A Speech Act Theory of Metadiscourse

Abstract

Metadiscourse commonly is defined as “discourse about discoursing.” In its brief history, the term has appeared in several studies of text structure; however, theorists disagree concerning the functions and forms of metadiscursive structures and the role of metadiscourse in a larger theory of text linguistics. This study provides representative examples of the problems that diminish the utility of the metadiscourse theories that currently are available. It then proposes an alternative theory that locates metadiscourse within the larger context of speech act theory. The study defines metadiscourse as indicators of expositive illocutionary acts, and it then provides a taxonomy of metadiscursive functions and forms.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Austin, J. L. (1981 ). How to do things with words (2nd ed., J. O. Urmson & M. Sbisa , Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1962)

Beauvais, P. J. , & Parker, F. (1984). Analogizing from generative linguistics to composition. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 236 672)

Crismore, A. (1982). The metadiscourse component: Understanding writing about reading directives. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 217 374)

Crismore, A. (1983). Metadiscourse: What it is and how it is used in school and non-school social science texts (Tech. Rep. No. 273). Champaign: University of Illinois, Center for the Study of Reading.

Crismore, A. (1984). The rhetoric of textbooks: Metadiscourse. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 16, 279-296.

Crismore, A. (1985). The case for a rhetorical perspective on learning from texts: Exploring metadiscourse (Tech. Rep. No. 342). Champaign: University of Illinois, Center for the Study of Reading.

Crismore, A. , & Vande Kopple, W. J. (1988). Readers' learning from prose: The effects of hedges. Written Communication, 5, 184-202.

Dasenbrock, R. W. (1987). J. L. Austin and the articulation of a new rhetoric. College Composition and Communication, 38, 291-305.

Derrida, J. (1977). Signature event context. Glyph, 1, 172-197.

10.

Haas, C. , & Flower, L. (1988). Rhetorical reading strategies and the construction of meaning. College Composition and Communication, 39, 167-183.

11.

Harris, Z. (1970). Linguistic transformations for information retrieval. In Papers in structural and transformational linguistics (pp. 458-471). Dordrecht: D. Reidel. (Original work published 1959)

12.

Levinson, S. C. (1984). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

13.

Quirk, R. , Greenbaum, S. , & Svartvik, J. (1980). A grammar of contemporary English. London: Longman.

14.

Sadock, J. M. (1974). Toward a linguistic theory of speech acts. New York: Academic Press.

15.

Searle, J. R. (1984). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1969)

16.

Sloan, G. (1984). The frequency of transitional markers in discursive prose. College English, 46, 158-175.

17.

Sloan, G. (1988). Relational ambiguity between sentences. College Composition and Communication, 39, 154-165.

18.

Vande Kopple, W. J. (1980). Experimental evidence for functional sentence perspective. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago.

19.

Vande Kopple, W. J. (1985). Some exploratory discourse on metadiscourse. College Composition and Communication, 36, 82-93.

20.

Williams, J. M. (1979). Non-linguistic linguistics and the teaching of style. In D. McQuade (Ed.), Linguistics, stylistics, and the teaching of composition (pp. 24-40). Akron, OH: University of Akron.

21.

Williams, J. M. (1981). Literary style: The personal voice. In T. Shopen & J. M. Williams (Eds.), Style and variables in English (pp. 117-216). Cambridge, MA: Winthrop.

22.

Williams, J. M. (1985). Style: Ten lessons in clarity and grace (2nd ed.). Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.