Metadiscourse: Exploring Interaction in Writing

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Description

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, journalistic, and student writing - to offer a new theory of metadiscourse - to show the relevance of this theory to students, academics and language teachers.

Reviews

'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 concernedwithEAP writing in this work; from the research studentpouring over her thesisin the stuffy library, to the concerned teacher of EAP writing who worries that his students havelittle 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
"Overall, this valuable book raises many issues, some more comprehensively addressed than others. But it is always thought provoking. Metadiscourse is a very complex notion and Hyland shows the difficulty in nailing it down', but in his efforts to do so, he provides a very stimulating overview of existing debates and discussions. His contribution will be valued by both researchers and those wishing to think through for themselves the value of metadiscourse research for teaching. It will also prompt reflection on where metadiscourse analysis sits with respect to other linguistic approaches to analysis of the interpersonal, such as Systemic Functional Linguistics." -- Australian Review of Applied Linguistics -- Steve Price, Centre for Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CALT), Monash University, Australia
'...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, The *

Author Bio

Ken Hyland is Professor of Applied Linguistics in Education at the University of East Anglia, UK.