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Talking to Students: Metadiscourse in

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English for Specific Purposes, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 3–26, 1999
© 1998 The American University. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd
Pergamon All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain
0889-4906/98 $19.00+0.00
PII: S0889-4906(97)00025-2

Talking to Students: Metadiscourse in

Introductory Coursebooks
Ken Hyland

Abstract—This paper explores the possible role of university textbooks in

students’ acquisition of a specialised disciplinary literacy, focusing on the use
of metadiscourse as a manifestation of the writer’s linguistic and rhetorical
presence in a text. Because metadiscourse can be analysed independently of
propositional matter, it provides useful information about how writers support
their arguments and build a relationship with readers in different rhetorical
contexts. The paper compares features in extracts from 21 textbooks in
microbiology, marketing and applied linguistics with a similar corpus of
research articles and shows that the ways textbook authors represent them-
selves, organise their arguments, and signal their attitudes to both their
statements and their readers differ markedly in the two corpora. It is sug-
gested that these differences mean that textbooks provide limited rhetorical
guidance to students seeking information from research sources or learning
appropriate forms of written argument. Finally, by investigating met-
adiscourse in particular disciplines and genres, the study helps to restore the
intrinsic link between metadiscourse and its associated rhetorical contexts
and rectify a popular view which implicitly characterises it as an independent
stylistic device. © 1998 The American University. Published by Elsevier
Science Ltd

The Genre of Introductory Textbooks

Textbooks are perhaps the genre most commonly encountered by under-
graduate students and constitute one of the primary means by which the
concepts and analytical methods of a discipline are acquired. They play a
central role in the learners’ experience and understanding of a subject
by providing a coherently ordered epistemological map of the disciplinary
landscape and, through their textual practices, can help convey the norms,
values and ideological assumptions of a particular academic culture. As a
result, ESP writers have often drawn heavily on coursebooks for example
texts (Arnaudet & Barrett 1984; Currie & Cray 1987; Jordan 1990; McEverdy
& Wyatt 1990) and they have received attention in the linguists literature
(eg Love 1993; Hewings 1990; Tadros 1985). Thus students, particularly in

Address correspondence to: Ken Hyland, English Department, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee
Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong. (Tel: (852) 2788-8873, Fax: (852) 2788-8894, E-mail: [email protected])

3
4 K. Hyland

the sciences, often see textbooks as concrete embodiments of the knowledge

of their disciplines.
However, in addition to gaining an understanding of subject knowledge,
students entering university must also acquire a specialised literacy that
consists of the discipline-specific rhetorical and linguistic practices of a
particular community (Ballard & Clanchy 1991; Berkenkotter et al. 1991).
Understanding the written genres in one’s field is essential to full accul-
turation and success, but introductory textbooks are obviously not rep-
resentative of academic discourse in general. It is thus unclear whether they
can simultaneously both convey scholarship to neophytes and develop the
‘‘peculiar ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting, concluding and
arguing that define the discourse of the community’’ (Bartholomae 1986: 4).
Both their purpose and audience set textbooks apart from the more
prestigious genres community members employ to exchange research fin-
dings, dispute theories and accumulate professional credit. Thus while the
research article (RA) is a highly valued genre central to the legitimation of
a discipline as a result of its role in communicating new research, course-
books are often depicted as the repositories of codified knowledge (Hewings
1990; Myers 1992). This accounts for their somewhat peripheral status in
the pantheon of academic genres where they are often seen by academics
and administrators as commercial projects unrelated to research (Swales
1995). It also makes problematic the role of textbooks as models for students
preparing to advance from participation in an undergraduate culture of
‘knowledge-telling’ to a disciplinary one involving ‘knowledge-transforming’
(Bereiter & Scardamalia 1987) through reading research sources and writ-
ing in specialised genres.
However, while textbooks may appear to be a curriculum genre employing
only a specific classroom-based discourse, the fact that genres are linked to
a subject’s methodology and values means they are also likely to contain
textual features and conventions of their respective disciplinary communi-
ties. Indeed, textbooks exhibit considerable generic heterogeneity, both in
the sense of a typification of rhetorical action (eg Berkenkotter & Huckin
1993) and as a shared set of communicative purposes (eg Swales 1990).
Most obviously, there are often disciplinary differences in the form and
presentation of textbooks. In business studies, for example, they often
resemble coffee-table books and display marketing norms in their use of
coloured diagrams and glossy photographs, while the experimental pro-
cedures, taxonomies and electron micrographs common in biology text-
books help represent and construct a knowable, objective world. In addition,
the roles textbooks play in a given academic environment may differ con-
siderably. So while in the sciences (eg Love 1993; Myers 1992) and econ-
omics (Hewings 1990; Tadros 1985) coursebooks seem to reinforce existing
paradigms, in philosophy and composition they are often important vehicles
for advancing scholarship and presenting original research (eg Gebhardt
1993).
This paper focuses on the use of some critical features of text-level rhetoric
 Talking to Students: Metadiscourse in Introductory Coursebooks 5

