Metadiscourse in L1 and L2 English

The pervasive phenomenon of metadiscourse – commentary on the ongoing discourse – is beginning to take its rightful place among the major topics of discourse studies. This book makes simultaneous contributions to the theory of metadiscourse, corpus-based methods of studying such phenomena, and our knowledge of metadiscourse use in written English. After comprehensively reviewing previous research, it introduces a more rigorous and empirical approach to metadiscourse studies. Ädel presents a new model of metadiscourse based on Jakobson’s functions of language, and other conceptual tools, including explicit features for defining metadiscourse, a taxonomy of the functions it serves, and maps of the boundaries between it and related phenomena. A large-scale study of writing by L1 and L2 university students is presented, in which the L2 speakers’ overuse of metadiscourse strongly marks them as lacking in communicative competence. This work is of interest both to linguists and to educators concerned with writing in English.

Louisa Buckingham, Sabanci University, University of Granada, on Linguist List Vol. 18-363, 2007:
This is a study which is of high interest to people working in different linguistic fields and to educators working in the area of L2 language and writing instruction. The appropriate use of metadiscourse, as this study clearly demonstrates, plays a key role in achieving the appropriate degree of writer visibility, as well as appropriate modes of interaction with the reader, both of which contribute ot the approximation of native speaker communicative competence in formal written discourse. Those involved in advanced language teaching will gain important insights into what to incorporate into teaching curricula, as well as how to deal with clumsy sounding texts due to overloaded use of metadiscourse. [...] The importance of the book's content and the methods employed, matched by the author's fluid, engaging writing style (displaying a masterful command of metadiscourse herself), makes the book an absorbing, satisfying read.