Metadiscursive nouns: Interaction and cohesion in abstract moves

Research article abstracts have become an important genre in all knowledge fields, playing a crucial role in persuading readers, and reviewers, to take the time to go further into the paper itself. This promotional aspect of abstracts is well known, but less discussed is the ways writers are able to skilfully foreground their claim, package the information in a cohesive and coherent manner, and craft a disciplinary stance. One such rhetorical strategy is what we are calling metadiscursive nouns. Nouns such as fact, analysis, and belief are common in abstracts and do a great deal of rhetorical work for writers. In this paper we explore the interactive and interactional functions they perform in the rhetorical moves of 240 research abstracts from six disciplines. The results show how these nouns are frequently used to frame and coherently manage arguments while, at the same time, helping writers to claim disciplinary legitimacy and promote the value and relevance of their research to their discipline

Nouns and Academic Interactions: A Neglected Feature of Metadiscourse

Metadiscourse has received considerable attention in recent years as a way of understanding the rhetorical negotiations involved in academic writing. But while a useful tool in revealing something of the dynamic interactions which underlie persuasive claim making, it has little to say about the role of nouns in this process. We address this gap by exploring the rhetorical functions of what we call metadiscursive nouns (such as fact, analysis, belief) and by mapping them onto a model of metadiscourse. The study examines ‘metadiscursive noun + post-nominal clause’ patterns, one of the most frequent structures containing such nouns, in a corpus of 120 research articles across six disciplines. Developing a rhetorically based classification and exploring the interactive and interactional use of metadiscursive nouns, we show that they are another key element of metadiscourse, offering writers a way of organizing discourse into a cohesive flow of information and of constructing a stance towards it. These interactions are further shown to realize the epistemological assumptions and rhetorical practices of particular disciplines

Figures of interpretation

This peer-reviewed article was intended to contribute to the general pedagogy of practice-led doctoral research through addressing the particular methodological issue of the relationship between written text and practice. This methodological issue concerns the modes of interpretation that arise in the relationship between the written text and the art work in practice-led doctoral research. The initial version of this paper was a contribution to the 5th Research into Practice conference (Royal Society of Arts, London, October 2008), whose central theme was the question of whether art practice-led doctoral research should provide the means for a clear interpretation of its contribution to knowledge, or whether it is a defining characteristic of art work that it is open to different interpretations. In the article I subsequently developed, I consider the idea that the act of interpretation which takes place between written text and art work is one that involves two distinct interpretative attitudes, and explore the possibility, with reference to Hayden White's work on the relationship between rhetorical figures and discourse, that a particular kind of knowledge is produced through the workings of their internal relationship

Lingua Franca Negotiations of Cultural Understandings to Build Friendships: Interrelating Intercultural Awareness and Pragmatic Strategies

In this pandemic and historic season marked by international tensions, we are reminded of the growing relevance of further understanding intercultural communication mediated through English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). The negotiation of understandings through ELF intercultural communication has been studied substantially since the focus of ELF research turned from the investigation of features to the underlying processes involved in meaning-making (Jenkins, 2015). In the present study, I critically engaged with previous theoretical constructs of pragmatic strategies (Mauranen, 2003a, 2006; Cogo, 2009; Kaur, 2009; Mauranen, 2012; Cogo and Dewey, 2012; Cogo and House, 2018) and a model of intercultural awareness (ICA) (Baker, 2011, 2015, 2018) to take a step forward and investigate how the interplay of those two aspects impacts the unfolding of Negotiations of cultural understandings in ELF talk (Zhu, 2015). Using Conversation Analysis complemented by ethnographic tools, I analysed the conversations of two Londoner multilingual faith-based communities of practice (Wenger, 1998). Those communities were part of the same broader church community and had building friendships as their main ‘enterprise’. The participants’ super-diverse (Vertovec, 2007, 2019) linguistic and linguacultural repertoires (Risager, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2012) led them into the Negotiation of situated meanings, constituted by their understandings of those topics. I examined the unfolding (beginning, middle and ending) of the Negotiations and, among other things, adapted the ICA model to describe a wider range of communicative practices. The findings revealed relevant patterns in the displays of ICA that affected how complexly the topics were treated. It also indicated that some pragmatic strategies had specific functions in the displays and responses to particular ICA levels. This investigation of naturally occurring conversations offered further insights into the processes of pre-empting, fine-tuning, and resolving culture-based mis-/non-understandings, with the potential to inspire future research that will inform ELF-aware pedagogies