to explore variations in the disciplinary and generic practices of textbook

authors. The analysis of metadiscourse, which influences the personal tenor
and rhetorical presentation of information, allows us to examine differences
in the writers’ conception of audience in composing as it constitutes aspects
of texts which are largely independent of propositional content but which
are inevitably local and intimately tied to particular contexts. Analysing
textbooks in this way can therefore shed light on their rhetorical dis-
tinctiveness in order to better understand their role in the disciplinary
acculturation of novices. It can also help sharpen our understanding of
metadiscourse, a traditionally fuzzy term. I will first briefly review some
background notions and the concept of metadiscourse, then report a study
of extracts from 21 textbooks in three disciplines.

Audience, Purpose and Metadiscourse

Implicit in every act of academic communication is the writer’s awareness
of the social context and professional consequences of the writing. Features
of discourse are always relative to a particular audience and social purpose
and the effectiveness of writers’ attempts to communicate depends on their
success in analysing and accommodating the needs of readers. Academic
writing is thus invariably a persuasive task where a writer seeks to produce
specific responses in an active audience. In textbooks as much as research
papers, authors are not only concerned with simply presenting propositional
facts, but must attend to the expectations of readers and what they are likely
to find interesting, credible and intelligible. Writers must anticipate the
audience’s likely background knowledge, processing problems and reac-
tions to the text, with the understanding that readers are likely to examine
it for relevance, informativity and interest. Such an audience thus refers to
a particular context of discourse, consisting of the external circumstances
which define the rhetorical situation and require the text to have certain
characteristics in response (Park 1986).
One important means by which texts depict the characteristics of an
underlying community is through the writer’s use of metadiscourse. All
academic disciplines have conventions of rhetorical personality which influ-
ence the ways writers intrude into their texts to organise their arguments
and represent themselves, their readers and their attitudes. This is largely
accomplished through non-propositional material, or metadiscourse. Meta-
discourse is ‘‘discourse about discourse’’ (Van de Kopple 1985) and refers
to the author’s linguistic manifestation in a text to ‘‘bracket the discourse
organisation and the expressive implications of what is being said’’ (Schiffrin
1980: 231). Metadiscourse is therefore a crucial rhetorical device for writers
(Crismore 1989; Crismore & Farnsworth 1990; Hyland 1997b, in press). It
allows them to engage and influence readers in ways that conform to a
discipline’s norms, values and ideology, expressing textual and interpersonal
meanings that their audience is likely to accept as credible and convincing.
However, while metadiscourse is recognised to be an important means of
6 K. Hyland

supporting a writer’s argument and building a relationship with readers, it

is often regarded as a semantic device that authors can vary according to
stylistic preference. This helps explain why, for example, the variation in
metadiscourse use noted across linguistic cultures (Crismore et al. 1993;
Mauranen 1993; Valero-Garces 1996), has not been similarly investigated in
terms of different disciplines or genres. However, to study metadiscourse
without appeal to its associated rhetorical environment is to ignore the
context which conditions its use and gives it meaning. Focusing only on its
surface realisations gives the impression that metadiscourse is a purely
writer-centred phenomenon and either neglects its relationship to particular
audiences or unconsciously calls up a context in an unsystematic way. In
other words, the meaning of metadiscourse only becomes operative within
a particular context, both invoking and reinforcing that context with regard
to audience, purpose and situation. Its use therefore reflects differences
in the various forms of organised cultural communication recognised and
employed by distinct academic disciplines for particular purposes.
Clearly a text communicates effectively only when the writer has correctly
assessed the reader’s resources for interpreting it. Thus the writer of a
research article can assume a shared awareness of a codified set of texts,
principles and rules that represent the socially constructed ideology of their
community (Hyland 1997a). Textbook authors, on the other hand, are unable
to invoke community knowledge as the novice lacks experience of the
linguistic forms which give coherence and life to that knowledge. The
textbook is a writer’s attempt to construct this experience, seeking to make
propositional material explicit to novices while simultaneously socialising
them to the ways of speaking appropriate to the community. So while
textbook language is a product of the activity and situations in which it is
created, textbooks may also include linguistic features which typify genres
that are more central, and prestigious, to disciplinary activity.

