Chapter 2

Of hopes and plans

This study investigates a specialised corpus of prefatory metadiscourse, i.e. newsmakers’ comments published in the first editions of their newspapers which appeared on the market at the end of the seventeenth century and in the first decades of the eighteenth century. The material analysed provides insights into contemporary journalistic practices and ideals, the ways newsmakers positioned themselves and projected their audiences. Certain structural similarities, e.g. a recurrent three-step argumentation structure, suggest that newsmakers often resorted to prevalent rhetorical patterns. Yet, the period under investigation also displays some diachronic changes, from a preference for relatively concise, practically oriented comments to more elaborate metadiscursive passages featuring fictional editorial personae and an ornate literary style.