourse
Metadiscourse presents the authorial stance and serves for reader engagement (Hyland, 2001), and it can also contextualize the discourse in which it occurs (Li, 2007).The one pragmatic function of metadiscourse that receives the most attention is how metadiscourse serves to persuade.Metadiscourse can fulfill this persuasive function as it can serve to make appeals to the writer's rationality, writer credibility and character, and the reader's feelings and emotions.In other words, metadiscourse accomplishes persuasive objectives by contributing to the same rational, credible, and affective appeals which have characterized persuasive discourse since Aristotle (Hyland, 1998, p. 233).
According to Aristotle, logos concerns the logic of the argument; ethos is about the persona the speaker projected; and pathos requires arousing the audience's emotions.The speaker validates his or her ideas by revealing his or her trustworthy character (ethos) and providing logical facts and arguments (logos) while bonding with the audience (pathos) (Benjamin, 1997).Logos refers to the clarity and integrity of the logical argument (Holt & MacPherson, 2010).Although logos is mainly appealed to through the propositional content, how writers present arguments and link elements in the text is equally essential because logos in rhetoric is not just rationality but the appearance of rationality (Higgins & Walker, 2012).The logical connections used to elaborate an argument by adding, comparing, sequencing, or explaining its elements are critical to a text's overall persuasive force (Hyland, 2005).This is where the interactive metadiscourse has a role to play.Since only two endophoric markers were found in the data, the following analysis will focus on transition markers, frame markers, and code glosses.Transitions appeal to logos by explicitly showing the relations between main clauses so readers can better understand the text as it is logical and well-organized.Frame markers appeal to logos by smoothing the flow of ideas so readers can know where they are and where they are going when reading the text.Code glosses appeal to logos by elaborating on certain propositions, so the texts make more sense to the readers.
Ethos concerns the character of the speaker, which is the projected persona highlighting his/her credibility and trustworthiness (Golden et al., 1972).Successful persuasion depends greatly on the writer's ability to create an effective ethos (Hyland, 2005).Several types of interactional metadiscourse resources project a trustworthy persona: hedges, boosters, and self-mentions.Hedges appeal to ethos by withholding the degree of commitment the writer/speaker possesses towards the propositions, thus projecting a modest and cautious persona.Boosters appeal to ethos by closing down alternatives and thus projecting a confident persona.Self-mentions appeal to ethos by highlighting the authorial presence, thus building a personal ethos of authority.
Pathos refers to the audience's feelings and relies for the persuasive effect on triggering audience emotions such as happiness, sadness, satisfaction, pity, or fear (Aho, 1985).Writers can appeal to pathos by involving readers in the discourse.This goal can be achieved with the help of several types of interactional metadiscourse: engagement markers, attitude markers, self-mentions, and hedges.Engagement markers appeal to pathos by allowing the readers to feel what it is like to be in the situation.Attitude markers appeal to pathos by helping to express the writers' attitudes, feelings, and emotions towards a proposition (Ho, 2017) and thus awaken certain emotions in the readers.Self-mentions appeal to pathos by explicitly connecting the communicator with the message, which increases the personal identification with message content, fosters affinity, and resonates better with the audience (Wang et al., 2012).In addition, hedges appeal to pathos by showing the reluctance to express the views decisively, thus signaling respect for readers.As Aristotle's framework is clear and establishes guidelines for the analysis of persuasion, it is adopted by many scholars who have looked at the persuasive function of metadiscourse through the perspective of logos, ethos, and pathos (e.g., Crismore & Farnsworth, 1989;Hyland 1998Hyland , 2005;;Afros & Schryer, 2009;Wang, 2012;Ho, 2018bHo, , 2020;;Huang & Rose, 2018;Ho & Li, 2018;Hu & Li, 2018;Albalat-Mascarell & Carrió-Pastor, 2019).
Studies on the persuasive function of metadiscourse in business contexts mainly focus on CEO letters, advertisements, workplace e-mails, business negotiations (Xie, 2012), FYI letters (Vergaro, 2005), business websites (González, 2005;Perez, 2014), job postings (Fu, 2012), and e-releases (Skorczynska, 2020), with CEO letters receiving the most attention.Hyland (2005) illustrated that hedges, boosters, engagement markers, and evidentials make the most contributions to enhancing ethos in that they build the CEOs' credibility appeals.Attitude markers and engagement markers enhance pathos, and the interactive metadiscourse resources are closely related to logos.Hu and Li (2017) compared the metadiscourse resources in Amazon's and Tencent's letters to shareholders, demonstrating that the two differed in achieving rhetoric through metadiscourse.Amazon was more effective in persuasion because it maintained a balance among ethos, pathos, and logos.