A Metadiscourse Schema
Metadiscourse is an essentially heterogeneous category which can be
realised through a range of linguistic devices from punctuation and typo-
graphic marks (such as parentheses to signal clarifications or underlining
to mark emphasis), to whole clauses and sentences (e.g. ‘‘You can see from the
above Table that..’’). However, distinctions between meta and propositional
discourse cannot be made from linguistic form alone as they almost always
depend on the relationship of items to other parts of the text. Features must
be identified functionally and a number of classification schema have been
proposed for this (e.g. Crismore & Farnsworth 1990; Van de Kopple 1985).
This study employs a modified version of Crismore et al.’s (Crismore et al.
1993) taxonomy which distinguishes textual and interpersonal dimensions
and recognises more specific functions within them. This schema is dis-
cussed in detail elsewhere (Hyland 1997c, in press) but is summarised in
Table 1.
 Talking to Students: Metadiscourse in Introductory Coursebooks 7
TABLE 1
Metadiscourse Schema for Academic Texts

Category Function: Examples/signals

Textual metadiscourse
Logical connectives express semantic relation in addition/but/therefore/thus
between main clauses
Frame markers explicitly refer to discourse first/finally/to repeat/to clarify
shifts or text stages
Endophoric markers refer to information in other noted above/see Fig. 1/section
parts of the text 2
Evidentials refer to source of information according to X/Y, 1990/Z states
from other texts
Code glosses help readers grasp meanings namely/e.g./in other
of ideational material words/i.e./say

Interpersonal
metadiscourse
Hedges withhold writer’s full might/perhaps/it is possible
commitment to statements
Emphatics emphasise force or writer’s in fact/definitely/it is clear
certainty in message
Attitude markers express writer’s attitude to surprisingly/I agree/X claims
propositional content
Relational markers explicitly refer to or build consider/recall/imagine/you
relationship with reader see
Person markers explicit reference to author(s) I/we/my/mine/our

Textual metadiscourse is used to organise propositional information in

ways that will be coherent for a particular audience and appropriate for a
given purpose. Devices in this category represent the audience’s presence
in the text in terms of the writer’s assessment of its processing difficulties,
intertextual requirements and need for interpretative guidance. It comprises
five sub-classes.
The first is logical connectives, mainly conjunctions and adverbial and
prepositional phrases, which link ideas in the text. The second is frame
markers, which signal boundaries in the discourse or stages in the argu-
ment. These include items that: sequence material (first, next, 1, 2, 3); label
text stages (to conclude, in sum); announce discourse goals (my purpose is,
I propose that); and indicate topic changes (well, now). The third is endo-
phoric markers such as in section 2 and see table 1, which refer to other
parts of the text. The fourth is evidential markers, indicate the source of
textual material. They concern who is responsible for the view cited and are
distinguished here from the writer’s stance towards the view, which is an
interpersonal issue. Finally, code glosses explain or expand propositional
information to assist interpretation and ensure the writer’s intention is under-
stood. They occur within parentheses or are introduced by phrases like for
instance and namely.
Interpersonal metadiscourse, however, allows writers to express a
perspective towards their propositional information and their readers. It
8 K. Hyland

is essentially an evaluative form of discourse and expresses the writer’s

individually defined, but disciplinary circumscribed, persona. Metadiscourse
therefore relates to the level of personality, or tenor, of the discourse and
influences such matters as the author’s intimacy and remoteness, expression
of attitude, commitment to propositions and degree of reader involvement.
In this category, hedges and emphatics indicate the degree of commit-
ment, certainty and collegial deference a writer wishes to convey, signalled
by items such as possible, may and clearly. Attitude markers indicate the
writer’s affective, rather than epistemic, attitude to textual information,
expressing surprise, importance, obligation, and so on. Relational markers
are devices that explicitly address readers, either to focus their attention or
include them as discourse participants. Because affective devices can also
have interpersonal implications, attitude and relational markers are often
difficult to distinguish in practice. Cases of affect however are typically
writer-oriented and are signalled by attitude verbs, necessity modals and
sentence adverbs. Relational markers focus more on reader participation
and include second person pronouns, imperatives, question forms and asides
that interrupt the ongoing discourse. Finally person markers refers to the
degree of author presence in the text measured by the frequency of first
person pronouns. These features are, once again, intimately related to the
writer’s attention to context and the need to address readers appropriately
in constructing an effective and persuasive discourse.
Clearly there is a great deal of pragmatic overlap between these categories
as writers frequently seek to achieve several concurrent purposes, appealing
to readers on both affective and logical levels simultaneously. This poly-
pragmatic aspect of language blurs an ‘‘all-or-nothing’’ interpretation of how
particular devices are used. Connectives, for example, principally link textual
material but can also solicit reader collusion when presenting claims (Barton
1995); hedges have both epistemic and affective roles, indicating either
uncertainty or deference to disciplinary norms of appropriate interpersonal
stance (Hyland 1996a); code glosses both supply necessary information and
imply a position of superior knowledge to the reader. A classification scheme
can therefore only approximate the complexity and fluidity of natural lan-
guage use. But while it may give no firm evidence about author intentions
or reader understandings, it is a useful means of revealing the meanings
available in the text and comparing the rhetorical strategies employed by
different discourse communities and different genres. This involves going
beyond the taxonomy to identify factors of the rhetorical context which may
influence such differences.

