Review Article: Cross-disciplinary and cross-linguistic perspectives on metadiscourse in academic writing

The present review article examines a selection of recent academic discourse concerning metadiscourse. Metadiscourse relates to aspects of a text which organise the discourse in an explicit way, engage the addressee, and indicate the writer’s attitude. It is integral to the contexts in which it happens and is intimately dealt with according to the norms and expectations of specific cultural and professional communities. This review aims to explore the effect of disciplinary conventions and norms as well as language context on the manifestation of metadiscourse markers in academic writing. Since most scholars commonly believe that the application of metadiscourse differs from discipline to discipline and language to language, the accuracy of this belief is investigated. Therefore, results of some earlier studies are reviewed so as to investigate the accuracy of the above assertion. Limitations of existing empirical studies are discussed and some directions for future research regarding the use of metadiscourse in academic settings are suggested as well. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2013, 31(1): 129–138