Metadiscourse: Exploring Interaction in Writing (Continuum Discourse, 2) - Softcover

Hyland, Ken

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826476112 ISBN 13: 9780826476111

Publisher: Continuum, 2005

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

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

Review:

'...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

About this edition

• Publisher: Continuum
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0826476112
• ISBN 13: 9780826476111
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240