Corpus and Procedure

The corpus consists of extracts from 21 introductory coursebooks in
three academic disciplines: microbiology, marketing and applied linguistics,
comprising almost 124 000 words (see Appendix A). The average length of
the extracts was 5 900 words (range 3 305–10 678) consisting of complete
 Talking to Students: Metadiscourse in Introductory Coursebooks 9

chapters (16) or substantial sections of chapters beginning with the intro-

ductory matter and comprising entire contiguous sub-sections (5). The
textbooks were selected from reading lists for introductory undergraduate
courses and all extracts were among those recommended by teachers as
containing ‘core’ reading matter. A parallel corpus of 21 research articles
(121 000 words/average length 5 771 words) was compiled for comparison
from the current issues of prestigious journals recommended by expert
informants in the same three disciplines. The corpora were analysed inde-
pendently by myself and two research assistants by coding all items of
metadiscourse according to the schema outlined above. An interrater
reliability of 0.83 (Kappa) was obtained, indicating a high degree of agree-
ment.

Findings
Overall, the quantitative analysis revealed the importance of meta-
discourse in these textbooks with an average of 405 examples per text; about
one every 15 words. It should be noted here that the expression of devices
according to a word count is not intended to represent the proportion of text
formed by metadiscourse. Clearly, metadiscourse typically has clause-level
(or higher) scope and I have standardised the raw figures to a common
basis merely to compare the occurrence, rather than the length, of meta-
discourse in corpora of unequal sizes. Table 2 shows that writers used far
more textual than interpersonal forms in this corpus, and that connectives
and code glosses were the most frequent devices in each discipline. The
numerical preponderance of textual devices emphasises the common
interpretation of metatext as guiding the reading process by indicating
discourse organisation and clarifying propositional meanings.

TABLE 2
Metadiscourse in Academic Textbooks per 1 000 Words (%
% of total)

Category Biology Applied Linguistics Marketing

Logical connectives 32.3 (43.2) 17.8 (30.6) 34.4 (48.8)

Code glosses 9.4 (12.6) 9.6 (15.6) 9.7 (13.8)
Endophoric markers 6.4 (8.6) 4.5 (7.3) 2.5 (3.5)
Frame markers 2.5 (3.3) 4.6 (7.4) 4.2 (6.0)
Evidentials 3.2 (4.2) 5.3 (8.6) 1.0 (1.5)
Textual 53.8 (71.9) 42.8 (69.4) 51.9 (73.7)

Hedges 8.9 (12.0) 4.7 (7.7) 5.9 (8.4)

Emphatics 5.0 (6.7) 2.4 (3.9) 3.3 (4.7)
Attitude markers 4.1 (5.5) 3.5 (5.6) 5.5 (7.9)
Relational markers 2.2 (3.0) 6.1 (9.8) 2.5 (3.5)
Person markers 0.7 (0.9) 2.2 (3.6) 2.2 (3.6)
Interpersonal 21.0 (28.1) 18.9 (30.6) 18.9 (30.6)

Totals 74.8 (100) 61.7 (100) 70.4 (100)

10 K. Hyland

The tables show some obvious disciplinary variations in metadiscourse

use. The applied linguistics texts comprise considerably more evidentials
and relational markers, the biology authors favoured hedges, and marketing
textbooks had fewer evidentials and endophorics. Perhaps more interesting
however are the cross-discipline similarities, with all three fields containing
comparable total use and a near identical proportion of textual and inter-
personal forms. In particular, all disciplines showed a high use of logical
connectives and code glosses which together comprised about half of all
cases, demonstrating that the principal concern of textbook authors is to
present information clearly and explicitly.
A comparison with the research articles revealed strikingly similar total
frequencies of metadiscourse in the two corpora, but a considerable dif-
ference in the proportion of the two main categories (Table 3). The increase
in interpersonal metadiscourse from about a third of all cases in the text-
books to nearly half in the RAs shows the critical importance of these forms
in persuasive prose.
As can be seen, devices used to assist comprehension of propositional
information, such as connectives, code glosses and endophoric markers,
were less frequent in the articles while those typically used to assist
persuasion, such as hedges, emphatics, evidentials and person markers,
were more frequent. Hedges were almost three times more common in the
RAs and represented the most frequent metadiscourse feature, dem-
onstrating the importance of distinguishing established from new claims in
research writing and the need for authors to evaluate their assertions in
ways that their peers are likely to find persuasive.

