A Study On The Use Of Metadiscourse In English Writings By Senior High School Students

To students of senior three,the NMET(National Matriculation English Test)is a comprehensive language test.However,writing as a linguistically advanced form of writing has always been a weak link in student exams and daily practice.Writing is not only an important language output,but also a standard for measuring students' language ability.The theory of metadiscourse regards the process of writing as a social activity,organizing texts,enabling authors/speakers to guide the audience to understand texts,express their opinions,and communicate with readers.The use of metadiscourse not only reflects the interactive relationship between authors and readers,but also reflects the author's discourse ability.Based on this,the theory of metadiscourse helps to improve students' writing skills.This article focuses on the use of metadiscourse in English writings by senior high students.This study first conducted a qualitative and quantitative study of 105 sample writings from the students who took part in the joint examination with four countries in Ningxiang NO.13 High School.On the basis of the framework of Hyland's interpersonal model of metadiscourse and discourse analysis,the study investigates and analyzes the use of metadiscourse by senior students in writings,and further reveals the problems in current writing instructions,and then the study puts forward some suggestions.This article aims to address the following questions:(1)What's the relationship between the use of metadiscourse and the students' scores in the English writings?(2)What are the differences of the metadiscourse categories used in the students' writings? Which categories are more used,and which are less used?(3)What implications do we get from the metadiscourse use in teaching English writings?The results show that the students who get higher scores would like to use more metadiscourse than those who get lower scores.Therefore,this study can safely draw a conclusion that the correct use of metadiscourse could effectively improve the students' writing ability.And students use more interactional metadiscourse than interactive metadiscourse.The frequency of self mention and engagement markers are the most used ones,and the number of endophoric markers and evidentials are used rather less.Through the study of the use of metadiscourse in senior three students' English writings,the study puts forward two suggestions to improve English writing teaching.One is to enhance students' knowledge in metadiscourse,and the other is to cultivate students' reader awareness.