A Study Of The Evaluative Function Of Metadiscourse From A Phraseology Theory Perspective

Metadiscourse stands for the explicit language strategy employed by the writer toorganize the discourse, attract readers, and express attitude toward the propositionalcontent and the readers, which is mainly classified into two categories according toHyland: interactive metadiscourse and interactional metadicourse. Studies inmetadiscourse of recent years shows a broader research field, deepened research contentand increasingly sophisticated research object. In a word,―thick‖and―thin‖could givea description of the current metadiscourse research. The concept of―thick‖focuses onthe nature of metadiscourse while the―thin‖concept mainly investigates thedistribution of metadiscourse in a particular discourse or corpus.The current research on metadiscourse is mainly from the perspective of theperspective of psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, cognitive-function and naturallanguage processing. With the use of computer technology in the field of languagestudies, large quantities of text processing becomes possible, which also contributes tothe corpus linguistic study. Meanwhile, the use of a large corpus of text processingsoftware for data collection also guarantees the qualitative analysis of metadiscoursemore scientific and reliable to some degree. As a very important means which bridgesthe relation between the writer and the discourse, the writer and the reader and thereader and the discourse, metadiscourse plays a significant role in expressing attitudeand fulfilling the evaluative function of discourse. However, one of the most importantfeature of metadiscourse has been neglected by the scholars, is that the nature ofmetadiscourse in a sense of language. Since metadiscourse has an impact on the writer‘sattitude and the evaluative function of discourse, then how does this impact emerge? Doall the sub-categories of metadiscourse have this impact? Is the evaluation explicit orimplicit? In what way is the evaluation expressed? Taken these questions intoconsideration, the study will mainly explore the following questions:(1) What are the distribution and frequency of metadiscourse in the journalismreviews?(2) What are the typical phraseological items and what is the evaluation function of metadiscourse in the journalism reviews?(3) How do metadiscourse phraseological items fulfill the evaluative functionin journalism review?In order to solve these problems, the present study collects120English journalismreviews from the U.S and British main stream media, ranging from The WashingtonPost, The Routers, The Guardian, The Observer and The Telegram of the year between2010and2013.The content of the reviews concern with politics, economy, science andculture. Take the Phraseology Theory into consideration, under Martin&White (2005)Appraisal Theory, this study will make a comprehensive analysis of typicalphraseological items in metadiscourse from different angles. And the analysis mainlyexplore the form, meaning and evaluative function of metadiscourse in a combined wayof quantitative and qualitative analysis with the help of the computer softwareAntconc3.2. The final goal of this analysis is to understand the underlying reason ofevaluative function of metadiscourse.The results are as follows:(1)183types of metadiscourse emerge in the corpus, with6417interactivemetadiscourse and4234interactional metadiscourse. Among these distributions, the topthree metadiscourse are transitions, frame markers and hedges and the frequency of thethree each subcategory is42.1%,18.9%and16.1%. While the lowest-frequent usedmetadiscourse is code glosses, which only counts0.4%of the total metadiscourse.(2) There are27high-frequency phraseological item of metadiscourse pattern,which appears more than4times in the corpus. The27patterns consist of differentcategories of metadiscourse, such as transitions according to, hedges, seem to and seemlike, evidentials X says and self-mention I think, I suspect and so on.(3) The writers would use two or more than two categories of metadiscourse toexpress attitude, construct and enhance the writer-reader relations, therefore to makecomment on the object in the reviews and to persuade the readers and other writers. Oneof the typical usages is the alternative use of hedges and boosters.(4) The evaluative function of metadiscourse mainly manifests in the degree of itsinfluence on the writer‘s attitude. The evidential markers and frame markers canintensify the positive attitude of the discourse. And the transitions will not onlyintensify a positive but also a negative, which depends on the context. Similarly, hedgescan both downtone a positive and a negative. What‘s more, the transitions, self mentions and engagement markers are employed by the writer to make assumptions,construct and enhance writer-reader relationship, fulfilling the evaluation andpersuasion of the discourse.On the one hand, the study summarizes and explores the form, meaning andevaluative function of metadiscourse to some degree in theoretical practice, on the otherhand, this study provides a new angle for the research of metadiscourse, meanwhile, itcan give some hint for the English writing in the discourse organization andargumentation. Therefore, these findings are valuable to the investigation of the form,meaning and function of language.