TABLE 3
Ranked Metadiscourse Categories (Combined Disciplines)

Textbooks Research articles

Items per Items per

1000 words % of total 1000 words % of total

Textual 49.1 71.7 34.8 52.6

Interpersonal 19.4 28.3 31.4 47.4

Subcategory
Logical connectives 28.1 40.9 12.3 18.5
Code glosses 9.6 14.0 7.6 11.5
Hedges 6.4 9.4 16.7 25.3
Endophoric markers 4.4 6.5 3.2 4.9
Attitude markers 4.3 6.3 4.5 6.8
Frame markers 3.8 5.5 5.6 8.5
Relational markers 3.7 5.4 2.5 3.8
Emphatics 3.5 5.1 4.2 6.3
Evidentials 3.3 4.8 6.1 9.3
Person markers 1.4 2.1 3.5 5.2

Grand Totals 68.5 100% 66.2 100%

 Talking to Students: Metadiscourse in Introductory Coursebooks 11
TABLE 4
Metadiscourse in Textbooks and RAs per 1 000 Words

Biology Applied Linguistics Marketing

Textbook RA Textbook RA Textbook RA

Textual 53.8 40.1 42.8 30.1 51.9 36.6

71.9% 66.8% 69.4% 49.2% 73.7% 49.7%

Interpersonal 21.0 19.9 18.9 31.0 18.5 37.0

28.1% 33.2% 30.6% 50.8% 26.3% 50.3%

Totals 74.8 59.9 61.7 60.1 70.4 73.6

When separating the texts by both discipline and genre we find that the
tables above mask a number of variations in metadiscourse use. Table 4
shows that the overall density levels differed markedly in biology, with
almost 25% more metadiscourse in the textbooks than the RAs, due mainly
to a heavier use of textual forms. Biology was also the only discipline
where there was little change in the proportions of interpersonal and textual
features between the two genres, while the interpersonal frequencies
increased dramatically in the applied linguistics and marketing RAs.
Table 5 shows that the use of logical connectives was highest in textbooks
in all disciplines and that the RAs contained a higher proportion of hedges,
person and frame markers. Biologists showed the greatest variation, both
across genres and disciplines, with substantial genre differences in most
categories. While the marketing and applied linguistics texts were more

TABLE 5
Proportions of Metadiscourse in RAs and Textbooks

Biology Applied Linguistics Marketing

Category TB RA TB RA TB RA

Logical connectives 43.2 18.8 30.6 18.1 48.8 18.7

Frame markers 3.3 8.6 7.4 7.6 6.0 9.0
Endophoric markers 8.6 7.7 7.3 4.1 3.5 4.4
Evidentials 4.2 16.2 8.6 7.3 1.5 8.0
Code glosses 12.6 15.4 15.6 12.1 13.8 9.6
Textual 71.9 66.8 69.4 49.2 73.7 49.7

Hedges 12.0 20.0 7.7 25.6 8.4 27.0

Emphatics 6.7 5.8 3.9 7.4 4.7 5.7
Attitude markers 5.5 2.2 5.6 8.8 7.9 7.0
Relational markers 3.0 1.2 9.8 4.1 3.5 4.5
Person markers 0.9 4.0 3.6 4.8 1.8 6.0
Interpersonal 28.1 33.2 30.6 50.8 26.3 50.3

Total % 100 100 100 100 100 100

12 K. Hyland

uniform between genres, both contained large differences in hedges and

connectives. Substantial genre variations were also apparent in the use of
evidentials and person markers in marketing and endophoric and relation
markers in applied linguistics. In general, metadiscourse variations were
more pronounced between genres than disciplines, particularly for high
frequency items, and the textbooks tended to exhibit greater disciplinary
diversity than the RAs.
Discussion
Textbooks, as a specific form of language use and social interaction, both
represent particular processes of production and interpretation, and link to
the social practices of the institutions within which they are created. We
might expect, then, that metadiscourse variations will reflect the different
roles that textbooks and research papers play in the social structures of
disciplinary activity and anticipate that their use will contain clues about
how these texts were produced and the purposes they serve. Metadiscourse
is grounded in the rhetorical purposes of writers and sensitive to their
perceptions of audience, both of which differ markedly between the two
genres. One audience consists of an established community of disciplinary
peers familiar with the conceptual frameworks and specialised literacies
of their discipline. The other is relatively undifferentiated in terms of its
experience of academic discourse, often possessing little more than a gen-
eral purpose EAP competence in the early undergraduate years (e.g. Leki
& Carson 1994). As a result of such contextual differences, what can be said,
and what needs to be said, differs considerably. It is therefore interesting to
speculate on the patterns observed and I will consider textual and inter-
personal variations in turn.

Textual Features in Textbooks

Textual forms constituted about 70% of all metadiscourse in the cour-
sebooks. Such metadiscourse provides an overt framework which not only
clarifies the schematic structure of the text, but also serves to fill in gaps
and explicitly spell out connections to related ideas, thus helping to convey
propositional content more coherently to novices. This is particularly clear
in the use of frame markers (1) and endophoric markers (2) which provide
metatextual reference to sections, illustrations, reasons, arguments, and so
on*:
(1)

In the next section I will focus explicitly on linguistic politeness, using terms
of address for exemplification. (ALT3)

*Examples are coded according to discipline (MB is biology, AL is applied linguistics and MK is marketing)
and textbooks are marked with ‘T’. Numbers refer to the corpus items.
 Talking to Students: Metadiscourse in Introductory Coursebooks 13
The Ascolichens will be briefly considered under three large groups cor-
responding to the structure of their asci and ascocarps. (MBT6)

