Research Roundtable: The utility of metadiscourse analysis

Description

I am proposing to introduce and demonstrate the utility of metadiscourse analysis. Metadiscourse describes the language that writers use to help readers interpret the intended function of the message, either by guiding the reader’s attention through the text (interactive) and or by involving the audience in the text (interactional). Originally focussing on written communication and corporate rhetoric (Hyland, 2005) metadiscourse analysis has been successfully applied to a range of modalities and genres, such as online consumer reviews (Vasquez, 2014), advertising and slogans (Fuertes-Olivia et al. 2001) and public health communication during the pandemic (Love et al., in preparation).

In a recent project I am using metadiscourse analysis to explore what metadiscourse devices reveal in corporate social media about the authors’ conceptualisations the hierarchy in the workplace. My main aim is to use these linguistic manifestations to shed light on elements of organisational culture and expose the fine interdependence between internal and external organisational communication.

---

Fuertes-Olivera, P., Velasco-Sacristán, M., Arribas-Baño, A., & Samaniego-Fernández, E. (2001). Persuasion and advertising English: Metadiscourse in slogans and headlines. Journal Of Pragmatics, 33(8), 1291-1307. doi: 10.1016/S0378-2166(01)80026-6

Hyland, K. (2005). Metadiscourse: exploring interaction in writing. London: Continuum

Love, R., Darics, E., & Palmieri, R. (in prep). Engaging the public: local government organisations’ communications during the COVID-19 pandemic. Applied Corpus Linguistics.

Vásquez, C. (2014). The discourse of online consumer reviews. Bloomsbury.

Period	6-Oct-2022
Event title	Association For Business Communication 2022 Annual International Conference: Reconnecting and Reengaging our Research, Teaching, and Networks
Event type	Conference
Location	Tampa, United States, FloridaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International