The Application Of Meta-discourse To Listening Comprehension Teaching

Meta-discourse refers to short words or phrases even sentences of a text, which explicitly organize the discourse, engage the hearers and signal the speaker's attitude (Brinton, 1996). These expressions guide and direct the hearers to organize, interpret, evaluate, and react to the propositional content. Many linguists (William, 1981; Schiffrin, 1987; Blakemore, 1992; Fraser, 1996) have made studies on meta-discourse from different perspectives. Many scholars (Halliday, 1994; Brown & Yule, 1983) think meta-discourse has two main functions: textual and interpersonal functions. Functions of meta-discourse are mainly to call the hearer's attention and participation as well as to help the hearer to understand the propositional content and the speaker's attitude. Meta-discourse can clearly indicate the organization of discourse, remind the hearer of the preceding and the following contents, and express clearly the concrete speech acts. The theoretical studies on meta-discourse, especially on its functions, affirm its promotion on discourse interpretation. Therefore, meta-discourse facilitates listening comprehension (Chaudron & Richards, 1986; Thompson, 2003) and plays an important role in listening teaching.Although many linguists gradually realize the important role of meta-discourse in language learning and combine the theory of meta-discourse with the practice of language learning, they mainly focus on the relationship between meta-discourse and writing. Consequently, little has been reported about meta-discourse-based instruction, especially in listening, from the studies on meta-discourse abroad and at home.In view of the situation, an experiment combining meta-discourse and listening comprehension teaching is carried out in order to investigate the effect of meta-discourse-based listening instruction on students' listening proficiency as well as whether such a kind of instruction influence students with different proficiency levels similarly.The subjects of this research are fifty-eight freshmen from Foreign Languages and Literature Department in Hefei University, who participate in the one-term study,...