‘Experience Norfolk! Experience Fun!’ vs. ‘Doživi više od očekivanog’ – A Corpus-Based Contrastive Study of Reader Engagement Markers on the Web

The paper investigates how reader engagement markers (hyland 2005; Zou and hyland 2020) are used in tourism promotion to establish interaction with potential customers on the web. The markers are extracted using antConc software from two comparable corpora in english and Serbian compiled from the web texts of regional tourism organizations. Normalized frequencies per 1,000 words are calculated, followed by a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the most frequent markers. The results are interpreted in view of the differences and similarities in the two corpora considering the distribution and communicative functions of the markers, and the cultural aspects of this kind of interaction with the reader. The findings shed light on the implied concepts underlying reader-oriented engagement and written e-communication practices in the context of tourism discourse. The results can be used for the data-driven teaching of writing and translation studies.


Introduction
effective communication strategies are crucial for success in tourism business. according to Bruner (2005), communicative situations in the context of tourism can be divided into three phases: pre-tour marketing or the imagined journey, followed by the actual trip, and post-tour narrative as the final phase. Pre-tour marketing is in the focus of attention of the institutionalized tourism promotion on the web, when a potential tourist explores options for travelling, usually browsing websites and social networks, consulting blogs and forums, etc. Such online spaces aim at attracting customers' attention while they are still undecided about their travel destination, and try to persuade tourists to choose the travel package on offer. Thus, both transactional and interactional functions (Brown and yule 1983, 1-3) are present in this type of communication. on the one hand, promotional texts provide information and factual details about a destination, but they also establish a specific relationship with their target readers by using diverse verbal, visual and audial means in order to create an emotional response of the reader/tourist/customer. frequently, a strong desire to influence the customer is present (vuković-vojnović and Nićin 2011, 356).
attracting tourists and visitors (i.e., customers) along with presenting a tourist destination in the best possible way are top priorities of tourism promotion. Based on the definition and categories of interactional metadiscourse in hyland (2005) and Zou and hyland (2020), further explained in the chapter on reader engagement, this paper investigates how reader engagement markers are used in tourism promotion on the web in order to establish interaction with the reader/customer and persuade them to visit a proposed region. The study uses a corpusbased approach by analysing two custom-made comparable corpora in english and Serbian compiled from the web texts of tourism organizations of two regions -Norfolk in great Britain and vojvodina in Serbia (https://www.visitnorfolk.co.uk/ and https://vojvodina.travel/ respectively). The two regions were chosen due to similar geographical features, in particular rural areas, fertile flatland, a network of canals and lakes, quaint villages and forested areas, which all have an impact on the potential tourist activities and attractions that are offered on the related websites. In addition, the administrative centres of the two regions, the cities of Norwich and Novi Sad, are culturally connected as twin towns.
In this paper, we first give critical overviews of the theory underlying tourism discourse, interactional metadiscourse and reader engagement, followed by the empirical part of the study. The research methodology comprises the extraction of reader engagement markers, using antConc software (anthony 2017) and normalization of frequencies per 1,000 words for a more objective quantitative analysis and comparison. furthermore, the most frequent markers found in the two corpora are analysed qualitatively, considering their distribution and communicative function. finally, the differences and similarities in the two corpora are considered along with the cultural aspects of this kind of interaction with the reader. In conclusion, we show how the findings can shed light on the implied concepts underlying reader engagement and examine if there are some universal features in the two languages. There are also implications for the study of the written communication practices in the context of specialized discourse, gaining a cross-cultural understanding of tourism language and data-driven teaching of writing in the context of tourism discourse.

