multimodality journal

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

www.elsevier.com/locate/pragmaJournal of Pragmatics 51 (2013) 13--39

Interdiscursivity, hypertextuality, multimodality: A corpus-basedmultimodal move analysis of Internet group buying deals

Phoenix W.Y. Lam *

Department of English Language and Literature, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

Received 20 November 2012; received in revised form 6 February 2013; accepted 15 February 2013

Abstract

Internet group buying has gained unprecedented popularity worldwide in a handful of years, yet little scholarly work has been done on thisincreasingly important sales and marketing channel. Specifically, no discourse-related studies thus far have examined the genericcharacteristics of Internet group buying deals. Through the examination of the 100 most popular Internet group buying deals from thetop 10 group buying websites targeting mainly the market in Hong Kong, the present study investigates the rhetorical structure of Internetgroup buying deals by means of a corpus-based multimodal move analysis. This novel approach integrating corpus techniques andmultimodal dimensions into the study of move structure identifies 13 move types in the genre and reveals how Internet group buying deals arerhetorically organized through the interplay between the mixing of interdiscursive elements, the use of hypertextual links and the selection ofmultimodal resources. The dynamic interactions revealed by the present study not only further our understanding of a previously unexaminedyet discursively complex genre, but also contribute to theory and methodology development in genre analysis in the digital age.© 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Corpus-based studies; Genre; Hypertextuality; Interdiscursivity; Move analysis; Multimodality

1. Introduction

As an emerging form of e-commerce, Internet group buying has become a worldwide phenomenon gainingunprecedented popularity in merely a handful of years. Originated from the long-established Chinese concept of ‘tuángòu’( ), or literally group or team buying, this novel online sales and marketing model is a case of applying new technology to anold yet commercially viable business strategy. Group buying, also known as group purchase or collective buying, providesbuyers with the opportunity to purchase products and services at prices which are often significantly reduced, provided that aminimum number of buyers has been reached, usually within a specified time period. As such, much of the success of groupbuying traditionally hinged on the collective bargaining power of consumers. Thanks to the Internet, and in particular thewidely influential social media platforms, this power can now increase exponentially through the union of online shoppers,making Internet group buying a major consumer trend on the web, as thousands of group buying websites proliferate globally.

Despite its fast-earned phenomenal success, little scholarly work has been done on Internet group buying. The very smallnumber of academic outputs available is mostly business-oriented (e.g. Wei et al., 2011). Thus far, no discourse-relatedstudies have focused on Internet group buying deals. The generic characteristics of this increasingly important sales andmarketing form are hence unduly overlooked. However, Internet group buying deal is interesting to study from a discursiveperspective for two reasons. First, it is an evolving digital business genre which to date has not been previously examined,despite its wide international currency in the domain of commerce and the growing significance of computer-mediated

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communication in general. Second, this technology-facilitated genre is typically rich in multimodal and multimedia resources,allowing genre analysis to be conducted not solely on the linguistic elements, as is often the case in previous studies, but alsoon other semiotic devices, as well as the interactions between them. The study of Internet group buying deals following adiscourse-oriented approach therefore contributes to the further development of genre theory in the digital age.

Through examining the 100 most popular Internet group buying deals from the top 10 group buying websites targetingmainly the Hong Kong market, the present study aims to identify the rhetorical structure of Internet group buying dealsusing a corpus-based multimodal move analysis. The key objective of the study is to investigate how Internet group buyingdeals are rhetorically organized through the interplay between the mixing of interdiscursive elements, the use ofhypertextual links and the selection of multimodal resources.

2. Conceptual background

2.1. Interdiscursivity, hypertextuality and multimodality

As an inherent property of any text, interdiscursivity is concerned with the dynamic interaction between genres,discourses, practices and cultures (Bhatia, 2010; Candlin and Maley, 1997; Fairclough, 1992). Specifically, it refers to ‘‘theuse of elements in one discourse and social practice which carry institutional and social meanings from other discoursesand social practices’’ (Candlin and Maley, 1997, p. 212). An often-quoted example of interdiscursivity is advertorials,where features and resources from other genres including advertisements, newspaper reports and editorials can befound. While interdiscursivity is a pervasive phenomenon, the ways and the extent to which it is manifested in differenttypes of texts and in different parts of the same text are far from being fully understood. As noted by Bhatia (2010, p. 35),the concept has not thus far been ‘‘sufficiently developed to investigate some of the complexities we find in discursive andprofessional practices within genre analytical literature’’. These complexities are further accentuated in the InformationAge, when the appropriation, borrowing or sharing of semiotic resources across genres, discourse communities,professional practices and disciplinary cultures is much easier, quicker and cheaper than before through technology.

A closely related notion of interdiscursivity is intertextuality, which shows ‘‘how texts contain within themselves evidencesof the histories of other texts’’ (Candlin and Maley, 1997, p. 203). Intertextuality can be manifested in various ways throughexplicit reference to other texts, one of which is by using hyperlinks in computer-mediated discourse. As a fundamentalcharacteristic of the Internet (Deuze, 2001), hypertextuality is concerned with how texts are connected through hyperlinks.Such connections may be site-internal, such that hyperlinks connect parts within the same webpage or pages within thesame website, or they may be site-external, such that hyperlinks connect pages from different websites. This web ofconnectivity of various internal and external sources generated by hyperlinks gives users access to ‘‘multiple social voices’’ inthe Bakhtinian sense of heteroglossia (Bargiela-Chiappini, 2006, p. 101). It also alters the conventional, linear reading path inwhich readers interact with a text (cf. Kress, 2010). Instead of following a default sequence suggested by the text producer,web users have multiple pathways, or trajectories (Lemke, 2002), to choose from. The multisequential hypertexts, therefore,enable users to play a more active role in meaning making and thus enhance the interactivity between text producers andrecipients. While a number of online genres have been identified and analyzed since the last decade, the exact functions anddistribution of hyperlinks within and across such genres remain a largely unexplored area.