The Persuasive Function of Metadiscourse in Hotel Responses to Negative Reviews
Specifically, Victor Ho conducted two studies examining this linguistic resource in this very genre in 2018 and 2020.Ho (2018a) investigated whether customers considered rapport management and persuasive strategies in hotel responses effective.Moves in such responses were identified as rapport management strategies, and persuasive strategies were analyzed regarding how metadiscourse appeals to rationality, credibility, and emotion.In terms of metadiscourse use pattern, effective responses contained more transitions, code glosses, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions, and engagement markers.The analysis of how metadiscourse serves persuasion within Aristotle's framework did not prevail.
Ho (2020) took one step further and investigated the role played by metadiscourse in rapport-managing moves in the responses to negative reviews on TripAdvisor while examining the manager's degree of commitment to enhancing and damaging rapport.It is demonstrated that pathos is a meta-strategy for managing rapport.Managers are more committed to enhancing rapport than challenging it, suggesting they value a harmonious relationship with customers.Metadiscourse can further enhance the rapport-managing effects of the relevant moves.It can be inferred that rapport enhancement is a vital goal in hotel responses, and this article emphasized what metadiscourse can do to achieve this goal.

Summary
In sum, metadiscourse should be interpreted as a pragmatic phenomenon and persuasion is its most important function.As for hotel responses to negative reviews, the significance of doing so has been widely acknowledged since appropriate responses can positively influence customer satisfaction, trust, and repurchase intention.Attention should be paid to the persuasive goals of responses to negative reviews online, which include restoring the damaged reputation, winning customers' trust, and maintaining a harmonious relationship with customers.The realization of these goals is believed to ultimately boosts the business.Although metadiscourse plays a decisive role regarding persuasion, persuasive goals intended by hotels were not specified, let alone the role played by metadiscourse in achieving each of these goals.As regards the study of persuasion, Aristotle's theory provides clear instructions for the analysis of persuasion.Therefore, based on the previous research concerning metadiscourse and persuasion, this study attempted to examine the persuasive functions of metadiscourse resources in hotel responses to negative reviews using Aristotle's theory with a view to filling the existent research gap.

Research Questions
The present study aims to discuss the role metadiscourse plays in achieving persuasive goals in hotel responses to negative reviews by answering the following two research questions: 1)What types of metadiscourse resources are in hotel responses to negative reviews on TripAdvisor?How are they distributed?
2)How do metadiscourse, through logos, ethos, and pathos, help achieve the persuasive goals of hotel responses to negative reviews on TripAdvisor?

Data Collection
The data collected for the present research are hotel responses to negative reviews on TripAdvisor, the most popular global travel website based originally in America.There are several criteria for data collection.The first criterion is to identify responses to negative reviews.Among all the review rating categories, those under the categories of "Average," "Poor," and "Terrible" are regarded as negative reviews and the correspondent responses to these reviews were chosen for analysis.The second criterion is to include only negative review responses written in English.The third criterion is to identify the popular destinations for data sources in order to collect data rich enough for the existence of various types of metadicourse resources.To do so, 5 top popular destinations (Bali, London, Dubai, Rome, and Paris) decided by travelers on TripAdvisor and four latest responses by ten top-rated hotels from each of these five destinations were chosen.As a result, a total of all, 200 responses in English to negative reviews from 50 hotels in the top 5 tourist destinations were collected directly from the website, amounting to 39305 words.The data collection is illustrated in Table 1 below

