METADISCOURSE: CHARACTERISTICS AND EXAMPLES - LITERATURE - 2025

Metadiscourse is a term widely used in discourse analysis, and it is a relatively new approach that refers to the way in which writers or speakers project themselves in their texts to interact with their recipients. This is an interesting field of research.

The most striking thing about metadiscourse is that it is believed that its study can play a vital role in the organization and production of persuasive writing, based on the norms and expectations of the people involved. The desire to understand the relationship between language and its contexts has increased interest in this subject.

It seeks to use this knowledge at the service of language learning and literacy. Thus, metadiscourse embodies the idea that writing and speaking is more than just the communication of ideas and the presentation of ideational meaning.

Rather, they are social events that involve writers, readers, speakers, and listeners to interact with each other and affect the way ideas are presented and understood.

Consequently, it is an important characteristic of communication because, in order to write or speak effectively, the resources of the interlocutors to understand the text must be evaluated.

characteristics

The metadiscourse is related to those aspects of the text that explicitly refer to the organization of discourse. Likewise, it refers to the position of the writer towards its content or towards the reader.

In general, the term is used to refer to the non-propositional aspects of speech that help organize prose as a coherent text.

Similarly, it refers to those elements that help convey the personality of the writer, the credibility, the sensitivity of the reader and the relationship with the message.

Thus, through metadiscourse the author manifests himself both rhetorically and linguistically. His metadiscursive strategies account for the organization of discourse and the expressive implications of what is said.

On the other hand, metadiscourse is an omnipresent aspect in everyday language. In addition, it is a main characteristic of the ways in which the human being communicates in a variety of genres and settings.

Studies have suggested the importance of meta-discourses in informal conversations and in all kinds of written texts. This seems to be a characteristic common to a variety of languages ​​and genres.

It has also been shown to be a fundamental aspect of good writing by students in general, and is an essential element of persuasive and argumentative speech.

Examples

Organization of the text

"I will start by considering the candidate lists of products offered by various authors, and then I will defend my own list of such intrinsically and objectively valuable goods."

"The text will be organized thematically, according to various hypotheses that try, at least in part, to account for the evangelistic and theological nuance of the great radicalism of the Victorian working class."

Relationship of ideas to each other

“Actually, I don't think that later playwrights have taken advantage of this division to a great extent. On the contrary, the aim of the new bourgeois theater was to reduce the high level of style associated with traditional tragedy ”.

Remember that you are still recovering from head trauma. Then, as a result, you will see things a bit exaggerated. "

Evidence of the claim

"As Chomsky has shown, the liturgical poets of the late Talmudic and early medieval period contributed to the creation of new words, although their knowledge of grammar was very poor."

"Hawkings posits that reality as we know it moves from perfect order (the condition of previously spilled milk) to chaos (spilled milk and beyond)."

Explanation of an idea

“The best known are contingent side effects. For example, a period of exposure to red vertical lines alternating with green horizontal lines produces a long-lasting after-effect ”.

“The 'due process' clause of the Fifth Amendment originally related only to fair procedure. In other words, it was traditionally interpreted as a mere stipulation of how to apply the laws ”.

Force attributed to a particular claim

“Gender differences in accident-related behavior appear to be due in part to the differential socialization of men and women. They may also be due in part to hormonal effects. "

"So, to my knowledge, there are two main causes that lead to blocking that joint, which is normally strongly anchored and, in general, there is no possibility of it moving on its own."

Attitudes about a particular aspect of the text

"The Los Angeles plane was used for this extraordinary journey that resulted in the tracing of 300 miles of mysterious coastline belonging to a little-known polar continent."

“What makes the fight for equality and non-discrimination in this field particularly difficult is that religious communities have very different needs that they want to be respected.

Orientation to the reader towards a particular aspect of the text

"Finally, it is widely recognized that the judicial review power of the courts is not easily reconcilable with the general principles of democracy."

“Then the properties of the grammatical elements will be investigated in more depth. For now, the number of such empty containers raises an obvious question: why are there so many nonsensical elements in language? "

Reflection of the author's role

“My use of the term 'multiple derivability' refers to local theories; this is due to my reading of Nickles (1989) who seemed to use it in the practice of the experiment ”.

"Therefore, I will try to present a brief overview of the interaction between translation theory, feminism and postcolonialism, which is at the basis of my practical work as a translator."

References

1. Amiryousefi, M. (2010). Metadiscourse: Definitions, Issues and its Implications for English Teachers. In Canadian Center of Science and Education, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 159-167.
2. Hyland, K. (2017). Metadiscourse: What is it and where is it going? In Journal of Pragmatics, Vol. 113, pp.16-29.
3. Cayley, R. (2017, December 01). Metadiscourse. Taken from explorationsofstyle.com.
4. Hyland, K. (1998). The pragmatics of academic metadiscourse. In Journal of Pragmatics, Vol. 30, pp. 437-455.
5. Teberosky, A. (2007). The academic text. In M. Castelló (Coord.), Writing and communicating in scientific and academic contexts: Knowledge and strategies, pp. 17-46. Barcelona: Grao.