Apart from hypertextuality, another common feature of digital texts is multimodality, which is defined as ‘‘the use ofseveral semiotic modes in the design of a semiotic product or event, together with the particular way in which the modesare combined’’ (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2001, p. 20). Of course, the deployment of multimodal resources incommunication is nothing new, yet technological advances afford the increased ease, speed and freedom for the creationand reception of high-quality multimodal texts, facilitating the complex and dynamic integration and interaction of suchmultiple modes as writing, layout, (moving) image and music. Following the seminal work of Kress and van Leeuwen(1996, 2006) on the social semiotic approach to communication, there has been a growing interest in how conceptsoriginally developed for the study of meaning in language can be extended to that in other semiotic systems. Traditionalgenre-related studies, however, have mostly been linguistically based and have yet to fully incorporate the indispensabledimension of multimodality in their analysis, digital genres included. Accordingly, existing models and categories of genreand move analysis need to be adapted and ‘‘oriented towards a more generally semiotic, rather than strictly linguistic,approach’’ (Garzone, 2002, p. 295), when texts are increasingly remediated through the computer screen.

2.2. The genre of Internet group buying deals

Much work has been done on developing traditional genre theory (e.g. Bhatia, 1993; Swales, 1990) and identifying andanalyzing genres. It is now widely acknowledged that genre is by no means a static notion. Its fluidity is evidenced by theinterplay across genres and the evolution of genres over time. As Kress (2010, p. 185) remarks, ‘‘the formerly settled

P.W.Y. Lam / Journal of Pragmatics 51 (2013) 13--39 15

patterns of communication -- (at least relative) stability of genres, of discourses, of knowledge -- can no longer beassumed’’. The boundaries between genres, sub-genres, and generic types are thus blurred rather than clear-cut. A casein point particularly relevant to the present discussion of online communication is the highly contested generic status ofwebsites (Catenaccio, 2012). Since the communicative purpose of Internet group buying deals are distinct from othercontents on the Internet group buying websites, they are taken as belonging to one genre in the present discussion.

As a predominantly promotional genre, Internet group buying deals have the overriding rhetorical purpose ofconvincing potential buyers to purchase the item advertised in the deal. To achieve this chief communicative purpose,group buying deals also have to fulfill a number of minor communicative purposes such as attention-seeking, information-giving and network-building. This gives rise to the dynamic interplay across genres, discourses, practices and cultures,where socially available resources of different modalities are employed in a hypertextual environment. Internet groupbuying deals are thus excellent sites for the study of merging discourses, where the notions of interdiscursivity,hypertextuality and multimodality, and their intricate interactions can be thoroughly examined. Initially confined to only onedeal per day, most Internet group buying websites have evolved in the past few years into a multi-deal-a-day model,simultaneously offering a wide range of deals to potential buyers. This diachronic evolution of the genre not only increasesthe number of online deals available for analysis but also enables the comparison of concurrent deals of different typesfrom the same website, making it possible to adopt a corpus-based approach to systematically study the generic structure,the intra-generic and inter-move variations of Internet group buying deals within and across companies.

3. The present study

Through the first in-depth move analysis of Internet group buying deals, the present study aims to shed some light on apreviously unexamined yet discursively complex genre by applying the concepts of interdiscursivity, hypertextuality andmultimodality. It also presents a rare attempt to use corpus techniques in the investigation of discourse structure in genrestudies, allowing patterns of discourse organization to be observed from a large sample of texts rather than from the closeanalysis of a few texts of a genre. This combined approach of corpus and move analysis enables descriptions ofcharacteristics typically associated with each move type to be detailed yet more generalizable (Upton and Cohen, 2009).Further, this study incorporates the examination of multimodal resources in move analysis, a dimension which thus far hasbeen severely understudied in relevant work. As such, the present study seeks to further our understanding of webgenres, and helps to contribute to theory and methodology development in genre analysis in the digital age.

Data of the present study were collected from group buying websites in Hong Kong, a Southeast-Asian city in Chinawhere online group purchase has sky-rocketed with flying colors, despite the curious fact that e-commerce and onlineshopping are not particularly popular among the population of seven million (China Daily, 2012). Since the launch of thefirst local group buying website at the beginning of 2010, the number of such sites has grown to more than 70 in less thantwo years’ time (Experian Hitwise, 2011). Together they generate an estimated collective revenue of US$60--70 millionper year in the local market (China Daily, 2012). The huge success these group buying sites enjoys in Hong Kong is alsowitnessed by their high hit rates and rankings on social media networks. The number of visits to these group buying sites,for example, has increased by 1620% in a year (Experian Hitwise, 2011). The numbers of fans of such sites on Facebookare also among the highest in Hong Kong (Social Power Intelligence, 2012).

To ensure that a representative collection of Hong Kong online group buying deals is obtained and examined, a list ofcandidate websites was first compiled through keyword search on major search engines and through local grouppurchase portal sites. Since figures on web traffic vary greatly, the present study considered a number of factors inassessing the popularity of websites. Candidate websites on the list compiled were ranked according to three criteria: (1)the number of visitors according to their hit rate based on Alexa (2012), the Amazon-affiliated web information companywhich provides statistics on websites including traffic rank calculated from the number of visitors and pageviews; (2) thenumber of fans on their official page on Facebook, the most popular online social network platform in Hong Kong; and (3)the average number of buyers per deal on each website. This triangulation of criteria directly takes into account users’browsing experience, social preference and purchase behavior in evaluating the popularity of such sites. Based on theabove criteria, the ten most popular group buying websites in Hong Kong were identified and their top ten deals attractingthe highest number of buyers on a certain day were selected for further examination. Through incorporating user’sexperience as a visitor, follower and buyer in the data selection process, the present study highlights the importance of textreception in the understanding of what constitutes successful examples of a genre, while most previous genre studiestend to focus mainly on text production in locating suitable texts for analysis.

