The importance of studying metadiscourse

This essay focuses on metadiscourse, a name for elements of texts that convey meanings other than  those  that  are  primarily  referential.    The  essay  provides  some  theoretical  background  to the  study  of  metadiscourse,  briefly  reviews  a  taxonomy  of  metadiscourse,  and  explores  four reasons why the study of metadiscourse is interesting and important: (a) Such study shows how intricately  structured  language  is;  (b)  Such  study  opens  up  intriguing  questions  about  ethics and  language  use;  (c)  Such  study  reveals  differences  in  how  metadiscourse  is  used  in  similar texts in different languages; (d) And such study provides reasons why metadiscourse deserves a special place in second-language instruction.

Keywords:

Metadiscourse , pedagogy , language use , Ethics , ESL/EFL