This chapter explains some of the approaches used in segmenting consumer

and organisational markets and discusses a six-step approach for market
segmentation and selecting a target market. (MKT3)

(2)

This is very much like the example we gave above at the beginning of chapter
1,... (ALT4)

In Section 5.2, in Text 5B, we saw all four in operation simultaneously, ...
(ALT1)

We discussed some characteristics of microbial mats in section 17.5 (see Fig

17.11a). (MBT1)

... and procedures for differentiating these organisms are discussed later in
this chapter. (MBT3)

Additional information on availability is discussed in a later section on specific

media. (MKT4)

.... (for reasons that will be explained in chapters 5 and 6),... (MKT6)

While both forms of metadiscourse were also found in the RAs, they tended
to be used differently. Rather than point to explanatory material and relate
material to a wider context as in the textbooks, for instance, endophoric
markers were almost exclusively used to refer to tables and graphs, which
accounts for their heavy frequency in biology. Frame markers were actually
more common in the articles, but instead of occurring at regular intervals
to structure the discourse for the reader, they tended to cluster in intro-
ductions, where they acted to specify the overall purpose of the research,
and in discussion sections, where they served to organise lists of points:
(3)

The following generalisations emerged from reviewing the literature... (AL5)

The objective of our work was to... (MB1)

In this paper we show that... (MB3)

Thus the goal of this paper is to show that... (MK1)

The research hypotheses developed for this research are stated as follows..
(MK4)

The survey project was guided initially by three research questions:... (AL5)
14 K. Hyland

Thus in the textbooks studied here metadiscourse was principally employed

to reduce the cognitive load of propositional material for novices and present
unfamiliar content more comprehensively. This is also apparent in the use
of code glosses which were both more extensive in the textbooks and tended
to instruct rather than simply clarify. These devices help convey meanings
thought to be problematic for readers, but while mainly labelled as examples
in both genres, the textbooks contained more cases which aided interpre-
tation by either providing a definition (4) or adding information (5).
(4)

Saxicolous (growing on rocks) lichens are probably instrumental in initiating

soil... (MBT6)

.. limnologists (biologists specialising in freshwater systems) began to

examine.. (MBT2)

The latter organisms belong to a larger group of Bacteria called the purple
bacteria (organisms such as Rhodopseudomonas and Rhodobacter). (This
whole group is sometimes called the Photeobacteria). (MBT1)

(5)

Cross-cultural variation is a primary barrier—that is, understanding cog-

nitively and affectively what levels of formality are appropriate or inap-
propriate. (ALT1)

Internal corporate analysis requires the organisation to identify its resources

(financial, human labour and know-how, and physical assets),... (MKT2)

.. describe the case of Long Island Trust, historically the leading bank in this
large New York suburban area. (MKT2)

Audience and purpose variations between these genres are also apparent in
the contrasting use of evidential markers, the ‘‘metalinguistic representation
of an idea from another source’’ (Thomas & Hawes 1994: 129). For readers
of research papers, claims are inseparable from their originators and a
great deal of explicit intertextuality is required from authors to organise
propositional material in a way that is both coherent and appropriate for
their peers. Citations are also part of the writer’s rhetorical armoury in
securing ratification of new knowledge claims by establishing a research
niche, providing persuasive support for arguments and demonstrating the
novelty of assertions*.

However, the method described by McFadden (1989) and Pakes and Pollard

*The writer’s stance in relation to the facts presented, which helps to create an authorial persona and a
presence in the text, is an interpersonal feature of metadiscourse.
 Talking to Students: Metadiscourse in Introductory Coursebooks 15
(1989) is directly applicable for profit model estimation using cross-sectional
data. (MK3)

There is no consensus opinion on the kinetics of partitioning: some authors

have suggested that sister chromosomes ‘‘jump’’ to their separated positions
in preparation for division (Begg & Donachie, 1991; Hiraga et al., 1990;
Sargent, 1974), whereas more recent measurements suggest that movement
of the chromosomes is continuous (van Helvoort & Woldringh, 1994). (MB2)

... within the research that has been done on academic listening, hardly any
has been conducted in contexts where English is a second language (Arden-
Close, 1993; Flowerdew & Miller, 1992; Jackson & Bilton, 1994). (AL4)

.... we build on the work of Narasimhan (1988), Raju et al. (1990) and Rao
(1990). (MK1)

The textbook writer, however, is less concerned with convincing a sceptical

professional audience of a new claim than with laying out the principles of
the discipline. The emphasis is on the established facts rather than who
originally stated them or one’s stance towards them, and as a result, unspeci-
fied sources replace intertextual citations:

Surface structures of the pathogenic Neisseria have been the subjects of

intense microbiologic investigations for some time. Gonococcal outer mem-
brane proteins demonstrate... (MBT3)

Many experts believe super-stores will continue to spread. If so, existing

supermarkets may suffer. (MKT7)