Analytical Procedure
In an attempt to answer the first research question, quantitative research was conducted with the help of AntConc 3.5.9(Window) 2020.A tool named "word list" in AntConc was used to identify and locate the metadiscourse markers in the data since it could deal with a list of words simultaneously instead of one word at a time.It should be noted that the metadiscourse markers can take three different forms: words, phrases, and punctuation marks.However, the "word list" tool can only examine the concordances of metadiscourse markers in the form of words, so the phrases had to be examined through the search box of AntConc and punctuation marks through the search box of Microsoft Word.The author then examined each item to ensure that the words serving as metadiscourse resources were selected while those that do not serve as metadiscourse were screened out.The manual examination was conducted based on the definitions, distinctive features, and examples of metadiscourse markers provided by previous scholars (e.g., Vande Kopple, 1985;Crismore, 1993;Hyland, 2005;Ho, 2020).
The actual frequency of each word was then documented.
For the second research question, qualitative analysis was conducted.Specific examples from the data were analyzed to examine how hotels attempt to achieve persuasive goals with the help of metadiscourse resources within Aristotle's framework.

Overall Distribution of Metadiscourse Resources
After data processing, the quantification of the nine sub-categories of metadiscourse resources and their corresponding proportions are presented in Table 2 below.Table 2 shows that among all metadiscourse resources used, the interactive metadiscourse markers account for 13.4%, while the proportion of interactional markers is as high as 86.6%.Interactional metadiscourse markers are obviously used more frequently, indicating that they play a more critical role in this type of genre.This result is in line with the result of Ho (2020)'s study in which he found interactive metadiscourse markers is 80.4% less frequently adopted than interactional ones.Given that interactive metadiscourse helps the readers understand the texts by guiding them through the information, the relatively less frequent use of it may mean that the hotels believe that the readers would not encounter many difficulties in reading and understanding the responses.The relatively frequent use of interactional metadiscourse indicates that the hotels attach more importance to drawing the readers into the texts.This difference indicates that hotels tend to pay more attention to highlighting their stances and involving the readers than to the coherence of the discourse.

Distribution of Interactive Metadiscourse
A further look into interactive metadiscourse shows that transition markers (10.21%) are the most dominant subcategory , which is similar to the result of Ho (2020).This is followed by frame markers (1.92%) and the least frequently used metadiscourse markers are the endophoric markers (0.03%).
Transition markers express relations between main clauses, and words like and, but, consequently, however, and phrases such as at the same time, on the other hand, as a result are categorized as transitions.Many negative reviews in the data include complaints from dissatisfied customers, and the hotels made their effort to provide a thorough explanation to clarify some misunderstandings and present a complete picture of the situation by adopting transition markers in their responses.The dominance of transition markers in the interactive category indicates that these devices are essential in this type of genre and that the hotels are likely to pay attention to the coherence of the discourse.
In short, when responding to negative reviews on TripAdvisor, the hotels tend to rely on different transitions to add information to, counter, or signal consequences of certain propositions so that the responses can be coherent, logical, and persuasive.Hence, there is a preference for transition markers in hotel responses to negative reviews.

Distribution of Interactional Metadiscourse
Interactional metadiscourse helps express the writer's stance to draw the readers to the text.Self-mentions (38.88%) are the most dominant subcategory, followed by engagement markers (33.24%).Hedges appear least frequently in the present study (3.49%) , which may be attributed to the fact that though hedges project a cautious image, hotels are reluctant to mitigate the commitment to what has been said.
Self-mentions are explicit references to the author(s), so the words I, me, my, mine, we, our, and us are categorized as self-mentions.Among the interactional metadiscourse markers, self-mentions appear most frequently, accounting for 38.88% of all metadiscourse markers in the data.Self-mentions can be exploited to align the writers with the views expressed, showing they are committed to their own words.In hotel responses, first-person pronouns such as I and we can help project themselves into the texts.When combined with attitude markers, self-mentions can be used to show that the feelings and thoughts expressed are from a clear, identifiable source, thus bringing the readers closer.
Engagement markers explicitly help build a relationship with readers, so pronouns that directly address the readers, such as you and your, and verbs that involve the readers in the text, such as allow, note, remember, find, and phrases, such as do not, let's (let us), and question marks are categorized as engagement markers.The frequent appearance of engagement markers in the data suggests a high degree of interaction between hotels and the reviewers.Using the second pronouns you and your creates a feeling of constant feedback, which resembles a face-to-face conversation's dynamics, turning the review-response pair into effective and direct communication.
By directly addressing the reviewers in constant way, the hotels try to make the reviewer feel valued and important, thus arousing some pleasant feelings towards the situation.
In sum, when responding to negative reviews on TripAdvisor, the hotels are likely to prioritize the interaction between themselves and the reviewers.Hence, there is a preference for self-mentions and engagement markers.