The top 100 deals, out of the 752 active deals from the ten most popular group buying websites at the time the presentstudy was conducted, attracted a total number of 67,298 buyers, generating a sales figure of approximately HK$8.5 million(US$1.08 million). These deals covered a broad range of items including household products, beauty services, restaurantoffers and courses. This good mix of representative examples of a genre from different companies selling different itemsallows on the one hand generic conventions to be observed, and intra-generic and inter-move variations to be investigated


on the other. Since the focus of the study is specifically on the group buying deals, other contents on the websites whichare not part of the deals in question, such as details about the group buying company and information for businesspartners, are excluded from the present investigation.

As group buying sites are highly location-based and characteristically cater to local markets, the majority of the top tensites offer their content only in Chinese, the first language of most of the city’s population. Consequently, the present studyis based on Chinese texts, a rare endeavor amongst the English-dominated studies in genre and move analysis.Accordingly, the notion of ‘character’ instead of ‘word’ is adopted since it is rendered more applicable and lesscontroversial in analyzing Chinese data (cf. Kong, 2008). Once the 100 deals were identified, they were captured andsaved in different formats to facilitate analysis using a synthesis of discourse analytic, corpus linguistic and social semioticapproaches. This combined qualitative and quantitative approach involved first a close reading of all the deals collected toidentify all the generic move types based primarily on their communicative functions. These deals were then manuallyannotated and segmented in terms of their move structure. Concgram (Greaves, 2009), a corpus linguistics softwareprogram known for its automatic generation of instances of phraseology, was used to process the annotated corpus toprovide such frequency information as the number of characters per deal and move type, as well as the most frequentcharacters in each move type. Through observing the recurrent patterns from a corpus of representative texts using thiscombination of approaches, the typical characteristics of each move type, whether linguistic, multimodal or hypertextual,can be accurately described. Apart from prototypical generic patterns, alternative patterns of move types and differencesbetween move types may also emerge in a corpus-based move analysis (Upton and Cohen, 2009), making it possible tostudy intra-generic and inter-move variations.

In the analysis which follows, the main focus lies in the discussion of the interplay between interdiscursivity,hypertextuality and multimodality in the manifestation of the move structure of the group buying deals examined. Athorough discussion of all the linguistic characteristics associated with each move type is therefore beyond the scope ofthe present paper. Selected linguistic features, especially those closely related to the present focus, will be highlightedinstead where appropriate for illustrative purposes.

4. Results and discussion

4.1. Overview

The move analysis of the corpus of 100 online group buying deals of 111,781 characters identifies a total of 13 movetypes, of which 10 are obligatory and 3 are optional (see Table 1). These 13 move types can be classified into five keydiscourse types according to their main communicative functions, showing that group buying deals are a product ofinterdiscursive elements from different discourses:

� p
romotional discourse: to draw the attention of the website users; to promote the deals of the company; and to committhe users to the actual transaction;
� in
formative discourse: to provide largely factual information on the deal; � s ocial discourse: to establish and strengthen a personal relationship with the website users; to foster the formation of adiscourse community between the group buying website and the actual/potential buyers;
� re
gulatory discourse: to specify the regulations regarding the deal; � in structional discourse: to guide the website users through the specific procedures on how to complete the transaction.
It is worth noting that while the main communicative function of these move types can often be identified and classified intoone of the five key discourse types, a move type may achieve more than one function at a time and these communicativefunctions may at times partly overlap. A case in point for a multifunctional move type is ‘giving full details’, where apredominant function is not apparent. Instead, a number of functions are at work simultaneously, resulting in the uniquecombination of mixed discourse. As will be clear from the specific discussion on each move type, this reveals that theblending of interdiscursive elements is not only confined to different move types within a single genre but also at timesapplies to one single move type of the genre.

Despite the relatively short history of online group buying deals, the analysis suggests that the genre is relatively stablein its internal components, unlike some other persuasion-oriented genres examined in the past which are more structurallyvariable (Upton and Cohen, 2009). This stability is shown by the fact that the majority of the move types identified (77%)are obligatory and occur in all the deals examined. In other words, the ten obligatory move types are found in every deal,regardless of the item promoted or the website on which it is published. This finding indicates that not only are pre-formulated templates commonly used across the deals published on the same website to speed up the publishing processand to maintain a level of consistency, a fairly well-established protocol on how this genre is structurally realized is also in


Table 1Moves identified in the top 100 online group buying deals in Hong Kong (arranged largely in their usual order of appearance).

Move Occurrence

(%)

Average

length of

move in

characters

Hyperlink

use (%)

Non-linguistic

elements (%)

Main

communicative

function

1 Introducing

the title

100 66.1 70 100 promotional

2 Committing

users to the

deal

100 3.4 100 70 promotional

3 Indicating

price details

100 10.05 0 10 informative

4 Indicating

the time left


5 Indicating

the n umber

of buyers


6 Establishing

linkage to

social

media

100 14.8 100 100 social

7 Showing

highlights

100 121.45 15 20 promotional

8 Specifying

the fine

print

100 210.06 74 10 regulatory

9 Providing

contact

information


10 Giving full

details

100 508.77 40 100 mixed

11 Advertising

related

deals

30 117.25 100 100 promotional

12 Offering a

forum

20 184.9 100 75 social

13 Instructing

buyers

10 89 0 0 instructional

usually at the top of the deal (Moves 1-6)

usually in the middle of the deal (Moves 7-8)

usually at the bottom of the deal (Moves 9-13)

place within the online group buying industry between companies. In addition to their internal stability, these move typesare found to follow largely a fixed order as arranged in Table 1 such that move types at the top of the table are oftenpresented first on the webpage and those at the bottom are presented last. A small degree of positional variability incertain move types will be expounded when each move type is discussed. As a means to give a full view of the movesfound in one complete group buying deal, a sample analysis is presented in the Appendices and is intended to supplementthe figures used in the following discussion1.

