"But here's a flawed argument": Socialisation into and through Metadiscourse

Author: Anna Mauranen

Source: Language and Computers, Corpus Analysis: Language Structure and Language Use. Edited by Pepi Leistyna and Charles F. Meyer , pp. 19-34(16)

Publisher: Rodopi

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Abstract:

Part of being an academic entails being able to present 'strong arguments', ask 'appropriate questions', make 'interesting points', and perform other similar speech acts (e.g., Väliverronen 1992). Some of our socialisation into such skills appears to take place fairly explicitly through evaluative metadiscourse (or discourse reflexivity): 'That's a good question', 'the fundamental point is', 'it is important to emphasize'…, which, interestingly, tends to be predominantly positive (Mauranen 2000). Such discourse-reflexive expressions play important roles in organising ongoing discourse both in a linear way (indicating order and cohesion) and a hierarchical way (indicating importance). In the latter capacity, the effect on establishing and reorganising knowledge structures is clearly more important. This paper explores the organising and socialising role of discourse reflexivity via some items related to argumentation ('argue', 'claim', 'observe'…) in the MICASE corpus, focusing on 'argue' in evaluative contexts. To capture socialisation from a developmental perspective, the uses are tracked down through speaker categories. A methodological solution for assessing the significance of speaker category figures is proposed on the basis of estimated expectancy values.

Document Type: Miscellaneous

Publication date: 2003-06-05

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