A Study On The Application Of Metadiscourse To College English Writing Teaching

Writing is a communicative engagement which involves the writer and the reader.English writing, as an abstract cognitive process, is difficult to teach. It is a process ofchanging a writer’s ideas into grammatical sentences and rhetorical patterns. The purpose ofwriting is not only realized by the logical structure, but also realized by convincing readers toagree with writers and adopt their ideas. All these lead to the two levels of writing: primarydiscourse which provides information about the subject of the text and expands propositionalcontent about a topic. Metadiscourse, a second and a less obvious level, is that part of the textwhich comments on the text itself or which directs comments to the reader (Williams,1981;Cheng&Steffensen,1996).Metadiscourse, since it was coined by Zelling S. Harris in1959, attracts more and moreresearchers, especially those in the field of linguistic study. Researchers in semantics andpragmatics investigate metadiscourse from various perspectives, however, it is still a vagueconception. The most influential study of metadiscourse is based on Halliday’sSystemic-Functional Grammar. It believes that primary discourse can fulfill ideationalfunction, while metadiscourse can fulfill textual function and interpersonal function. Thisprovides the theoretical foundation of metadiscourse. Since then, the study of metadiscoursegreatly focuses on the functions it plays in the passages.As metadiscourse is an important component in English writing, it is necessary for ourEnglish teachers to investigate the teaching methods contributing to our students’ use ofmetadiscourse effectively in their compositions. The new method which applies the theory ofmetadiscourse to writing teaching is different from traditional method which excessivelyfocuses on the grammatical facet. This new method helps students develop the awareness ofinteracting with readers. Admittedly, it will have a positive effect on improving our students’writing ability.Considering this situation, this classroom-based experiment applies the theory ofmetadiscourse to our college students’ English writing classes aiming to explore howmetadiscourse influence the learner’s compositions. Two natural classes from Gansu Lianhe University are selected as the subjects of this experiment. Firstly, a pilot study and a pretestare conducted to ensure the similar English proficiency and writing ability of the two classes.Secondly, during one semester (16weeks), the experiment class is taught the basic writingskills as well as the detailed knowledge of metadiscourse while the control class is taught thebasic writing skills which are same as that in the experiment class. At last, a posttest isconducted to compare the different effects of the two different teaching methods.The data of the experiment is selected after all the tests and the analysis of the datashows that metadiscourse plays a very important role in our college students’ writing. It isurgent for our English teachers to make good use of the theory of metadiscourse in helpingour college students write good compositions. Through the experiment, it is indicated that thisnew method could facilitate students’ writing proficiency as well as making up for thedeficiency of traditional teaching method.