Middle English medical recipes: A metadiscursive approach

This paper seeks to explore Middle English medical recipes from a metadiscursive perspective. This study will draw on Hyland’s (2005) metadiscourse model where code glosses, endophoric markers, evidentials, frame markers and transition markers are included in the interactive dimension, and attitude markers, boosters, engagement markers, hedges and self mention are to be found within interactional metadiscourse. I shall apply this framework for the identification and analysis of data in a corpus which comprises a selection of recipes taken from both Middle English Medical Texts (Taavitsainen – Pahta – Mäkinen 2005) and The corpus of early English recipes. The metadiscursive approach to the study of medical recipes will allow us to establish links between authors, texts and audience of the recipe genre and, consequently, to affirm their status as products of social engagement

The Problem-Solution Pattern in NNS Argumentation

The present study investigates the use of Problem-Solution in student essays to identify whether or not or to what extent this text pattern is a source of perceived difference in NNS student essays in comparison with NS student essays The study is a follow-up to Tahara 2017 which compared argumentation essays written by NNS students with those by NS students conducted from the perspective of the use of metadiscursive nouns They are general and unspecific meaning nouns that can serve as markers of the discourse in some ways by referring to a textual segment in the texts where the nouns occur Of 33 selected metadiscursive nouns examined in Tahara 2017 this paper reexamines the use of a noun problem in relation to the Problem-Solution pattern The focus of the noun for the investigation of the use of Problem-Solution is because in the 2017 study Tahara problem very often occurred in combination with a Response Solution-indicating vocabulary in both corpora as in problem is solved consider the problem or problem should be dealt with underlined are vocabulary signaling Response Solutio

A Multimodal Approach to Metadiscourse as an Organizational Tool in Lectures

This thesis explores the uses of organizational metadiscourse in lectures from a multimodal perspective, thus providing a holistic view of its use. Moreover, this study explores how the use of organizational metadiscourse, both at a linguistic and at non-verbal level, is influenced by the lecturing style chosen by the lecturers (conversational, rhetorical or reading styles).Esta tesis explora los usos del metadiscurso organizativo en clases universitarias desde una perspectiva multimodal que permite obtener una visión holística del mismo. Además, se describe como el discurso organizativo es influenciado tanto a nivel lingüístico como a nivel no verbal por el estilo de enseñanza del profesorado (conversacional, retórico o lector).Programa de Doctorat en Llengües Aplicades, Literatura i Traducci

Abstract nouns as metadiscursive shells in academic discourse

El discurs acadèmic es caracteritza per l?abundància de noms abstractes, com ara anàlisi, recerca, procés, concepte, aproximació o rol. Considerats mecanismes cohesius, atès que el seu significat discursiu es determina per referència al context en què apareixen, han rebut denominacions diverses en la bibliografia anglosaxona (anaphoric, signaling, carrier, shell o metadiscursive nouns). A partir de les propostes de Schmid (2000) i Jiang i Hyland (2016, 2017), aquest article explora la funció metadiscursiva d?aquests noms com a encapsuladors d?informacions complexes en un corpus de resums acadèmics elaborats per estudiants universitaris per als seus Treballs de Final de Grau. El treball aborda també el potencial retòric i persuasiu d?aquests noms abstractes en aquest gènere acadèmic. Els resultats palesen que els estudiants de nivell avançat d?anglès com a llengua estrangera utilitzen una àmplia gamma de substantius abstractes i segueixen patrons d?ús que s?assemblen als dels experts acadèmics (Jiang i Hyland 2017). Les diferents parts l?estructura textual semblen condicionar el tipus de nom emprat. En definitiva, tot i que els estudiants quasigraduats d?Estudis Anglesos mostren que coneixen les convencions del gènere, els resultats millorarien si, durant el desenvolupament del grau, s?incidís en l?elaboració de resums de treballs acadèmics (abstracts), sobretot pel que fa a l?organització de la informació