Tourism Discourse
Studying the language of tourism, as the language of one of the most developed and successful industries in the world, has attracted the attention of numerous linguists, anthropologists, sociologists and marketing experts in recent decades. In the past 30 years, the interdisciplinary approach to tourism discourse has uncovered its manifold characteristics which show how the language of tourism can be used as a powerful communication tool (Urry 1995;Dann 1996;Jaworski and Pritchard 2005;gotti 2008;Thurlow and Jaworski 2010;Maci 2010;heller, Jaworski, and Thurlow 2014;Suau Jiménez 2012;2019).
The language of tourism promotion is closely connected to the language of advertising, whose main goal is to draw consumers' attention to a product/service for the purpose of selling it (Crystal 1987, 390). Crystal (1987, 390-91) explains that the language of advertising is positive, unreserved, figurative, and underlines the uniqueness of the offer, while it can sometimes be vague and controversial. today the language of advertising is more common than ever with the development of social networks and emergence of new professions, such as bloggers, online copywriters, and even professional influencers, and tourism discourse can be viewed as part of this.
tourism discourse is a specialized type of general discourse (gotti 2008, 22-24), which very often represents situations where there is communication between professionals and nonprofessionals, i.e., between tourism providers and tourists/customers, realized by means of power, influence and control (Jaworski and Pritchard 2005, 5). It has a huge impact in our shaping of the world either through real life experiences or exploring abundant resources about travel destinations. francesconi (2014, 3) states that "travel and tourism texts have the ideological potential to influence and orient perception, ideas, values, and actions".
tourism discourse shapes our vision of reality, creates social identities -juxtaposing self and the other (Jaworski and Pritchard 2005, 6-7). This specific aspect is of great importance when analysing writer-reader pronouns in the context of promotional tourism discourse. The language of tourism promotion also shapes the actual physical environment into the object of desire by giving it a symbolic value, which is often described as the tourist gaze (Jaworski and Pritchard 2005;Urry 1995).
today, the sociolinguistic approach to tourism discourse focuses on the ways the language is used for "identity construction, social boundary marking, and power formation" and "as a dynamic repository of flexible, mobile resources -codes, genres and styles" (heller, Jaworski, and Thurlow 2014, 426). It covers topics such as how the interactions between tourists and hosts are staged, how cultural aspects are presented as tourist products and how linguistic and semiotic aspects influence the management of space and time (Jaworski and Thurlow 2015).
The language of tourism is often characterized as the language of social control, since it purposefully creates a certain image and values regarding a destination and lures potential tourists to become actual customers by creating the sense of otherness, novelty, authenticity, adventure (Dann 1996). however, it needs to be emphasized that it is crucial to maintain responsible and ethical communication with the customer (Maci 2010). The contemporary approach to tourists has moved away from offering package deals to them. today tourism professionals try to help tourists make their own decisions by aligning the values presented on the related websites or social media accounts with those that tourists seek, as well as by creating a desire to travel as the first step in a potential business deal in the travel industry. In this way, even though communication in the context of tourism involves both professionals and non-professionals as participants, the desirable values regarding travel and tourism destinations are co-created, especially with the increasing influence of e-communication.

An Overview of Reader Engagement
reader engagement (hyland 2001, 2002, 2005; Zou and hyland 2020) can be broadly defined as rhetorical ways of how writers acknowledge the presence of readers and include them as discourse participants. The study of reader engagement discourse markers falls under the umbrella of metadiscourse studies that were the first to pinpoint the interactive aspect of language in the late 1970s and early 1980s (Mauranen 2010, 14). It was observed that written discourse, apart from its informative and objective element, also contains language used for establishing writer-reader interaction, which later expanded the view of writing as highly interactional (Mauranen 2010, 14-15). It was vande kopple (1985,83) who was among the first to note that written discourse has a dual function -to inform the reader but also to help them better understand the text and form their opinion about it.
There are two main approaches to the study of metadiscourse: interactive (interactional/ interpersonal/ textual) model (Markkanen, Steffensen, and Crismore 1993;vande kopple 2002;hyland 2005) and reflexive model (Mauranen 1993(Mauranen , 2010. In their work on written and spoken metadiscourse, Mauranen (1993Mauranen ( , 2010 and Ädel (2006) break out of the more established view of terminology regarding the study of metadiscourse markers, opting for the term reflexivity as a way of leading the audience through discourse.
Studies have shown that dialogic form and audience involvement in academic writing are strongly rooted in the anglo-Saxon writing tradition, whereas other linguistic and cultural contexts do not use reader-oriented engagement markers so abundantly and the writer's voice is subdued with various stance features (Peršurić antonić 2016; Suau Jiménez 2019). although it has been observed that, for example, the Czech academic tradition has been impacted by several influences throughout the decades -the german, russian, and more recently anglo-american tradition of academic writing style (kozubíková šandová 2019, 104) -Czech academic authors are not so direct in communicating their ideas as anglo-Saxon writers, and they tend to reformulate their ideas, which is different from a more concise and dialogic style of academic writing in english (kozubíková šandová 2019, 105).
hyland's interpersonal approach also relies on the understanding that "all language use is related to specific so cial, cultural and institutional contexts" (hyland 2005, 174). on the one hand, the writers see themselves as part of a field-specific academic community, so they evaluate their propositions and the readers within that context, but they also strive to connect with their readers and associate with their values. as such, hyland (2005) recognizes two interpersonal dimensions, stance and engagement, as shown in the figure below.
communicating their ideas as Anglo-Saxon writers, and they tend to reformulate their ideas, which is different from a more concise and dialogic style of academic writing in English (Kozubíková Šandová 2019, 105).
Hyland's interpersonal approach also relies on the understanding that "all language use is related to specific social cultural and institutional contexts" (Hyland 2005, 174). On the one hand, the writers see themselves as part of field-specific academic community, so they evaluate their propositions and the readers within that context, but they also strive to connect with their readers and associate with their values. As such, Hyland (2005) recognizes two interpersonal dimensions, stance and engagement, as shown in the figure below. Stance mostly refers to the writer's own voice and their attempt to position their opinions and attitudes as credibl and supported by arguments, or to express certain reservations without openly exposing themselves to criticism. A Hyland (2005, 176) puts it, it includes "...the ways that writers intrude to stamp their personal authority onto thei arguments or step back and disguise their involvement." On the other hand, the engagement feature more openly establishes the relationship with the reader in the form of dialogue to acknowledge the presence of the reader, and, as Hyland (2005) suggests, it establishes an alignment with them, guiding them through the interpretation of the text. Engagement markers can be grouped into five majo categories with different subgroups (Hyland 2005; Zou and Hyland 2020), which will be explained in more detai in the following part of this section. Stance mostly refers to the writer's own voice and their attempt to position their opinions and attitudes as credible and supported by arguments, or to express certain reservations without openly exposing themselves to criticism. as hyland (2005, 176) puts it, it includes "...the ways that writers intrude to stamp their personal authority onto their arguments or step back and disguise their involvement."

