How does the admission homepage appeal to applicants? An investigation of digital metadiscourse in university websites

This chapter investigates how admission homepages in the websites of 15 leading US universities use metadiscourse functions to appeal to readers to join the university by portraying the exciting environment that the university has and at the same time to equip them with essential information related to admission processes. The analysis detects three components in admission homepages, namely introductory statements, hyperlinks, and images. The examination of metadiscourse use of these components using Hyland’s (2005) model shows the following results. First, introductory statements are found very dialogic; since the use of the Engagement marker "you" is found predominant. In addition, they include references to the university, thus self-mention features are also pervasive. Second, some hyperlinks have a function of referring to other parts in the same homepage, while some links take the users to sources outside the admission homepage. Based on these two functions, hyperlinks noticeably fulfill two metadiscursive functions: endophoric and evidentials, respectively. Finally, images are used to illustrate the written texts, expose students’ attitudes, and represent the university and its students. Based on these three functions, images are associated with three metadiscourse categories, namely code-glosses, attitude, and self-mentions. Consequently, it can be discerned that the admission homepage is designed to give a positive impression to readers by showing that the institution has a friendly atmosphere and that its students feel happy and enjoy their life (through photos). In addition, the admission homepage provides simple and friendly instructions to facilitate the admission process (through hyperlinks). While the three components include some similarities and differences in terms of the use of metadiscursive functions that they carry, they differ in the number of categories they have. Specifically, the analysis of the first two components (i.e. introductory statements and hyperlinks) indicates that the metadiscourse function is carried out through one metadiscursive category. For images, however, visual metadiscourse is different as in many cases a single image is used to realize multiple categories of metadiscourse.