Astudy Of Meta-discourse In The Compositions By Non-english Majors

Language is a tool for human communication. In any form of languagecommunication, there are two levels of dis-course: the primary discourse level, whichconsists of propositions and referential meaning, and the meta-discourse level, whichconsists of propositional attitudes, textual meanings, and interpersonal meanings(Crismore, 1989). On the primary level, we supply information about the subject ofour text and expand propositional content, and on the level of meta-discourse, weproject ourselves into the text guiding and directing our readers to organize, interpret,evaluate, and react to our propositional content. Writing, as one of the mostcomprehensive skills of language output, requires the writer to take into considerationhow to guide the reader to the intended meaning conveyed by the text.Characterized as“writing about writing, discourse about discourse”, meta-discourserefers to words or phases such as so, however, as you know, probably in a text whichcan“help writers arrange and organize the content to“influence readers”understanding of both the text and their attitude towards its content and the audience”(Hyland, 1998:436). These expressions guide and direct the hearers to organize,interpret, evaluate and react to the propositional content. Thus, we can usemeta-discourse to express both textual and interpersonal meanings of discourse.The thesis, based on Relevance theory and Hyland’s classification ofmeta-discourse, aims to explore the use of meta-discourse by non-English majors bothqualitatively and quantitatively with 50 English writings and 90 questionnaires assamples and analyze how meta-discourse helps establish coherent discourse as well asthe interpersonal interaction between the writer and the reader.The research in this thesis is designed to explore the questions as follows: 1) Do thestudents with high scores use more meta-discourse markers than the low scoresstudents? 2) What kind of meta-discourse markers do the students use more frequently?3) Which meta-discourse markers do the students always misuse?The results of the analysis prove that there is indeed a relation between the quantity of meta-discourse and the quality of writing. The higher scores the writing, the moremeta-discourse. Besides, Students use more interactive meta-discourse thaninteractional meta-discourse. The thesis also points out the meta-discourse studentsalways misuse. According to the research, it is an effective way to teach students theappropriate use of meta-discourse to improve students’proficiency in English writing.Based on these findings, pedagogical implications in chapter five are given asfollows: 1) Improving Students’Textual and Interpersonal Awareness of Compositions;2) Emphasizing the language input and output; 3) Improving Students’AudienceAwareness.The present study will guide Chinese college students use meta-discourse in Englishwriting on purpose and improve students’writing ability effectively.