The Realization of Persuasive Goals
This section will look into how metadiscourse help achieve persuasive goals through logos, ethos, and pathos, within Aristotle's framework.In the upcoming analysis, acronyms placed in square brackets refer to different types of metadiscourse resources: B for boosters, EM for engagement markers, TM for transition markers, CG for code glosses, SM for self-mentions, H for hedges, and AM for attitude markers.

Restoring the Damaged Reputation
According to Ho (2018a), TripAdvisor can be tremendously valuable for hotels as they can proactively manage their reputation by effectively responding to each negative comment on this platform.Effective responses contain more transitions, code glosses, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions, and engagement markers.The repetitive appearance of these markers appeals to rationality (logos), credibility (ethos), and emotions (pathos), thus making hotel responses to negative reviews more persuasive.
( In Example 1, the reviewer complained that the rooms were tiny and that although it was not a problem for her, it might be undesirable for some other customers.Also, the reviewer complained about the air-conditioner.As a result, these unfavorable comments made in the review may produce a negative impression of the hotel in potential customers.So it is natural that the hotel would try to respond in a way to restore the damaged reputation. In the response, self-mentions, either alone or combined with attitude markers, help add a personal touch to the expression of emotions to draw the readers closer ("We are sincerely sorry..."; "We apologize..."; "I highly invite you...") and present the hotel as a whole in solving problems ("contact our team"; "stay in our house").With the help of these markers, the hotel managed to provide a personal, heartfelt apology for the condition the the air conditioner.The frequent addressing of the engagement markers "you" "your" and "our customers" helps bring closer the relationship between the hotel and reviewers and readers and impresses the readers that the hotel keeps the customers' needs in mind.
The transition marker "and" links ideas, and "therefore" signals the relation between the two arguments and they together help the readers understand that the tiny space of the rooms was due to the long and rich history behind the building."Nevertheless" signals that the previous argument has been countered, meaning that even if the rooms were small, the hotel made the most of the space to comfort the customers.The code glosses used here are the parentheses, elaborating on how exactly the hotel maximized the space, which helps convince the reviewer to believe in their sincerity in dealing with her complaint.
The use of these markers is beneficial for the hotel to regain its reputation and win back the customers.
Interactional markers such as self-mentions, attitude markers, and engagement markers appeal to ethos and pathos by projecting a responsible persona and by showing that the hotel cared about customers' feelings.
Interactive markers such as transition markers and code glosses appeal to logos by linking ideas to present the argument orderly.Interactional and interactive markers can work together to serve the response as a persuasive, effective one through the three means of persuasion, attempting to restore the image and reputation damaged by the negative review.