Reader Mentions
on the other hand, the engagement feature more openly establishes the relationship with the reader in the form of a dialogue to acknowledge the presence of the reader, and, as hyland (2005) suggests, it establishes an alignment with them, guiding them through the interpretation of the text. engagement markers can be grouped into five major categories with different subgroups (hyland 2005; Zou and hyland 2020), which will be explained in more detail in the following part of this section.
3.1 reader Mentions reader mentions (Zou and hyland 2020, 6, 9-11) are usually marked by reader pronouns (mainly personal pronouns, possessives and reflexives) in the form of the second person to explicitly bring the reader into the discourse and establish a dialogic form and closeness with them. however, first person plural forms are also used as an inclusive form to align the writer and the reader and create a sense of solidarity, as well as to communicate with the readers as colleagues. In the context of tourism, first person plural forms of pronouns are also used to establish the difference between the host (i.e., the writer) and the customer (i.e., the reader) in order to create the sense of otherness as a persuasive strategy that attracts tourists/customers to experience something different and new. The pronouns and possessives we looked for in the english corpus in this paper are the following: you, your, yourself, yourselves, we, our, us, ourselves and their counterparts in Serbian, which are explained further in the discussion of results section. It has been observed in this study that they are often combined with other engagement markers, such as directives and modals as we can see in the examples from the corpus of english tourism texts: (1) Immerse yourself in 19th century Cromer life in this cosy Victorian fisherman's cottage.
(2) Be at RSPB Snettisham for daybreak and you'll see the amazing sight of thousands of waders taking flight.

Directives
Directives are typically represented by imperative forms of verbs that instruct the readers to act within the text or outside of it, also including obligation modals and predicative adjectives that express necessity or importance (Zou and hyland 2020, 11). In the academic style of texts analysed by Zou and hyland (2020), writers try to draw readers' attention to certain important elements in their arguments presented in research articles (hyland 2002) or to get involved in a dialogue with the reader by directly addressing them in scientific blogs (Zou and hyland 2020). In addition, directives can be subdivided into textual, cognitive and physical. textual directives ask the reader to act within the text (e.g., see, refer to table), whereas cognitive directives require the reader to position themselves regarding the presented arguments or think about them further (e.g., think, consider, note). finally, physical directives would require the reader to do something outside the text or give some instructions to the reader (e.g., write, open, mix).
for the purpose of this study, a greater variety of verbs are detected in the corpus when compared to verbs found in academic style texts (cf. hyland 2001) because of the specific stylistic and rhetorical features of promotional tourism texts, as will be further explored in the discussion section of the paper. Zou and hyland (2020, 14) found that questions could be the main strategy to engage readers in a discussion, but most of them are rhetorical and thus do not require an answer. Such questions can be content-oriented or reader-oriented, with the latter being more interactive. The markers in this category could be subdivided into those which check understanding, expect response or seek agreement on behalf of the reader (Zou and hyland 2020, 14-15). The markers include full or reduced questions, question tags, as well as rhetorical questions, which were also found in tourism texts, especially in the english corpus.

