Published academic writing often seems to be an unchanging form of discourse with its frozen informality remaining
stable over time. Recent work has shown, however, that these texts are highly interactive and dialogic as writers anticipate and
take into account readers’ likely objections, background knowledge, rhetorical expectations and processing needs. In this paper,
we explore one aspect of these interactions and how it has changed over the past fifty years. Focusing on what has been called
interactive metadiscourse (Hyland 2005; Hyland and
Tse 2004), or the ways authors organise their material for particular readers, we analyze a corpus of 2.2 million words
compiled from articles in the top journals in four disciplines to discover whether, and to what extent, interactive metadiscourse
has changed in different disciplines since 1965. The results show a considerable increase in an orientation to the reader over
this period, reflecting changes in both research and publication practices.
2002 “Interpersonal Metadiscourse: An Indicator of Interaction and Identity”. Discourse Studies 4 (2): 139–145.
Ädel, Annelie and Anna Mauranen
2010 “Metadiscourse: Diverse and Divided Perspectives”. Nordic Journal of English Studies 9 (2): 1–11.
Aijmer, Karin and Christoph Ruhlemann
(eds)2014Corpus Pragmatics: A Handbook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Anthony, Laurence
2014AntConc (Version 3.4.3 w). (Computer Software.) Tokyo, Japan: Waseda University. Available online at: [URL]
Becher, Tony and Paul Trowler
2001Academic Tribes and Territories: Intellectual Enquiry and the Culture of Disciplines. Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press.
Bergs, Alexander and Laurel J. Brinton
(eds)2012English Historical Linguistics: An International Handbook. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton
Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad and Edward Finegan
1999Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Longman.
Cao, Feng and Guangwei Hu
2014 “Interactive Metadiscourse in Research Articles: A Comparative Study of Paradigmatic and Disciplinary Influences”. Journal of Pragmatics 661 (May): 15–31.
Charles, Maggie
2006 “The Construction of Stance in Reporting Clauses: A Cross-disciplinary Study of Theses”. Applied Linguistics 27 (3): 492–518.
Estaji, Masoomeh and Roya Vafaeimehr
2015 “A Comparative Analysis of Interactional Metadiscourse Markers in the Introduction and Conclusion Sections of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Research Papers”. Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research 3 (1): 37–56.
Evans, James A.
2008 “Electronic Publications and the Narrowing of Science and Scholarship”. Science 321 (5887): 395–399.
Gillaerts, Paul and Freek Van de Velde
2010 “Interactional Metadiscourse in Research Article Abstracts”. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 9 (2): 128–139.
Hoey, Michael
1983On the Surface of Discourse. London: George Allen and Unwin.
Hyland, Ken
1999 “Talking to Students: Metadiscourse in Introductory Textbooks”. English for Specific Purposes 18 (1): 3–26.
Hyland, Ken
2005Metadiscourse. London: Continuum
Hyland, Ken
2007 “Applying a Gloss: Exemplifying and Reformulating in Academic Discourse”. Applied Linguistics 28 (2): 266–285.
Hyland, Ken
2017 “Metadiscourse: What is It and Where is It Going?” Journal of Pragmatics 1131 (May): 16–29.
Hyland, Ken and Feng (Kevin) Jiang
2017 “Is Academic Writing Becoming More Informal?” English for Specific Purposes 451 (January): 40–51.
Hyland, Ken and Feng (Kevin) Jiang
2019 “Points of Reference: Changing Patterns of Academic Citation”. Applied Linguistics 40 (1): 64–85.
Hyland, Ken and Polly Tse
2004 “Metadiscourse in Scholastic Writing: A Reappraisal”. Applied Linguistics 25 (2): 156–77.
Jiang, Feng (Kevin) and Ken Hyland
2018 “Nouns and Academic Interactions: A Neglected Feature of Metadiscourse”. Applied Linguistics 39 (4): 508–531.
2009 “Corpus Linguistics”. In Kirsten Malmkjaer (ed.), The Routledge Linguistics Encyclopedia, 104–113. London: Routledge.
Lin, Hui and Brendan Luyt
2012 “The Evolution of Scientific Journal Articles in the Periphery: A Case Study and Analysis of the Raffles Bulletin of Zoology from 1928 to 2008”. Journal of Information Science 38 (5): 407–422.
Mauranen, Anna
1993Cultural Differences in Academic Rhetoric: A Textlinguistic Study. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Moskowich, Isabel, Gonzalo Camiña Rioboo, Inés Lareo and Begoña Crespo
2007 “ ‘I/We Focus On…’: A Cross-cultural Analysis of Self-mentions in Business Management Research Articles”. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 6 (2): 143–162.
Mur Dueñas, Pilar
2011 “An Intercultural Analysis of Metadiscourse Features in Research Articles Written in English and in Spanish”. Journal of Pragmatics 43 (12): 3068–3079.
Noble, Wendy
2010 “Understanding Metadiscoursal Use: Lessons from a “Local” Corpus of Learner Academic Writing”. Nordic Journal of Applied Linguistics 9 (2): 145–169.
Rubio, Milagros del Saz
2011 “A Pragmatic Approach to the Macro-structure and Metadiscoursal Features of Research Article Introductions in the Field of Agricultural Sciences”. English for Specific Purposes 30 (4): 258–271.
Salas, Millaray D.
2015 “Reflexive Metadiscourse in Research Articles in Spanish: Variation across Three Disciplines (Linguistics, Economics and Medicine)”. Journal of Pragmatics 771 (February): 20–40.
Taavitsainen, Irma, Andreas H. Jucker and Jukka Tuominen
2001 “Interaction in Academic Writing: Learning to Argue with the Reader”. Applied Linguistics 22 (1): 58–78.
Trowler, Paul, Murray Saunders and Veronica Bamber
2012Tribes and Territories in the 21st Century. London: Routledge.
Tse, Polly and Ken Hyland
2006 ““So What is the Problem this Book Addresses?”: Interactions in Academic Book Reviews”. Text and Talk 26 (6): 767–790.
Ware, Mark and Michael Mabe
2015The STM Report: An Overview of Scientific and Scholarly Publishing. Oxford, STM: International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers.
Xia, Jingfeng, Rebekah Lynette Myers and Sara Kay Wilhoite
2010 “Multiple Open Access Availability and Citation Impact”. Journal of Information Science 37 (1): 19–28.
Cited by
Cited by 4 other publications
Hyland, Ken, Wenbin Wang & Feng (Kevin) Jiang
2022. Metadiscourse across languages and genres: An overview. Lingua 265 ► pp. 103205 ff.
Liu, Guobing & Yanfang Yang
2021. 2021 the 6th International Conference on Distance Education and Learning, ► pp. 121 ff.
Su, Hang, Yuqing Zhang & Xiaofei Lu
2021. Applying local grammars to the diachronic investigation of discourse acts in academic writing: The case of exemplification in Linguistics research articles. English for Specific Purposes 63 ► pp. 120 ff.
Завьялова, Ольга Сергеевна & Христу, Мария
2021. LINGUODIDAC DESCRIPTION OF AUTHORIZATION MEANS AS PART OF LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE (PROBLEM STATEMENT). Pedagogical Review :2(36) ► pp. 135 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.