1 For the benefit of English-speaking readers, figures used in the discussion are either in English or rendered into English for illustrativepurposes. In Appendices A and B, a sample analysis on both the Chinese and English versions of the same online group buying deal is presented.The actual move analysis, however, is solely based on the corpus of 100 deals in Chinese.


4.2. Promotional discourse

Four move types, namely ‘introducing the title’, ‘committing users to the deal’, ‘showing highlights’ and ‘advertisingrelated deals’, are found to be closely affiliated with promotional discourse, with the aim of fulfilling three sub-functions.First, ‘introducing the title’ serves to attract the attention of the potential buyers. Once this first function has been achieved,‘introducing the title’ and ‘showing highlights’ together promote the sales of the current deal, whereas ‘advertising relateddeals’ promotes the sales of other deals on the website. Finally, once the desirable aspects of the deal have beenhighlighted, ‘committing users to the deal’ commits the buyer to the actual transaction. These move types exhibitcharacteristics typically found in the equally promotional advertisements.

4.2.1. Introducing the title‘Introducing the title’ is the label given to the group buying deal in question. As one of its core functions is attention-

grabbing, it is hardly surprisingly that this move type is always placed at the top of the deal and in the majority of cases(80%) serves as the very first move. There are two obligatory sub-moves, ‘verbal title’ and ‘visual title’, which are alwayseither positionally close to or superimposed on each other in all the deals examined. These two sub-moves act as theinitial attention-seeking device respectively through words and images.

Similar to the hook, which is the ‘‘initial piece of attention-seeking verbal language’’ in advertisements (Goddard, 2002,p. 106), ‘verbal title’ is reasonably short with an average of 66.1 characters, never spanning more than five lines in thedeals studied. In addition to its positional prominence and relative shortness, ‘verbal title’ attracts buyers through a largerthan normal font, illustrating a case of interdiscursivity through the appropriation of typography by the website designer.Similarly, ‘visual title’ fulfills its eye-catching function partially through its dominant location and size. At the same time,images selected for ‘visual title’ are vivid in color, creating a stunning impression on the potential buyer. To furtherenhance the visual appeal, ‘visual title’ often employs not one but several aesthetically pleasing images with the use ofpage-internal hyperlinks so that multiple views of the item on offer can be shown consecutively (Fig. 1). In this connection,the attention-grabbing function of the move type is maximized through this high level of hypertextuality and multimodality.

Another main function of ‘introducing the title’ is to promote the sales of the current deal. This is achieved through anemphasis of the unique selling propositions of the deal on offer. In ‘verbal title’, the desirability of the item is heavilyunderlined by the inclusion of the selling price. Of the 100 deals examined, most (83%) provide information on the sellingprice in the sub-move and approximately two-thirds (64%) place this piece of information at the very beginning. Thisfinding reveals that selling price, among all desirable features, is considered the single most significant element inpromoting online group buying deals verbally. In ‘visual title’, on the other hand, it is not the selling price but the graphicdetails of the item which appeal. Accordingly, images are close-up shots which are sharp in focus and highly saturated anddifferentiated in color, representing the promoted item in the deal in high modality albeit against a largely decontexualizedbackground (cf. Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006). The effect is that the desirable details of the item can be clearly shownand emphasized realistically, without the distraction of irrelevant contextual information.

Fig. 1. Visual title.


4.2.2. Committing users to the dealFunctionally speaking, ‘committing users to the deal’ is the most crucial move type as the ultimate aim of online group

buying deals is to commit the buyer to the actual transaction. In this respect, all the other move types can be regarded assubordinate to this move type and only exist to facilitate its realization, which, from the view of the group buying company,should preferably be the turning point for one to change from a potential buyer to an actual buyer. As such, this move typeserves as a critical interface between the deal itself and the buying process which follows. This transition is essentiallymanifested through a site-internal hyperlink, whereby a virtual action effects a change in the real world at the click of abutton. In other words, this action has a ‘‘website-to-world direction of fit’’ (Garzone, 2009, p. 162). This strongly conativemove type is therefore fundamentally hypertextual, as hyperlinks are present in this move type in all the deals examined.

There are two sub-moves of ‘committing users to the deal’: the obligatory ‘buy now’, which is found in all the dealsexamined, and the optional ‘buy it for a friend’, which is only found infrequently (30%). Given its utmost importance,‘committing users to the deal’ is meticulously designed to maximize its accessibility through its location and number ofoccurrence. Like ‘introducing the title’, ‘committing users to the deal’ appears at the top part of the page, commonly as oneof the few initial moves after ‘introducing the title’. Unlike ‘introducing the title’ which occurs only once, however,‘committing users to the deal’ is one of the rare move types which reappear in a deal as an individual move. Thereappearance of ‘buy now’ is found at the very bottom in a small number of deals (30%), providing double opportunities forthis move to be accessed. While the optional sub-move ‘buy it for a friend’ is untypical in frequency terms and occurs onlyonce per deal if present, it nonetheless helps to further expand business by highlighting the possibility of buying the itemfor others. Apart from accessibility, this move type is also made more recognizable through its visual appearance. With anaverage length of 3.4 characters, ‘committing users to the deal’ is the shortest move type. Accordingly, the characters aretypically large and enclosed within a text box of a highly contrastive color, making this move more noticeable.