Transitioning to Writing about Writing: A Consideration of the Metawriting Teaching Approach at the University of Arkansas

This thesis uses case studies of six Teaching Assistants and Instructors to analyze the curricular and pedagogical shift from a writing-through-literature model to the Composition II course to a metawriting approach during the 2014 spring semester at the University of Arkansas. The administrative decision from the Program in Rhetoric and Composition to make this transition came in response to the 2007 article by Elizabeth Wardle and Douglas Downs in College Composition and Communication outlining a Writing about Writing approach to teaching composition

Challenging nationalist definitions of racism: critical discursive interventions in the Flemish debates about racism's relativity

Der folgende Artikel plädiert für einen Kritikbegriff, der Kritik als öffentlichen Meta-Diskurs konzipiert, welches es Subjekten ermöglicht, all jene Logiken und Rationalitäten, die soziales Leiden verursachen, zu erkennen, zu re-artikulieren und zu re-konfigurieren. Veranschaulicht wird dies anhand einer Analyse der spezifischen Kritikformen bzw. -modi innerhalb der von flämischnationalistischen Politikern initiierten Debatte um die vermeintliche Relativität von Rassismus. Die Analyse dieser Debatte orientiert sich hierbei an einer interpretativen und funktionalen Konzeption der Diskursanalyse. Für diese Analyseheuristik ist eine Operationalisierung des poststrukturalistischen Artikulationskonzepts zentral. Im Zuge der Untersuchung werden verschiedene Arten und Weisen der kritisch-diskursiven Intervention in diese Debatte identifiziert. Dadurch können gleichsam die Grenzen bzw. Grenzmarker der "Rassismus-ist-relativ-Debatte" skizziert werden: hegemoniale Ansprüche, ideologische und metalinguistische De-Legitimierungen sowie Konkretisierungsstrategien. Die identifizierten kritischen Interventionen wurden von einer Vielzahl unterschiedlicher Akteure (Bürger, Aktivisten, Wissenschaftler und Politiker) innerhalb verschiedenster Medienpublikationen, im Zeitraum zwischen 2013 und 2015, artikuliert. Die Grenzen politischer Interpretationsräume werden von sozialen Akteuren durch dieses Spiel diskursiver Interventionen verhandelt und herausgefordert. Der folgende Artikel veranschaulicht, dass die meisten Kritiken der Behauptung, Rassismus sei relativ, die diesem rassistischen Diskurs zugrundeliegenden Logiken und Artikulationsformen nicht radikal genug herausfordern bzw. untergraben. Auf theoretischer Ebene sollte er zudem DiskursforscherInnen für die Differenzierung spezifischer Kritikmodi sensibilisieren, da nur durch eine solche differenzierende Identifizierung die komplexen Artikulationsformen einer öffentlichen Debatte angemessen analysiert werden können.This paper proposes a notion of critique as a public metadiscourse that allows subjects to recognize, rearticulate and/or reconfigure the logics and rationalities that lead to social suffering. It nalyses the way critique operates in a controversy triggered by Flemish nationalist politicians who claim that racism is [a] relative [concept]. The author proposes to analyse the associated debate by means of an interpretive and functional discourse analysis. This heuristic operationalizes the poststructuralist concept of articulation. The author identifies different types of critical discursive intervention (CDI) that delineate the boundaries of the racism-is-relative debate: hegemonic claims, ideological disqualifications, metalinguistic disqualifications, and concretization strategies. Such interventions haven been articulated by citizens, activists, academics, and politicians across a variety of mostly written media between 2013 and 2015. It is through the play of discursive interventions that social actors challenge and negotiate political boundaries for interpretation. The article demonstrates that most critiques on assertions of racism being [a] relative [concept] do not undermine the logics and rationalities informing racism- is-relative discourse. It also shows that discourse analysts need to differentiate between different modes of critique in order to examine the complex acts of rearticulation that take place in any debate