Talking to Students: Metadiscourse in Introductory Coursebooks

Abstract

This paper explores the possible role of university textbooks in students' acquisition of a specialised disciplinary literacy, focusing on the use of metadiscourse as a manifestation of the writer's linguistic and rhetorical presence in a text. Because metadiscourse can be analysed independently of propositional matter, it provides useful information about how writers support their arguments and build a relationship with readers in different rhetorical contexts. The paper compares features in extracts from 21 textbooks in microbiology, marketing and applied linguistics with a similar corpus of research articles and shows that the ways textbook authors represent themselves, organise their arguments, and signal their attitudes to both their statements and their readers differ markedly in the two corpora. It is suggested that these differences mean that textbooks provide limited rhetorical guidance to students seeking information from research sources or learning appropriate forms of written argument. Finally, by investigating metadiscourse in particular disciplines and genres, the study helps to restore the intrinsic link between metadiscourse and its associated rhetorical contexts and rectify a popular view which implicitly characterises it as an independent stylistic device. © 1998 The American University. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.