Shared knowledge
In academic writing, authors often want to make sure the readers agree with the expressed views by trying to persuade them that such views are in accordance with the shared knowledge that has already been established within a specific discipline (Zou and hyland 2020, 17). The markers usually comprise adverbs and comments that appeal to logical reasoning (e.g., obviously, of course), usual circumstances (e.g., normally, regularly) and usual community practices and beliefs (e.g., common, traditionally) (Zou and hyland 2020, 17-19).
In tourism discourse, we will see that some of the markers under this category, in particular the adjectives traditional, typical, and usual, have a somewhat different motivation for their use due to the communication strategies in tourism discourse. Namely, by using such adjectives the writers intend to express the specific features of a destination and portray it as being genuine, which will be more appealing to tourists who are attracted to places that are "authentic".

Personal asides
Personal asides are short phrases or clauses used to make a comment on what has been said, usually given in parentheses or separated by commas. although they clearly represent the voice of the writer (hyland 2001, 561), their main aim is to directly engage with the reader (hyland 2005; Zou and hyland 2020, 19-20) and offer an "interpretative framework" (hyland 2001, 561). The examples given by Zou and hyland (2020, 20) include expressions such as but so far, to my knowledge, in fact, etc.
In this study, markers of personal asides were not expected to be found in abundance because institutionalized web promotions do not have explicit authors but are written in such a way that they represent the whole community and not a personal view, as in blogs. however, a few instances were found in the two corpora.

Tourism Promotion and Reader Engagement
Institutionalized tourism promotion on the web usually starts with a website as a way to establish communication with tourists, consisting of an array of verbal, visual and audial elements which are persuasive but also need to be truthful. The so-called direct e-communication is realized by combining different discursive strategies with rhetorical functions and interpersonal elements (Suau Jiménez 2019, 2). The reader is viewed as the customer or the consumer, so the main aim is to convince the reader that the presented offer is attractive, to get the reader involved, with the ultimate goal being the creation of an economic value (Suau Jiménez 2019, 2). The interaction of the writer and reader in the promotional tourism texts on the web is highly subjective and guided by the preconceived values of the reader, i.e., the customer, about the promoted destination or service. In this way, the very nature of reader engagement in tourism promotion texts will differ from the academic texts which have been in the focus of interactional discourse studies for decades.
Modern communication with the customers via websites is in a dialogic form, establishing the bonds with the reader (Suau Jiménez 2019, 6), especially in the anglo-Saxon tradition of promotional writing. Unlike in research articles, reader engagement in promotional tourism discourse is more direct, subjective and highly persuasive. furthermore, linguistic and cultural aspects play a huge role in such communication, so we can expect a variety of practices across different languages and cultural contexts. for example, the investigation of stance and engagement in promotional e-tourism genres compiled in the CoMetvaL corpus (Suau Jiménez 2012 cited in Suau Jiménez 2019, 14-20) showed that reader engagement was represented to a much higher extent in english than in Spanish. a variety of reader engagement markers were used, with reader pronouns and directives as the most dominant ones. Conversely, Spanish texts almost neglected readers as potential co-creators of the values that were promoted, with reader engagement markers poorly used. Stance as a way of establishing credibility and the writer's authority was used much more in Spanish, often using boosters such as positive adjectives and attitudinals in combination with the selfmentions (first person pronouns).
another study of the interactional metadiscourse in english travel blogs, which are a genre somewhat different from the promotional websites, included the investigation of both stance and engagement features in the corpus of 16,149 tokens retrieved online (huang, Wang and tang 2020, 789). engagement was less present than stance in the corpus, with reader pronouns being the most frequent markers in total, followed by boosters, which corresponds to the study of Suau Jiménez (2019). Directives were not used so frequently in blogs, which can be attributed to the very nature of the genre in which the author is trying to give a personal, subjective account of their travel experience.
Unlike contrastive metadiscourse studies of academic texts (Blagojević 2004(Blagojević , 2007, previous research on engagement in tourism discourse based on contrastive studies of english and Slavic languages is not at all common, but it has proven what has been found in other languages (e.g., Spanish as found by Suau Jiménez 2019). In terms of metadiscourse and more specifically engagement markers, cultural differences among different language backgrounds are expected. for example, a previous study shows that Croatian tourist brochures are less direct than the english ones, and that they do not explicitly address the readers (Peršurić antonić 2016).
In our study the engagement markers have been classified according to hyland's categories, but they have also been considered as open categories (as previously done by fuertes-olivera et al. 2001, 1296) to include the examples relevant to the language of tourism, which could differ from the instances found by hyland (2001,2005), who based his views on investigating the language of research articles and academia.