Winning Trust
When a hotel (the trustee) fails to live up to the expectations of its customers (the trustor), a change in the degree of trust will occur (Linell & Marková, 2013), and the hotel will possibly be accused of violating the trust its customers have in it (Ho, 2019).Accusations of trust violation may be competence-based, benevolence-based, or integrity-based.Once trust is violated, the trustee may attempt to win the customers' trust again, which can be achieved through discourse (Fuoli & Paradis, 2014).To win the trust of the reviewer-reader pair, the hotels have to create an ethos, i.e., present a competent, authoritative, and trustworthy persona in their responses, which could be realized through metadiscourse resources such as hedges, boosters, and self-mentions.
(2) Example 2 Review: ...The resort and room looked very nice but I could not get over the smell of mold in our room.I asked if we could swap rooms but the resort was booked out.The staff were apologetic and brought a dehumidifier but it did not get rid of the smell and I had a headache the entire time...My friend's room on the top floor also smelt strongly of mold...With this idea there will be no any issue again about the mold smell.
In Example 2, the customer was greatly bothered by the smell of mold in the room, and not even the dehumidifier provided by the hotel could ameliorate the situation.This negative review includes the competence-based accusation of trust violation, which suggests that the hotels did not possess the required skills and ability to provide the level of service expected (Ho, 2019).Those who read the review from the website may have a negative impression about the hotel and will have second thoughts booking it for accommodation.In order to win the trust of the customers, the hotel responded by presenting itself as competent and trustworthy with the help of metadiscourse resources such as hedges, boosters, and self-mentions to appeal to ethos.
The booster "do" in the response emphasizes how apologetic the hotel was, and two other boosters "really" and "a lot" help attribute the unpleasant situation to the bad weather over which the hotel had no control, thus conveying the full degree of commitment of the hotel to what was said and avoid being doubted on the capability of the hotel.Then by using the booster "sure", the hotel tried to emphasize that it was the only one that could provide a dehumidifier for the customers to improve the air circulation, thus impressing readers that the hotel is confident and capable enough to solve similar problems.The hotel succeeded in demonstrating a confident and decisive image and winning the customers' trust by appealing to ethos with boosters.
The hedge "could not" serves to mitigate the degree of commitment to the statement that the hotel is not up to par, thus avoiding discrediting the hotel directly.The adoption of self-mentions highlights the hotel as the subject of showing gratitude ("we wanna thank you..."), offering an apology ("we do apologize that..."), recognizing problems ("we could not live up to your expectation..."), offering a solution ("we provide the Dehumidifier..."), and making progress in improving the undesirable situation ("we are on progress to the setup..."), thus presenting the hotel as an entity willing to face and capable of solving the problems in order to win the trust of the customers.Expressing certainty in capability (with boosters), mitigating a negative statement concerning the hotel itself (with hedges), and highlighting the hotel as an agent of shouldering responsibility and making improvements (with self-mentions) will greatly appeal to ethos, ultimately making the response persuasive enough to win back the trust of the customers.

Enhancing Rapport
Enhancing rapport remains as another important persuasive goal for hotels in responding to negative reviews, as it benefits the business.According to Ho (2020), rapport-enhancing moves in hotel responses to negative reviews include Acknowledging Problem, Agreeing with Reviewer, Continuing Relationship, Expressing Feelings, Offering Assistance, Recognizing Reviewer's or Comment's Value, and Thanking Reviewer.To successfully enhance rapport, one has to attempt to arouse a pleasant feeling or emotion in one's interactant: making one feel important, valued, accepted, autonomous, and satisfied.In other words, appealing to one's pathos (feelings and emotions) can be regarded as the meta-strategy for managing rapport.This would allow metadiscourse resources such as self-mentions, engagement markers, and attitude markers to play a crucial role as they can strengthen the appeals to pathos.
( In Example 3, the reviewer was not happy about the snug room.The hotel used several rapport-enhancing moves to maintain a friendly relationship with the reviewer.Engagement markers, self-mentions, and attitude markers strengthen the rapport-enhancing effect of these moves.
In Example 3, in its response to the negative review, the hotel began by thanking the reviewer for taking the time to write down the review.The self-mention "I" highlights the subject of expressing gratitude, and the engagement marker "you" directly addresses the reviewer, both of which help bring the reviewer closer.The two attitude markers "accurate" and "important" adequately convey the hotel's recognition of the value of the reviewer's comment, which help attending to her face wants.The rapport-enhancing moves used here are Thanking the Reviewer and Recognizing Reviewer's or Comment's Value.
Following this, the self-mentions "we" and "our" highlight the hotel as the subject who is "glad" (attitude marker) about satisfying the customer, and the engagement markers "you" and "your" directly address the reviewer to make her feel herself important.Later the hotel tried to express regret to the reviewer for her not having the best time in the hotel by using the attitude marker "it is with regret to read".The rapport-enhancing move used here is Expressing Feelings, indicating the idea that the hotel is happy when the reviewer is happy and regretted when the reviewer is unsatisfied.Thus, the hotel is able to appeal to pathos and enhance rapport by conveying the image that the hotel values customers' feelings.
In the end, the hotel provided an explanation for the rooms being so small by adopting engagement markers "you", "note" and self-mentions "our" , showing that the hotel has acknowledged the problem instead of denying it and that he/she hoped the reviewer would understand the historical reason that caused the undesirable situation.
The rapport-enhancing move used here is Acknowledging Problem.Throughout the response, the hotel tried to make the reviewer feel important, valued, accepted, and satisfied.Engaging the reviewer (with engagement markers) and expressing of attitude (with attitude markers) from an identifiable, personal source (with self-mentions) would greatly appeal to pathos, ultimately serving to enhance rapport and making the response more persuasive.

