A Functional Study of Meta-discourse

Abstract

With the development of the discourse analysis theory, researchers have begun to pay attention to the meaning of discourse itself, and the meta-discourse has become a hot spot in discourse research. The definitions of meta-discourse in different schools are different and have their own biases, but the meta-discourse role has been widely accepted of organizing the discourse, expressing the author’s views, and considering the reader’s reflection, which is a way for the author to carry out the structure of the paper and organize ideas. From the perspective of Halliday’s system and function, this paper analyzes the three major functions of metadiscourse: ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions. The ideational metadiscourse can affect the propositional content and semantic interpretation of discourse to a certain extent. The interpersonal metadiscourse helps understand and evaluate propositional information, establish the relationship between the author and the reader and emphasize the interaction between them. The textual meta-discourse helps the writer express how they connect conceptual materials and how the text produces meaning in the context. In addition, the author believes that the use of the meta-discourse also reflects the interactive, inter-subjective, and dialogic features of the discourse.