Research Design and Procedure
In this paper, the main research objectives are the following: (i) find evidence of reader engagement in the custom-made comparable corpora in english and Serbian; (ii) identify the frequency and purpose of the reader engagement markers in each corpus; (iii) compare and contrast similarities and differences in the two corpora; (iv) establish potential implications and areas for further study.
a corpus-driven contrastive approach was applied including quantitative and qualitative analysis of the extracted engagement markers. two comparable corpora were compiled by selecting promotional tourism texts from two websites, which will be referred to as english tourism Corpus (etC) and Serbian tourism Corpus (StC). etC comprises texts written in english as a native language (www.visitnorfolk.co.uk) and StC includes texts written in Serbian as a native language (https://vojvodina.travel). The texts are unauthored, i.e., the author is not given and cannot be identified as in blogs, for example. as has already been mentioned in the introduction, the two regions were chosen because they share certain geographical similarities that would have an impact on the potential activities, amenities and attractions promoted to tourists. Both websites deal with so-called inbound tourism, so the main purpose is to present their own region to potential domestic and international tourists, which also has implications for the content and discursive features of the promotional texts.
for the purpose of the quantitative analysis, the absolute number of occurrences were given as normalized or actual frequencies per 1,000 words since the two corpora were not the same in size. as we can see from table 1 below, the total number of words in etC was 32,180 and for the StC 25,965. Such a procedure provides a more objective comparison of the actual frequency and distribution of the engagement markers in the corpora. The examples were extracted by using antConc software, version 4.0.4, developed by anthony (2017), then the headword list was explored manually, and the chosen markers were further checked in context (kWIC -key words in context). The qualitative analysis focused on the communicative purpose of the extracted engagement markers and corpora comparison.

overview of results
as can be observed from table 2 and table 3, the normalized frequencies (nf ) per thousand words (ptw) show that tourism promotional texts in english (etC) use engagement markers to a much greater extent, with an overall normalized frequency of 25 when compared to the corpus in Serbian (StC), with overall normalized frequency of 16.52. on the other hand, the order of subcategories in terms of preference overlaps in the two corpora with reader pronouns being the most frequent (etC -nf 13.8; StC -nf 7.32) and personal asides being the least favourable category in both corpora (etC -nf 0.53; StC -nf 0.26). furthermore, normalized frequencies (table 2 and table 3) show that the actual representation of markers and their normalized frequencies are much higher in etC in all the categories except for shared knowledge with nf 4.04 in StC compared to nf 2.8 in etC. In the next part, we will present some specifics regarding engagement markers in tourism discourse and compare the two corpora in more detail based on the findings.

reader Pronouns
In etC, reader pronouns (N=444) are by far the preferred way of addressing the reader, with the pronouns you (N=255) and we (N=58) being the most frequent ones. The other forms included your, yourself, yourselves, us, our, ourselves. The purpose of using first person plural forms of pronouns in tourism promotional texts is twofold. on the one hand, they can be inclusive, showing the unity of the writer (or in this corpus the host) and the reader (i.e., the tourist) as if they are sharing the same desires and experiencing the place together -if something is viewed as favourable by the writer, it is assumed that the reader will share the same preference, as in the following examples from etC: ( on the other hand, and to a much greater extent, the first person plural forms of pronouns underline the difference between the writer and reader creating the dichotomy of self and the other, which is a popular strategy used in tourism promotion. however, this is done to the benefit of the readers who are referred to as our guests to be reassured that the writer or the host will do everything possible to make their stay pleasant and stress-free, so the tourists can just relax and enjoy their holiday: (6) We offer a generous buffet-style breakfast for all our guests in our country-style breakfast room.