Apart from typographical and graphological features, this move type also employs a few visual elements to enhance itsvisibility. Along with using gift icons in ‘buy it for a friend’ to visually objectify the deals as gift ideas, the most commonlyused visual is the arrows in ‘buy now’ (Fig. 2). According to Kress and van Leeuwen (2006, p. 48), arrows function ‘‘likeverbs’’ and form vectors which signify movement visually. The strategic placement of arrows in ‘buy now’ thus implicitlyindicates the directionality from reading the deal to performing the transaction, which in turn promotes the activation of thehyperlink. Hypertextuality, in other words, is stimulated by the use of multimodal elements in this move.

4.2.3. Showing highlights‘Showing highlights’ provides a summary of the most desirable aspects of the deal for potential buyers at a glance. Like

‘introducing the title’, the main function of ‘showing highlights’ is to promote the sales of the current deal. However, sinceattention-seeking is done mostly by ‘‘introducing the title’’ but not ‘showing highlights’, there exist some major differencesin how these two move types are discursively realized.

Unlike ‘introducing the title’ which is high in hypertextuality and multimodality, ‘showing highlights’ is predominantlyverbal and makes only very infrequent use of hyperlinks (15%). It is therefore reading-oriented, rather than navigation-oriented in mode (cf. Garzone, 2009). Not only are multimodal elements rarely found (20%), the verbal text is also plainlypresented in normal point size and color (Fig. 3). The only noticeable typographical feature is the point form, which is usedin all the deals examined. Positionally, ‘showing highlights’ is placed in the middle of the deal which sometimes requiresusers to scroll down the webpage to read it in full. All these characteristics suggest that ‘showing highlights’ is not intendedto be the most conspicuous move type. Instead, it emphasizes mainly verbally the most appealing features of the deal in acondensed point form. These points are generally made up of simple and snappy fragments containing words withpositive connotations, which are typical in advertising language (Woods, 2006).

4.2.4. Advertising related dealsThe only optional move type of promotional discourse, ‘advertising related deals’ draws users’ attention to typically

three deals which are bought by other customers making the same purchase (Fig. 4). As such, they are not simply generaladvertisements located outside the deal but are situated within the deal itself and are often specifically related to the deal

Fig. 2. Committing users to the deal.


Fig. 3. Showing highlights.

in question based on previous buying behavior. Its main function is therefore to appeal and to promote other items of thegroup buying company which are of potential interest to buyers. Since this move type is not, strictly speaking, the mostclosely relevant to the present deal, it is usually placed at the bottom. If present, ‘advertising related deals’ is alwayshypertextual and multimodal, inviting users to navigate directly to other deals through site-internal hyperlinks instead ofsimply reading. Combined with the visually attractive images which are often the ‘visual title’ in other deals, thesehyperlinks make explicit the connection between the current deal and related ones and help establish a network of dealsfor boosting the sales figures. They thus operate on an organizational level (cf. Lemke, 2002).

4.3. Informative discourse

Four move types are found to be closely affiliated with informative discourse. They are ‘indicating price details’,‘indicating the time left’, ‘indicating the number of buyers’ and ‘providing contact information’. Their main aim is to offerusers factual information on the deal, mostly in the form of numbers. Unlike promotional move types which are laden withpositive words, these four typically short move types are generally void of evaluative language. Instead they opt forfigures, which are commonly perceived to be more objective, to counterbalance the more ‘‘hard-sell’’ techniques adoptedin promotional discourse which ‘‘make a direct appeal through exhortation’’ (Cook, 2001, p. 15). In this respect, theseinformative move types can be compared with news reports, especially the finance section, where market data andfinancial figures are often shown. Such interdiscursive elements of facts and statistics are also commonly found inaccounting discourse, where ‘‘statistical information consisting of numbers’’ prevail (Bhatia, 2010, p. 40).

4.3.1. Indicating price details‘Indicating price details’ outlines information regarding the price of the deal. Position-wise, this short move is always

placed at the top part of the webpage, though occasionally it reappears at the bottom. There are four sub-move types:‘selling price’, ‘original price’, ‘savings’ and ‘discount’, of which only the first one is obligatory. This echoes with the earlierfinding on the importance of including the selling price in ‘introducing the title’. Unsurprisingly, ‘selling price’ is visually

Fig. 4. Advertising related deals.


Fig. 5. Indicating price details.

more prominent than the other sub-moves. This is done by a greater size and the physical separation from the rest with theuse of layout or text boxes (Fig. 5). ‘Selling price’ is also more likely to reappear than other sub-move types at the end ofthe deal together with ‘committing users to the deal’ (20% vs. 10%). The reappearance again highlights this information asa perceived decisive factor in the sales of the deal.

The other three sub-move types, while optional, are fairly typical as they occur in at least more than half of all the dealsexamined. ‘Original price’ and ‘discount’ both appear in the majority of the deals (90%) while ‘savings’ is found in less thantwo-thirds of the total (60%). In other words, one or all of these sub-move types often co-occur with ‘selling price’. Althoughthis move is chiefly numerical, the juxtaposition of these sub-moves stresses the price-cutting strategy in all online groupbuying deals which satisfies people’s desire for saving money.

Except for the few typographical devices used on ‘selling price’ as discussed above, ‘indicating price details’ in generalcontains minimal visual elements (10%). Similarly, no hyperlink is found in this move. These discursive patterns are in linewith its core function to offer factual information to users.

4.3.2. Indicating the time left‘Indicating the time left’ specifies the remaining time for the deal to be valid and is typically placed at the top part of the

page. The information presented in this move type is updated every second in most deals (80%). Though the informationis strictly factual and non-evaluative, this precise nature of the countdown creates a sense of tension and indirectly servesas a pressure tactic. The move is commonly located after ‘committing users to the deal’ and ‘indicating price details’ butbefore ‘showing highlights’ at the top of the deal, reflecting its relative importance among the others.

Like ‘indicating price details’, this short move type is very low in hypertextuality (0%) and multimodality (30%). It isrepresented mostly through words and numbers with the occasional use of the indexical signs of hourglass (20%) andclock (10%), which amplify the pressure tactic by visually persuading users to buy before the time runs out (Fig. 6).