Clearly rules for polite behaviour differ from one speech community to
another. (ALT3)

Psychological studies of conversational exchanges and formal interviews have

shown... (ALT4)

For a textbook audience then, the writer transforms the facts themselves
from the potentially disputable status of the RAs to the relatively uncon-
troversial statements which require no citational backing.
Perhaps most obviously, author appeals to dissimilar audiences (and
knowledge bases) result in differences in cohesive patterns, particularly in
the use of logical connectives. In the professional writing there were rela-
tively few explicit connectives as writers are able to code the reasoning
lexically and allow the reader to infer propositional relevance by virtue of
their shared disciplinary understandings. Thus in the RAs cohesion depends
principally on the ability of specialist readers to construct an underlying
semantic structure from their knowledge of lexical relations and their fam-
iliarity with similar discourses (e.g. Halliday & Hasan 1976; Myers 1991).
Domain knowledge specific to microbiology, for example, allows the in-
16 K. Hyland

formed reader to infer lexical chains between entities and unpack the
connections between these sentences:
(7)

Transformation-dependent erythromycin resistance indicates that an aden-

osine methylase gene originating from Enterococcus faecalis, a mesophile, is
expressed in C. thermosaccharolyticum. The plasmid pCTC1 appears to be
replicated independently of the chromosome, as indicated by visualization of
recovered plasmid on gels, and retransformation using recovered plasmid
pCTC1 is maintained in C. the thermosaccharolyticum at both 45 and 60C.
Restriction analysis showed little or no rearrangement occurred upon passage
through the thermophile. (MB7)

However, textbook passages discussing biological processes typically signal

the intended connections more explicitly, allowing the reader to see relations
between entities through the cohesive markers:
(8)

Despite these potential differences in the rates of DNA synthesis within a

particular region of DNA, the overall rate of DNA replication is higher in
eukaryotes than in prokaryotes. This is because the DNA of eukaryotes has
multiple replicons (segments of a DNA macromolecule having their own
origin and termini) compared to the single replicon of the bacterial chro-
mosome. Consequently, even though there is much more DNA in a eukaryotic
chromosome than in a bacterial chromosome, the eukaryotic genome can be
replicated much faster... (MBT5)

Thus while both extracts contain a heavy use of repetition to signal prop-
ositional connections, textbook authors cannot assume a knowledge of lexi-
cal relations to achieve cohesion and must rely on introducing such relations
explicitly through a range of metatextual devices. Although this means of
clarifying the links between unfamiliar terms is most obvious in the science
texts, similar differences were found in the other disciplines, although stu-
dents of applied linguistics received considerably less guidance from con-
nectives. The fact that lexical repetition and constant theme patterns are
used more extensively in those textbooks provides learners with a more
cognate cohesive environment to the RAs in that discipline, and therefore
greater preparation for the skills they will need to search for knowledge
claims and supporting evidence in RAs.

Interpersonal Features in the Textbooks

While differences in textual metadiscourse point largely to variations of
audience between the two genres, the findings for interpersonal meta-
discourse also indicate something of their contrasting purposes. Williams
(1989) has observed that argumentative writing lends itself to the use of
interpersonal metadiscourse and Crismore and Farnsworth (1990) and
Hyland (1997b, in press) found a heavy use of interpersonal forms in per-
 Talking to Students: Metadiscourse in Introductory Coursebooks 17

suasive texts of different discourse types. This is confirmed in this study,

where the RAs contained 60% more interpersonal devices overall (Table 3),
with hedges and person markers particularly prominent.
Several studies have described how levels of certainty are affected by
the transformation of statements from new claims in research articles to
accredited facts in textbooks. Latour & Woolgar (1979) and Myers (1992)
observe that textbooks contain a higher proportion of unmodified assertions
than RAs because they largely deal with ‘‘arranging currently accepted
knowledge into a coherent whole’’ rather than seeking agreement for new
claims (Myers 1992: 9). In research articles hedges relate to both the
propositional accuracy and subjective appropriacy of statements as only
claims which appear to be legitimate and which incorporate a sensitivity to
readers are likely to be ratified (Hyland 1996a, 1996b). When qualifications
are omitted the result is both greater certainty and less professional defer-
ence, reflecting a different attitude to information and readers. The textbook
author does not have to persuade an expert audience of a new interpretation
or anticipate the consequences of being proved wrong because most claims
are presented as accredited facts.
The examples below are representative of how statements are differently
treated in the two genres. As can be seen, claims about similar issues carry
heavier qualification in the RAs, demonstrating the writer’s awareness of
both the limitations of knowledge and the possibility of expert refutation:
(9)

Transferring the information contained in DNA to form a functional enzyme

occurs through protein synthesis, a process accomplished in two stages—
transcription and translation. (MBT5)

It therefore seems likely that these genes may contribute to a general chro-
mosome-partitioning mechanism of wide importance. (MB2)