(7) Let us help you find accommodation in Norfolk where you can relax and enjoy your stay.
This dichotomy is also used to promote some cultural values of the host, creating the sense of authenticity or uniqueness that would be appealing to tourists and attract them to the area: In StC, pronouns take on different morphological forms than their english counterparts due to a highly inflected nature of the Serbian language -so there are different morphological forms according to number, case and gender. for example, for the english pronoun we/us in Serbian there are mi (nominative), nas (genitive, accusative), nama, nam (dative), nama (instrumental, locative), whereas for the english our, in Serbian there are naš, naša, naše, našeg, našem, našom, naši, naših, našim, našoj, našu which were all found in the corpus. This is relevant for the purpose of understanding the obtained results in antConc software, where these distinctive forms are listed separately but were summed up into the total. That is to say that the variations of the same pronoun were summed up and were not analysed as separate pronouns. a similar situation is found in the Serbian counterparts for the english you and your. additionally, Serbian includes different forms for the second person singular ti/tebe/ tebi/tobom, second person plural forms vi/vas/vama/vam, and the capitalized second person plural forms Vi/Vas/Vama/Vam which are used for polite address and were the most frequent pronouns found in StC. In contrast, second person singular forms were not present in the StC at all, which indicates that the analysed text in Serbian is less direct and more formal. The Serbian reflexive pronoun se has not been found as pertinent to the reader mentions subgroup in this corpus, but appeared as the impersonal pronoun se in passive structures (e.g., Vinarija se nalazi na salašu [...], "The winery is situated near the farmstead"). furthermore, in Serbian the writer can address the reader using particular verb endings without using the pronoun, which would be less formal. Contrary to what might be expected, no instances were found in this corpus that would be categorized within the reader mentions subgroup, so they are not included in the analysis. This contributes to the overall nature of the StC which is more formal and less interactive than the etC. however, there were a few examples under the personal asides subgroup. furthermore, as seen in examples 13 and 14, it is evident that the writer strives to maintain respectful and reassuring communication with the reader by using capitalized pronouns Vi, Vaš, Vam which are morphological plurals but with singular references used as honorific forms:

Directives
In etC, directives in the imperative form of the verbs are the second most frequent category with 226 instances and normalized frequency of 7. Contrary to what was expected (cf. hyland 2001, 553-54), modal verbs were not used to guide the reader or instruct them to pursue certain actions inside or outside the text, apart from three instances of have to. textual directives are also rare in etC because further references are always hyperlinked and take you to a different space on the website or outside the website. The majority of verbs used as directives in etC call for some physical or mental action outside the text and on behalf of the tourists (i.e., the readers) through affirmative presentation of the amenities and attractions that would provide unique experiences for them: (18) Paddle on the shore and explore the rockpools left behind the tide.
(19) Imagine vast expanses of clear blue sky and sparkling water.
(20) Learn about shopping and trading, take a look at the recreated early 20th century chemists shop and explore The Undercroft! Negatives are also used to kindly warn the tourists of some potential danger, to establish greater interaction with the reader, or to emphasize the attractiveness of the destination: It has also been observed that directives are rich in phrasal expressions, namely with the verbs take and look: (24) Take a brisk walk past crisp hedgerow [...] (25) Take a spin on the Big Wheel on Great Yarmouth's Golden Mile of seafront [...] (26) Look out for massive flocks of geese in winter, [...] Directives are also the second most frequent category in StC, with 111 instances and nf 4.27, but what is significantly different from the etC is the fact that out of the total number of directives, 47 instances include modal verbs. There are only a few negatives, and some are combined with modal verbs. In Serbian, imperative forms have second person singular (e.g., zamisli -"imagine"), first person plural forms (e.g., zamislimo -"let us imagine"), and second person plural forms (e.g., zamislite -"imagine"). as is the case with the reader pronouns, imperative forms are used in the second person plural as a form of polite, more formal and less direct way of addressing the reader:

Shared knowledge
In etC, the category of shared knowledge is less frequent than reader pronouns and directives, with 90 instances and nf 2.8, and it is highly context-dependent. This category includes a range of rather heterogenous expressions (for example, of course, yes, considered, said, traditional, known, etc.) used to confirm common knowledge about some aspect of the promoted destination or to provoke curiosity by confirming some lesser-known facts: This could be attributed to the fact that the text in StC is more formal in presenting the destination, so it includes longer descriptive passages which include additional details including shared knowledge features to ensure a more credible presentation.