4.3.3. Indicating the number of buyers‘Indicating the number of buyers’ states how many buyers have purchased the deal and, in some cases, the validity of the

deal based on the minimum number of buyers required. It occurs immediately below the previous two informative move typesat the top end of the page in all the deals examined, showing the positional clustering of these functionally similar elements.

There are two sub-move types: the obligatory ‘actual number of buyers’ and the optional ‘validity of deal’ (Fig. 7). Bypresenting the sales figures, ‘actual number of buyers’ reflects the popularity of the deal and introduces indirectly theopinions of website users, which implicitly encourages buying behavior through soft sell. Simultaneously, ‘validity of deal’states whether the deal is on, and occasionally also the minimum number of buyers needed for the deal to be valid and the

Fig. 6. Indicating the time left.

Fig. 7. Indicating the number of buyers.


time used to reach this number. While the condition of reaching a minimum buyer number was a prerequisite when onlinegroup buying was first introduced, ‘validity of deal’ only occurs in less than two-thirds of the deals examined (60%). In fact,even when a minimum buyer number is specified sporadically (20%), it is in the small range of 3--10, which means thiscondition is always met. This finding shows an important change in online group buying trend. As the market becomesmore and more competitive with an increasing number of websites and deals, the required number of buyers has to bevastly reduced or even removed. Consequently, the original spirit of relying on the collective bargaining power ofconsumers no longer forms the basis of Internet group buying.

Apart from the geographical adjacency, this move type is similar to the other two informative move types in its actualrealization. It is short and realized mainly through words and numbers with a very low level of hypertextuality (10%). Somevisual elements such as the tick and star symbols are observed (50%). Overall speaking, however, the design is keptsimple and relatively plain to match its largely informative function and objective tone. Visual elements which are moreostentatious seem to be purposefully reserved instead for the promotional move types discussed earlier.

4.3.4. Providing contact informationThis move type outlines some factual information on how to contact the provider of the deal, which is most commonly

expressed in the form of address (93%), followed by phone number (82%) and email or web-link (29%). If an address isshown, it is sometimes accompanied by the opening hours of the deal provider. Unlike the previous three informative movetypes which typically appear at the top part of a deal, ‘providing contact information’ is positionally less prominent as it moreoften occurs towards the middle or end. In more than two-thirds of all deals (70%), it is the last move type, indicating that thelocation of deal redemption and ways to contact the deal provider are perceived to be of secondary importance by groupbuying companies.

Apart from its position, this move type also differs from the other three informative move types in its high hypertextuality.Hyperlinks are found for most deals examined (89%). They are used either for the verbal email addresses or web-links ofthe deal provider, or they are embedded in a map of the provider’s address (Fig. 8), which by activation zoom in or out onthe conceptual image (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006). As such, these site-external hyperlinks serve to emphasize theofficial role of the group buying companies as intermediaries between the website users and the deal providers, offering aformal link between the three parties.

4.4. Social discourse

The two move types, ‘establishing linkage to social media’ and ‘offering a forum’, are found to be closely affiliated withsocial discourse. Their main aim is for the group buying company to establish and strengthen a personal relationship withand among the website users and to foster the formation of a discourse community (Swales, 1990) between the group

Fig. 8. Providing contact information.


Fig. 9. Establishing linkage to social media.

buying website and the actual or potential buyers. To this end, modalities which are perceived to be preferred by websiteusers are specially selected to cultivate this virtual community. In this respect, some common features of conversations,whose key function is relationship maintenance, are found in these social move types.

4.4.1. Establishing linkage to social mediaThis primarily visual and numerical move type provides some electronic channels, predominantly links to popular

social media such as Facebook and Twitter, for users to explicitly indicate their personal preference for a deal (70%) or torecommend the deal to people they know (80%). It also indicates the number of users who carry out these actions (70%).As such, this move type reflects the popularity of a deal like ‘indicating the number of buyers’, though in a less directmanner. An important move type which directly situates group purchase within social networking (Wei et al., 2011) andenhances the personal involvement of users, ‘establishing linkage to social media’ is always hypertextual and multimodalin the deals examined and occurs at the top part of the page.

Unlike hyperlink use in move types discussed earlier which is all official and corporate-oriented in nature, hyperlinks inthis move type achieve a major social function of introducing the unofficial personal voices of users into the deal. Thetransition from the commercial to the personal domain via these site-external hyperlinks is mostly assisted by visualsymbols such as the Facebook and Twitter logos and the email sign (Fig. 9). Using these multimodal elements which arefamiliar to users in their online social life helps persuade users to activate the hyperlinks and transform Internet groupbuying into a kind of social activity. This, in turn, achieves the crucial function of publicizing the deal through the users’social networks and promotes the transition ‘‘from individual buying to social buying’’ (Wei et al., 2011, p. 20).

4.4.2. Offering a forumAn optional move type of social discourse, ‘offering a forum’ provides an online platform for interaction among the

group buying company and the actual or potential buyers. Its marginal status can be seen by the fact that it only occurs in asmall number of deals (20%) at the bottom of the page. While the previous move type connects users to an existingdiscourse community of family, friends and acquaintances, this move type helps to form a new discourse communityamong the users and the group buying company, allowing them to discuss issues specifically about the deal.

