Metadiscourse and discourse processes: Interactions and issues

Abstract

This paper reports the impact of metadiscourse, a rhetorical domain that regulates the communicative function of language, on sixth‐grade students' learning and attitudes. Metadiscourse directing the reader how to regard the author and the text was divided into two types, informational and attitudinal, and inserted in a social studies textbook chapter in either interpersonal or impersonal voice. Students were placed in high‐vocabulary or low‐vocabulary groups on the basis of test scores; in low‐comfort or high‐comfort groups on the basis of comfort index scores. The significant interaction results showed differential effects of metadiscourse on students' learning. Low‐comfort students learned more when informational metadiscourse was presented in interpersonal voice, but high‐comfort ones learned less. The results for attitudinal metadiscourse were the opposite. The effect on attitudes was that students who read just one type of metadiscourse were more tolerant of opinions than those who read both types or none at all. The issues concerning interaction and metadiscourse are clearly in need of discussion.