Analyzing Teachers' Use of Metadiscourse: The Missing Element in Classroom Discourse Analysis

Metadiscourse, or metatalk, is a discursive resource used in virtually any text or conversation to organize its content or signal the author's stance toward the content. Despite its prevalence in classroom talk, few have examined the role of metadiscourse and how it assists teachers and student...

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Main Author: Tang, Kok-Sing
Format: Journal Article
Published: John Wiley & Sons 2017
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/53937
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author Tang, Kok-Sing
author_facet Tang, Kok-Sing
author_sort Tang, Kok-Sing
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Metadiscourse, or metatalk, is a discursive resource used in virtually any text or conversation to organize its content or signal the author's stance toward the content. Despite its prevalence in classroom talk, few have examined the role of metadiscourse and how it assists teachers and students to manage classroom communication of scientific knowledge. Thus, the purpose of this study is to analyze how science teachers use metadiscourse to construct scientific knowledge with their students. Based on a corpus of classroom video data, I developed a typology of metadiscourse commonly found in science classroom discourse. The typology comprises six major categories of metadiscourse, namely text connective, knowledge connective, activity connective, attitude marker, epistemology marker, and interpretive marker. In addition, I showed how the analysis on metadiscourse was necessary to complement the gaps from classroom analysis focusing on the interaction and content development aspects of classroom talk, particularly during the opening and reviewing stages of constructing a scientific explanation. With a better understanding of metadiscourse, its potential use as a pedagogical intervention to promote science learning is then discussed.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-539372017-10-23T02:56:24Z Analyzing Teachers' Use of Metadiscourse: The Missing Element in Classroom Discourse Analysis Tang, Kok-Sing Metadiscourse, or metatalk, is a discursive resource used in virtually any text or conversation to organize its content or signal the author's stance toward the content. Despite its prevalence in classroom talk, few have examined the role of metadiscourse and how it assists teachers and students to manage classroom communication of scientific knowledge. Thus, the purpose of this study is to analyze how science teachers use metadiscourse to construct scientific knowledge with their students. Based on a corpus of classroom video data, I developed a typology of metadiscourse commonly found in science classroom discourse. The typology comprises six major categories of metadiscourse, namely text connective, knowledge connective, activity connective, attitude marker, epistemology marker, and interpretive marker. In addition, I showed how the analysis on metadiscourse was necessary to complement the gaps from classroom analysis focusing on the interaction and content development aspects of classroom talk, particularly during the opening and reviewing stages of constructing a scientific explanation. With a better understanding of metadiscourse, its potential use as a pedagogical intervention to promote science learning is then discussed. 2017 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/53937 10.1002/sce.21275 John Wiley & Sons restricted
spellingShingle Tang, Kok-Sing
Analyzing Teachers' Use of Metadiscourse: The Missing Element in Classroom Discourse Analysis
title Analyzing Teachers' Use of Metadiscourse: The Missing Element in Classroom Discourse Analysis
title_full Analyzing Teachers' Use of Metadiscourse: The Missing Element in Classroom Discourse Analysis
title_fullStr Analyzing Teachers' Use of Metadiscourse: The Missing Element in Classroom Discourse Analysis
title_full_unstemmed Analyzing Teachers' Use of Metadiscourse: The Missing Element in Classroom Discourse Analysis
title_short Analyzing Teachers' Use of Metadiscourse: The Missing Element in Classroom Discourse Analysis
title_sort analyzing teachers' use of metadiscourse: the missing element in classroom discourse analysis
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/53937