Like ‘establishing linkage to social media’, ‘offering a forum’ is always hypertextual with a relatively high level ofmultimodality. The function of site-internal hyperlinks here is to let users post their comments on the deal, whether they areopinions, questions, or responses to questions by other users. When compared with all the previous move types, thelanguage in ‘offering a forum’ is more informal and colloquial, as evidenced by the use of characters (e.g. and )which are typically found in oral Cantonese rather than standard Chinese. While the comments posted are mainly verbal,the different visuals representing the identities of users play a key role in highlighting individuality and underlining theheteroglossic nature of the forum (Fig. 10). In this respect, there is a higher level of interactivity explicitly displayed by‘offering a forum’ on the deal through the selected words and images by users, when compared with the previous socialmove type, where interactivity is only indicated numerically. This move type therefore further enhances the sense ofbelonging of users to the virtual deal discourse community (cf. Garzone, 2009). The downside, however, is that the groupbuying company has less control over the content and users may leave unfavorable comments on the deal. This isprobably why this move type remains optional and peripheral if present, as ‘‘no voice must ever override the dominant ifdisguised voice of the client’’ (Cook, 2001, p. 230), the client in this case being the group buying company.

4.5. Regulatory discourse

While the social discourse in deals empowers users by giving users the freedom to interact online with the website orothers, regulatory discourse restricts users by specifying the regulations imposed on users regarding the deal. It is

2 These Cantonese characters are multi-functional in nature and their meanings vary widely according to different contexts.


Fig. 10. Offering a forum.

therefore the sole discourse type which is in conflict with the overriding communicative function of online group buyingdeals. Only one move type, namely ‘specifying the fine print’, is affiliated with regulatory discourse and its features arereminiscent of those found in traditional coupons.

4.5.1. Specifying the fine printThis move type specifies the terms and conditions regarding the use of the deal. These typically include the dates and

times when the purchased deal is valid, the redemption procedures, and whether unlimited purchase or redemption isallowed. In other words, this move type serves a delimiting function in governing the circumstances in which buyers mayuse the deal. It is therefore the only move type which does not either directly or indirectly assist the promotion of the dealand runs the risk of turning potential buyers away.

Despite its possible negative effect on the sales of a deal, ‘specifying the fine print’ is essential as it protects the groupbuying company from any legal disputes which may arise from the absence of such rules. Its role is therefore similar to adisclaimer in legal discourse (cf. Bhatia, 2010). For this reason, such regulations in this move type have to be specified asclearly and explicitly as possible through words, making it linguistically the second longest of all. Like coupons, ‘specifying thefine print’ shows a high level of deontic modality, with heavy use of such words expressing obligation and permission.Positionally, this move type is peripheral and flexible, occurring mostly in the middle but also occasionally at the bottom of thepage. This shows that there is no consensus yet in the industry regarding its location owing to the potential damage it maycause.

To minimize the damaging impact this long move type may have on the deal, group buying companies make carefulchoices not only of its position but also layout and hyperlink use. As a predominantly verbal move type, ‘specifying the fineprint’ is plainly presented without any distinguishable typographical features, except that the regulations are always keptprecise in point form like in coupons (Fig. 11). The minimal use of multimodal elements (10%) also helps deliberately divertattention to more visually appealing move types. Further, the detrimental nature of this move type is alleviated in manydeals (74%) through the strategic use of hyperlinks, which are constantly used for what is sometimes known as ‘‘universalfine print’’, i.e. regulations that apply to all deals offered by the website. These site-internal hyperlinks ensure that thismove type is maintained in a reasonable length by concealing the non-specific yet legally required regulations. Moreimportantly, they help to assuage the conflict between regulatory and promotional discourse.

Fig. 11. Specifying the fine print.


Fig. 12. Instructing buyers.

4.6. Instructional discourse

Only the optional move type ‘instructing buyers’ is affiliated with instructional discourse in the deals examined and itsfeatures are comparable to those found in instruction manuals.

4.6.1. Instructing buyersThis move type outlines the procedures for deal purchase and is only found in deals from one company (10%). It is

instructional rather than informative because it does not only give information but specifically instructs users what to do ina sequence of steps. This orientation towards action rather than reading is what distinguishes ‘instructing buyers’ from theinformative move types.

‘Instructing buyers’ is verbally realized without any obvious use of multimodal elements or hyperlinks (Fig. 12). Likeother instructional genres such as recipes and instruction manuals, this move type enumerates the sequenced steps andmakes frequent use of imperatives. Together with its minor position at the bottom, this move type is presented modestly tofacilitate transaction for first-time buyers who may require instructions on buying deals. Since these instructions areapplicable to all deals on the website, this move type is rarely found within a deal but often lies outside a deal alongsideother general information.

4.7. Mixed discourse

The blending of different types of discourse, particularly promotional, informative and social discourse, is evident in themove type ‘giving full details’, which is discussed as follows.

4.7.1. Giving full detailsThis last move type provides detailed descriptions of the deal, which is achieved through offering additional

information, elaborating on information already presented, or simply repeating information present in other move types. Itis thus partly formed by the recontextualization of information of the earlier discourses (Bhatia, 2010), making it the largestmove type. With an average of 508.77 characters, ‘giving full details’ is the longest by far. Unlike the other move types, it iscommonly represented in complete sentences and full paragraphs, and only occasionally accompanied by shortsegments. Further, these long verbal sections are interspersed with multimodal elements, making this move type not onlyverbally but also visually rich. All but one deals examined contain images in this move type and videos are found in 16deals, with an average of 10.01 images per deal. These images and videos can sometimes be enlarged or seen in a newwindow via hyperlinks, which are found in less than half of all deals (40%). Of these, more than two-thirds (67.5%) onlycontain one hyperlink, showing that reading mode, rather than navigation mode, dominates in this move type (cf. Garzone,2009). Its bulky size means that the traditional optimal length of one to two full screens for web-pages is not observed foronline group buying deals. Substantial scrolling is instead necessary for users to read the content of this move type in full,which may have a disorienting effect. For this reason, it is hardly surprising that this move type is always found at thebottom of the page after the more important move types, so that users can access it only if desired.

