Metadiscourse: Exploring Interaction in Writing / Edition 1

by Ken Hyland

Overview

This book addresses an important aspect of how language is used in written communication: the ways that writers reflect on their texts to refer to themselves, their readers or the text itself. This is known as METADISCOURSE.

Metadiscourse is a key resource in language, as it allows the writer to engage with readers in familiar and expected ways. Writers use the devices of metadiscourse to adjust the level of personality in their texts, to offer a representation of themselves and their arguments. This helps the reader organise, interpret and evaluate the information presented in the text. Metadiscourse is therefore crucial to successful communication.

Knowing how to identify metadiscourse as a reader is a key skill to be learnt by students of discourse analysis. Learning how to use metadiscourse in writing is an important tool for students of academic writing in both the L1 and L2 context.

This book has four main purposes:

- to provide an accessible introduction to metadiscourse, discussing its role and importance in written communication and reviewing current thinking on the topic.
- to explore examples of metadiscourse in a range of texts from business, academic, jourbanalistic, and student writing
- to offer a new theory of metadiscourse
- to show the relevance of this theory to students, academics and language teachers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826476104
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	11/12/2005
Series:	Continuum Discourse , #2
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Ken Hyland is Chair of Applied Linguistics and Director of the Centre for Applied English Studies, University of Hong Kong.

Ken Hyland is Chair of Applied Linguistics and Director of the Centre for Applied English Studies, University of Hong Kong.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgements	viii
	Preface	ix
Section 1	What is metadiscourse?	1
Chapter 1	First impressions	3
1.1	A brief overview of metadiscourse	3
1.2	A context of emergence: information and interaction	6
1.3	Metadiscourse and audience awareness	9
1.4	Metadiscourse, interaction and audience	11
1.5	Summary and conclusion	14
Chapter 2	Definitions, issues and classifications	16
2.1	Definitions of metadiscourse	16
2.2	Propositional and metadiscourse meanings	18
2.3	'Levels of meaning'	21
2.4	Functional analyses	24
2.5	'Textual' and 'interpersonal' functions	26
2.6	Metadiscourse signals	27
2.7	Categorizations of metadiscourse	32
2.8	Summary and conclusions	35
Chapter 3	A metadiscourse model	37
3.1	Key principles of metadiscourse	37
3.2	A classification of metadiscourse	48
3.3	Metadiscourse resources	50
3.4	An illustration: metadiscourse in postgraduate writing	54
3.5	The limits of description	58
3.6	Summary and conclusions	59
Section 2	Metadiscourse in practice	61
Chapter 4	Metadiscourse and rhetoric	63
4.1	The concept of rhetoric	63
4.2	Academic discourse and rhetoric	65
4.3	Metadiscourse, ethos and The Origin of Species	67
4.4	Business discourse and metadiscourse	71
4.5	Metadiscourse and rhetoric in company annual reports	73
4.6	Summary and conclusions	85
Chapter 5	Metadiscourse and genre	87
5.1	The concept of genre	87
5.2	Metadiscourse and genre	88
5.3	Metadiscourse in academic research articles	89
5.4	Metadiscourse in popular science articles	93
5.5	Metadiscourse in introductory textbooks	101
5.6	Summary and conclusions	111
Chapter 6	Metadiscourse and culture	113
6.1	Culture and language	113
6.2	Metadiscourse across languages	116
6.3	Metadiscourse and writing in English	124
6.4	Interactive metadiscourse in English	124
6.5	Interactional metadiscourse in English	128
6.6	Summary and conclusions	136
Chapter 7	Metadiscourse and community	138
7.1	The concept of community	138
7.2	Community, academic writing and metadiscourse	141
7.3	Metadiscourse variation in articles across disciplines	143
7.4	Interactional metadiscourse in articles across disciplines	144
7.5	Interactive metadiscourse in articles across disciplines	156
7.6	Metadiscourse variation in textbooks across disciplines	161
7.7	Interactional metadiscourse in textbooks across disciplines	163
7.8	Interactive metadiscourse in textbooks across disciplines	166
7.9	Summary and conclusions	170
Section 3	Issues and implications	173
Chapter 8	Metadiscourse in the classroom	175
8.1	Students, writing and audience awareness	175
8.2	Advantages of teaching metadiscourse features	178
8.3	Some teaching principles	181
8.4	Some teaching strategies	185
8.5	Summary and conclusions	192
Chapter 9	Issues and directions	194
9.1	Metadiscourse and the socially situated writer	194
9.2	Metadiscourse and interpersonal engagement	195
9.3	Metadiscourse and discourse variation	196
9.4	Metadiscourse and classroom practice	197
9.5	Methodological issues	198
9.6	Some implications and remaining issues	199
9.7	Further research	200
	References	204
Appendix	Metadiscourse items investigated	218
	Subject Index	225
	Author Index	228

Editorial Reviews

'...accessible introduction to metadiscourse, discussing its role and importance in written communication...a valuable and comprehensive study, which not only imposes relevant questions, but provides valid answers in regards to this subject establishing new directions for future investigations.'--Alexander Carapic "Linguist List "

'this one is gold...anyone interested in the way writers and written language function, such as the use of parentheses...should really visit this book and stay a while....Linguistic statisticians like myself previously only dreamt of such data as appears on page 57...There is something for everyone concerned with EAP writing in this work; from the research student pouring over her thesis in the stuffy library, to the concerned teacher of EAP writing who worries that his students have little control over hedging devices. With Metadiscourse, plus his 2003 title, Second Language Writing (CUP)...Hyland is providing wholesome fare to the community of teachers of writing around the globe.' Wayne Trotman, EL Reviews, August 2006

From the Publisher