Discussion
Regarding the overall distribution, interactional metadiscourse markers appear more frequently than interactive ones, which indicates the strong tendency of hotel respondents to involve readers in the texts.This result is in line with Ho (2020)'s study in which he found interactive metadiscourse markers are 80.4% less frequently adopted than interactional ones.As for interactional metadiscourse markers, the large proportion of self-mentions (38.88%) reflects the hotels' attempts to project their personas into the discourse.The frequent use of engagement markers (33.24%) shows that the hotels' readiness to value the readers.Boosters (5.8%) are used more frequently than hedges (3.49%), showing that the hotels are ready to exhibit firmness and show commitment to their propositions rather than withhold it.Attitude markers also play an important role (5.2%), as they are a great tool for appealing to the emotions and feelings of the readers.As for interactive metadiscourse markers, transition markers play a dominant role (10.21%) in exhibiting the coherence of the discourse, to which the hotels pay much attention.Although frame markers (1.92%) and code glosses (1.24%) are used less than transitions, they are also helpful in directing the readers toward the interpretation intended by the hotels.Endophoric markers are rarely used (0.03%), which may result from the average length of the responses being short.
Different types of metadiscourse markers can play different roles.Hotels appeal to logos by elucidating how clauses are related (with transitions), by making the flow of ideas clear and smooth (with frame markers), and by clarifying the meaning of key terms (with code glosses).Hotels appeal to ethos as they can establish a credible persona by showing cautiousness and reservation (with hedges), maintaining a certain degree of certainty and commitment (with boosters), and presenting themselves as willing to commit to their own promise or handle further inquiries or complaints (with self-mentions).Hotels appeal to pathos by making readers discourse participants (with engagement markers), by expressing their feelings and attitudes towards a proposition (with attitude markers), and the hotels' involvement in these two acts is highlighted by the use of first-person pronouns (with self-mentions).Specifically, hotels can also appeal to pathos by showing a reluctance to express views decisively and signaling respect for the readers (with hedges).Therefore, the preference for interactional metadiscourse markers indicates that hotels rely more on ethos and pathos appeals.
Persuasive goals the hotels intended to achieve include restoring the damaged reputation (Litvin & Hoffman, 2012;O'Connor, 2010), winning the customers' trust (Ho, 2019;Sparks et al., 2016), and enhancing rapport with customers (Ho, 2020).It can be concluded as follows: 1) Hotels attempt to restore the damaged reputation by providing persuasive, effective responses containing more transitions, code glosses, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions, and engagement markers that appeal to logos, ethos, and pathos.The reputation of hotels may benefit from the use of these markers, as they show how committed and sincere the hotels are to their apologies/explanations (appealing to ethos and pathos) and help organize the response so that the readers find it easier to understand/accept that hotels are not to be blamed (appealing to logos).
2) Hotels try to win the trust of the reviewer-reader pair by creating an ethos through hedges, boosters, and self-mentions.Expressing certainty in capability (with boosters), mitigating a negative statement concerning the hotel itself (with hedges), and highlighting the hotel as an agent of shouldering responsibility and making improvements (with self-mentions) would greatly appeal to ethos, ultimately make the response more persuasive and serve to win the customers' trust.
3) Hotels endeavor to enhance rapport by appealing to one's pathos through self-mentions, hedges, engagement markers, and attitude markers.The engaging of the reviewer (with engagement markers) and expressing of attitude (with attitude markers) from an identifiable, personal source (with self-mentions) would greatly appeal to pathos, ultimately enhance rapport and make the response more persuasive.When responding to negative reviews online, hotels can consider which goal to emphasize and which aspect matters the most to them before they decide which subcategories of metadiscourse resources to use.

