| Crismore(1989)claims that any form of language communication involves two discourses:primary discourse and meta-discourse.Primary discourse realizes the concept function of language,while meta-discourse guides readers to understand theme discourse and expresses the author's attitude towards thematic content,which is a language component that does not increase propositional information.Therefore,in writing,the author uses the meta-discourse marker to organize the discourse,indicating the purpose of his or her writing and realizing the interpersonal interaction between the author and the readers.As such,this study,based on previous research and in light with Hyland's classification of meta-discourse,aims to explore the use of meta-discourse in narration.More than 90 students from a senior high school in Fuzhou took part in this investigation.This research is designed to explore the questions as follows:1)What is the situation of meta-discourse use in senior high school students'composition?2)Is the use of meta-discourse related to writing scores?3)Is there any difference in meta-discourse use between high-score group and low-score group?All the data collected were analyzed with SPSS 19.0 and the main findings are as follows:(1)In terms of the number of meta-discourse use,the distribution of different types of meta-discourse use is not balanced,and the number of interactive meta-discourse is larger than the interactional meta-discourse.(2)There is indeed some relation between students' English scores and the use of meta-discourse,but not all kinds of meta-discourse are related to writing achievement.(3)There are significant differences between high-score group and low-score group in the use of meta-discourse,among which the interactive meta-discourse is similar,but the interactive meta-discourse is different.The findings of this paper can provide English teachers with some suggestions on how to guide students improve writing quality by using meta-discourse. |
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