Questions
In etC, questions are not very common with nf 0.83, which is far less than other categories. They appear mostly in their full form, reduced form or as tags. The full forms are contentoriented, and they are used as titles to introduce a new section on the website where you can immediately find the answer in the text that follows it: (40) What part of Norfolk is best?
reduced forms and tags are reader-oriented and used to establish an informal, intimate dialogic form with the reader and to provoke a reaction or response, or seek agreement:

Conclusion
as was mentioned in the introduction, promotional tourism discourse is based on rhetorical strategies that aim at persuading potential tourists to travel and engage in tourism activities. Therefore, it has been expected that the written e-communication of tourism organizations would be interactional and would engage the reader in a dialogue in terms of aligning the values presented on the websites with the values of the readers/tourists.
The main objective of this study was to analyse two comparable corpora in english and Serbian compiled from official websites of two regional tourism organizations from great Britain and Serbia in terms of the use of reader-oriented engagement markers. Prior to the empirical part, the theoretical framework was explored in order to establish underlying principles of their use. after the extraction, engagement markers were grouped into five sub-categories as proposed by hyland (2005). It was immediately noticed that the actual instances of the markers found in tourism corpora would differ to some extent to those proposed by hyland (2005) and Zou and hyland (2020), as their studies were based on the investigation of research articles and academic blogs, which represent different genres than promotional tourism websites, so the writer-reader interaction is somewhat different. Quantitative and qualitative comparison of the two corpora uncovered some similarities and differences. Based on this study, some features could be considered as universal when it comes to reader engagement since reader mentions and directives are the most frequent categories both in the analysed corpora and in the reviewed literature. furthermore, certain cross-cultural differences were observed in the analysed corpora regarding the interactivity and formality of written e-communication, which is also congruent with previous studies (kozubíková šandová 2019; Peršurić antonić 2016; Suau Jiménez 2019).
one of the major differences between the two analysed corpora is that english uses reader engagement features to a much greater extent (etC N= 804, nf 25 ptw, StC N= 429, nf 16.52 ptw). Communication with the reader in etC follows a dialogic form, and is more direct and less formal in the attempts to engage the readers and motivate them to choose their travel destination. one similarity is that the preferred categories in both corpora are reader pronouns and directives, followed by shared knowledge. however, we observed certain differences in the type of marker representatives within the categories. firstly, regarding reader pronouns in the StC, it was found that second person plural forms were used as honorific forms of addressing a single person in a formal way. StC is not so direct as etC, which is additionally proven by the greater number of second plural forms of modals in the category of directives which increases the distance from the reader. on the other hand, etC is more dynamic, addresses the reader more directly by engaging them in a less formal way through directives and informal questions and question tags.
The analysis presented here shows that the cultural elements are omnipresent in both corpora influencing the aspect of reader engagement. When compared to academic corpora, tourism corpora provide a longer and more diverse list of actual markers within categories, especially when it comes to directives and reader mentions (cf. hyland and Jiang 2019). The directives found in academic texts guide the readers through the text or ask for some interpretative action on behalf of the reader (hyland 2001, 564). Conversely, our findings show that directives that would require an action within the text are not characteristic of institutional tourism texts, but they rather refer to the activities to be performed in the actual destination that is promoted, whereas text references are always hyperlinked. This brings us back to the insight that interactional metadiscourse, including reader engagement, is highly dependent on the context in terms of genre, target audience and specialist field of the analysed texts. It is intricately connected to cultural and linguistic aspects and writing practices within special professional communities. In addition, in tourism texts, and based on the results of this study, the difference between self (the writer) and the other (the reader) is emphasized to the benefit of the reader, with the ultimate goal of immersing the reader in the local culture and shared experience with the writer.
regarding further analysis of reader engagement in tourism discourse, studies should focus on aspects regarding reader mentions other than reader pronouns, which were observed in the corpora (e.g., everyone, all, visitors, guests, adventurers, connoisseurs and so on). a more detailed study of semantic classes of verbs used as directives could also provide fruitful insights into the cultural and intercultural aspects of institutionalized tourism discourse on the web.
finally, the findings of the study provide real-life examples of language use in the context of written e-communication in institutionalized tourism discourse and can be used for the datadriven teaching of english for tourism and hospitality, and also help Serbian content writers when preparing the content for the e-promotion of tourist destinations.