Conclusion
This research investigated the types of metadiscourse resources in hotel responses to negative reviews on TripAdvisor and how these resources help achieve persuasive goals.The research finds that nine types of metadiscourse are used in the sample, and interactional metadiscourse markers are used considerably more frequently than the interactive markers, indicating that they play a more critical role in the genre.Transition markers are the dominant interactive subcategory, indicating that the hotels paid attention to providing coherent and logical responses.Self-mentions and engagement markers are the dominant interactional subcategories, indicating that the hotels prioritized the interaction between themselves and the reviewers.
Persuasive goals the hotels intend to achieve include restoring the damaged reputation, winning customers' trust, and enhancing rapport with customers.When responding to negative reviews online, hotels can consider which goal to emphasize and which aspect matters the most to them before they choose different subcategories of metadiscourse resources in their responses.
The limitation of the study is threefold.Firstly, owing to time constraints, the data collected is limited.Therefore, the results may not be completely valid and sufficient.Secondly, the identification of metadiscourse, the interpretation of persuasive functions, and the choice of examples are more or less subjective which may make the results biased to a certain degree.Thirdly, the current analysis looks at persuasion effectiveness of hotel responses only from the linguistic perspective, yet it is not enough to get an overall understanding without considering the opinions and comments from the reviewers or readers themselves.As for future research, it is suggested that data with a larger size and greater diversity be collected to reveal a relatively more sufficient pattern, that data be dealt with by several researchers to minimize the influence of subjectivity and that a combination of survey investigation be conducted to enhance the overall understanding of the effectiveness of persuasion in hotel responses.
Response: ...Firstly we[SM] wanna say thank you for choosing [hotel name] for your home in Ubud and we[SM] do[B] apologize that we[SM] could not[H] live up to your expectation.The weather in Ubud is unpredictable and most of the time is raining a lot[B], sunshine just a few hours a day which is really[B] impacted a lot[B] with the room air circulation.Therefore, we[SM] provide the Dehumidifier and I[SM]'m sure[B] that no one hotel provide this machine in Ubud.Now we[SM] are on progress to setup the charcoal in suite room to filterer the air circulation.

Table 1 .
. Overall description of the data collected

Table 2 .
Metadiscourse resources in hotel responses to negative reviews 1) Example 1Review: As other reviews state the rooms are tiny, which is not a big deal if you are expecting it.It is especially nice that they have under-bed chambers for luggage to make a little more space in the room.The air conditioning turns off in the rooms during the day which made them extremely uncomfortable even though it wasn't especially hot outside... Response: ...We[SM] are sincerely[B] sorry[AM] to see that your[EM] stay with us[SM] did not met your[EM] expectations and[TM] we[SM] apologize for all the inconvenience caused by the A/C issues.Le Marais is one of the oldest district of Paris and most of buildings, like the one we[SM] are established to, were built in the end of 17th century with an architectures which therefore[TM], impose space restrictions.Nevertheless[TM], our[SM] 8 room categories offer 15 to 35m² and have been designed to offer maximum space and comfort to our guests[EM] ([CG]space under the bed made for suitcases in order to have more space in the room)[CG].I[SM] highly invite you[EM] to contact our[SM] team for your[EM] next stay in our[SM] House, they will be happy[AM] to help you[EM] to find the perfect gem for you[EM]...
Triple Room with the Hotel we stayed at in between that had a King bed (with optional rollaway twin) with a much larger room and bathroom with bathtub, I would say the other Hotel we stayed at is much, much, much better and nicer (feel free to message directly and I can provide that info!).Response: First of all, I[SM] would like to thank you[EM] for the time that you[EM] have devoted to write this review.Having such an accurate[AM] feedback is always important[AM] for us[SM].We[SM] are glad[AM] to know that the interior decoration of our[SM] boutique hotel pleased you[EM], and that our[SM] establishment met your[EM] expectations when it came to the breakfast in the morning and cleanliness of our[SM] rooms.Nevertheless, it is with regrets to read[AM] that you[EM]were not happy about the size of the rooms.It is true that they are rather small, especially if you[EM] are used to travel internationally or even when compared to other hotels in different part of the city.Please note[EM] that our[SM] hotel is situated in a historic building, in one of the oldest parts of Paris which is the reason why rooms, but also local apartments are not very large...