Advice-giving in newspaper weather commentaries.

Receiving accurate and timely advice about extreme weather events can impact a person's likelihood to survive, cope with and minimise exposure. Advice-giving seems to be a common interpersonal strategy in weather commentaries in many Chinese newspapers, yet research into weather advice-giving is greatly lacking. This study investigated whether the discourse of advice-giving in newspaper weather commentaries differed depending on the newspaper source and/or on the weather reported. We focused on two popular metropolitan newspapers: and . Forty texts from each source were chosen (20 for ordinary weather and 20 for extreme weather). Results showed that the advice given stems from a vast reservoir of advice themes, and we found clear differences depending on weather, with significantly more advice given during extreme events. We also found that , in general, provided more advice in their weather commentaries. Finally, writers who were prone to take an authoritative stance tended to increase their use of imperatives and "high-status" vocatives during extreme weather, whereas those who positioned themselves "with" their readers also used more imperatives, but did not change their vocative preferences.