The merging of various interdiscursive elements is prevalent in this long move type. First, promotional discourse isfound not only in the positive evaluative language through the repetition of verbal information from ‘showing highlights’, butalso more so visually through the multimodal resources of images and videos. While some images are simplyrecontextualized from those in ‘visual title’, many more are absent from other move types. Apart from showing visuallyattractive, lifelike photos of the items on offer typical in advertisements, these images are also sometimes examples of‘‘remediation’’, which concerns the representation of one medium in another (Bargiela-Chiappini, 2006, p. 110).Specifically, content which is mostly verbal, such as restaurant menus in dining deals or newspaper review articles on


Fig. 13. Remediation in ‘giving full details’.

promoted items, is commonly presented as visual images in this move type (Fig. 13). This remediation serves the strategicpurpose of making the verbal content more authentic, as it realizes another level of recontextualization, i.e. therecontextualization of the verbal content in the specific setting in which it actually occurs. This enhanced authenticityrealized by remediation, in turn, strengthens the promotional value of the verbal content.

Apart from promotional discourse, traces of informative discourse are also found in this move type. They are mainlyrealized verbally through the recontextualization of price details. In some cases, however, new information such asdescriptions of the company offering the deal and product specifications are also presented. The former, frequently placedat the end of the move type, typically describes such general information as the company’s history, its size and scope ofbusiness to enhance the reliability of the company and hence the deal. The latter provides technical details of the item onoffer such as measurements, weight and color. The provision of such facts is often expressed in formal and technicallanguage like in other informative move types. This creates the impression of objectivity and conveys a sense ofprofessionalism to counterbalance the highly evaluative language in promotional discourse.

Also present in this move type but to a lesser extent are the elements of social discourse. The evidence of socialdiscourse is commonly found at the beginning of the move type, realized mainly through words instead of visuals. Likeconversations, the socially oriented verbal content is low in information value but focuses on the establishment andmaintenance of personal relationship with the website users. To promote solidarity and hence to draw users closer to thedeal, a number of positive politeness strategies are employed, including the use of the second person pronoun to directlyaddress the users, the use of colloquial Cantonese expressions and mixed-code to signal in-group membership, andassumptions about the users to imply familiarity. Combined with the use of questions, these strategies help create aninformal dialogue and engage users in a personal conversation. The strategic placement of social discourse at the start ofthe move type and informative discourse at the end shows the gradual shift from the informal to the formal register withinthe same move type (cf. Ho, 2011), providing an interesting example of a highly heteroglossic mix of personal andimpersonal voices which interact with the users respectively on an individual and a corporate level.

The interplay between interdiscursivity, hypertextuality and multimodality in the move types is summarized in Fig. 14.

5. Conclusions

Through the first corpus-based multimodal move analysis of 100 Internet group buying deals, the present study hasidentified and discussed the 13 move types in the rhetorical structure of this genre and how they are manifested through theinterplay between interdiscursivity, hypertextuality and multimodality. Although online group buying deals are predominantlypromotional, they also show a blend of informative, social, regulatory and instructional discourse through the strategicemployment of interdiscursive elements in different move types. Accordingly, the functions and distributions of multimodal


communicative function

regulatory instructional informative promot ional social

comparable discourse type

coupon manual news report advertise ment conversation

leve l of multimodality

mostly

linguistic

mostly

multimodal

function of hyperl inks

mitig ating

aversion

/ providing

official

corporate

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committing

users to th e

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and social

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institutional professional professional profess ional personal

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max imum min imum

Fig. 14. The interplay between interdiscursivity, hypertextuality and multimodality in the move types of Internet group buying deals.

resources and hyperlinks across and within these move types also vary, showing the effective ‘‘division of semiotic labor’’(Kress, 2010, p. 1) by ‘‘adjusting and modulating semiotic and discursive resources’’ (Garzone, 2009, p. 163) across a genre.This demonstrates not only the generic conventions of online group buying deals, which are a product of different discursivepractices, but also the intra-generic and inter-move variations of the genre.

Apart from the possible theoretical value of contributing to the conceptual and methodological development of genreanalysis, the enhanced knowledge of an important online genre gained from this study also offers practical andpedagogical insights into how items can be advertised successfully through this channel to copywriters and marketers.Consumers may also benefit from such knowledge as it heightens their awareness of the generic characteristics andhelps them make more informed choices. Further discourse studies of this genre may require more focused andexhaustive analyses of the linguistic and multimodal resources of particular move types. These will in turn further ourunderstanding of the ‘‘hybridity and heterogeneity’’ exhibited in online group buying deals, which are ‘‘typical of discursivepractices in web communication’’ (Garzone, 2009, p. 162), as initially revealed in the present study.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the reviewers for their insightful and constructive suggestions. I am also grateful to the following Internetgroup buying websites for their kind permission for the figures used in this paper: Fig. 1: Image courtesy of Couppie;Figs. 2, 3, 5--9, 11, 13 and figures used in the Appendices: Images courtesy of Groupon Hong Kong; Fig. 4: Imagecourtesy of BeeCrazy; Fig. 10: Image courtesy of GoBuya; Fig. 12: Image courtesy of GroupBuyer.

Appendix A. Sample analysis of an online group buying deal (Chinese version)

Move 1
Introducing the title Move 2 Committing users to the deal Move 3 Indicating price details Move 4 Indicating the time left Move 5 Indicating the number of buyers Move 6 Establishing linkage to social media Move 7 Showing highlights Move 8 Specifying the fine print Move 9 Providing contact information Move 10 Giving full details Move 11 Advertising related deals Move 12 Offering a forum Move 13 Instructing buyers


Appendix B. Sample analysis of an online group buying deal (English version)


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Phoenix Lam is Assistant Professor at the Department of English Language and Literature, Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research interestsinclude computer-mediated discourse, discourse analysis and corpus linguistics. Her recent publications appear in Applied Linguistics, DiscourseStudies and Text & Talk.

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http://www.sopwr.com/top-hong-kong-group-buying-sites-on-facebook/729

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