Thus, peer writing conferences foster more exploratory talk, promote cog-
nitive conflict, encourage students to take a more active role in their own
learning processes and enable students to recognise the impact of their own
writing on others. (ALT6)

It would appear that student writers need more than facts and processes to
write successfully and as reviewers need specific techniques if they are to
provide useful critiques to each other. (AL7)

Consumers reflect their culture, its style, feelings, value systems, attitudes,
beliefs and perceptions. (MKT4)

It is likely that the variance in consumers’ socialisation experiences, in part,

directs a shopper’s affinity towards certain shopper roles. (MK4)

However, textbook writers do not eschew hedges altogether, and their

presence suggests that the genre is not simply a celebration of academic
18 K. Hyland

truths. This is particularly true where authors speculate about the future or
the distant past or when they generalise; thus even disciplinary novices
might challenge a baldly assertive presentation of the following statements:
(10)

... earliest cells could also have obtained energy by chemoorganotrophic mech-
anisms, most likely simple fermentations. Photosynthesis is also a possibility
but seems less likely than... (MBT1)

But important breakthroughs are still possible because consumers probably

will continue to move away from conventional retailers. Convenience prod-
ucts, for example, may be made more easily available by some combination of
electronic ordering and home delivery... (MKT7)

... the teacher generally exerts a good deal of control over the structure of the
interaction and, to some extent, the content of that interaction. (ALT6)

Women appear to use language that expresses more uncertainty (...) than
men, suggesting less confidence in what they say. (ALT2)

The textbooks also differ in employing hedges to clearly distinguish the

false assumptions of the past from the certainties of the present, contrasting
qualification and emphatics as in this extract:
(11)

It was argued that the simple sporangiospores of the zygomycetes could be

developed after only a short period, while the more elaborate fruit bodies
of the ascomycetes would require a longer build-up, and the even larger
basidiomata of the Coprini would need the longest preparation of all. (...)

We now know that the various components of the substrate are far from
exhausted after the initial flushes of growth and sporulation. What has really
happened is that Coprinus has seized control by suppressing most of the other
fungi. Hyphae of Coprinus are actually... (MBT2)

However examples are not limited to conventional disclaimers or broad

issues. Although variations in hedging between the corpora suggest that
textbook writers generally seek to present what is taken-for-granted as
fact, the presence of items distinguishing degrees of certainty indicates a
reluctance to assert that all claims represent unequivocal truth. This is
particularly evident in the science texts, which most closely approach the
RAs in their use of modality. While often regarded as prototypical examples
of the constructedness of academic thought, the science textbooks in this
corpus actually exhibited a greater reluctance to upgrade claims and con-
tained a much higher frequency of hedges than the other disciplines in the
corpus. The degree of qualification in these texts thus indicates that authors
are often prepared to move beyond what may be safely assured to the
tenuous and uncertain.
 Talking to Students: Metadiscourse in Introductory Coursebooks 19

(12)

Basidiolichens produce basidiospores presumably in the same manner as...

(MBT6)

It is believed that pili may function to overcome electrostatic repulsion...

(MBT3)

This probably explains some of the outbreaks of ‘‘red mould disease’’ in sliced
and wrapped bread. (MBT4)

Although the initial stimulus leading to the accumulation of cyclic AMP may
differ from that involved in heat activation, the rise in cyclic AMP itself appears
to be the metabolic event that actually causes the shift from dormancy to
germination by enzyme activation. (MBT7)

Such examples suggest that, in addition to a student audience, writers may

be aware of the expert readership which evaluates, recommends and uses
coursebooks (Swales 1995), thus necessitating protection against possible
refutation. In addition however, authors are perhaps alive to the role of
textbooks in socialising neophytes into the rhetorical practices of their
discipline. A cautious attitude to facts is critical to doing science and to
acquiring an appropriate cognitive schema. It appears that microbiology
students may be at a greater advantage in this respect than their peers in
the two other disciplines examined.
Not only did the textbooks and RAs contrast in terms of writers’ expressed
approach towards facts, but the use of attitude, relational and person markers
also reveals a markedly different interpersonal stance between genres and
disciplines. The relative absence of person markers in the textbooks, for
example, immediately suggests a distinct writer–reader relationship to that
typically cultivated in the research texts and this is supported by the greater
use of relation markers. The pragmatic value of these devices is to bring the
reader directly into the discourse as a text participant, and in the RAs this
generally takes the form of rhetorical questions about the topic, or the use
of imperatives to engage the readers or selectively focus their attention:
(12)

... to what extent does this invalidate the use of the CAT with candidates of
different backgrounds? (AL2)

What information do purchasers regard as important when choosing a public

relations consultant? (MK2)

To see the intuition behind our result, consider the smallest and largest
discounts... (MK1)

It needs to be noted that the quality of the tapes varies. (AL3)

Consider the following excerpts from an EC paper. (AL7)

20 K. Hyland

Such uses are typically seen as treating readers as equals with the writer by
drawing them into the discussion (Webber 1994: 264), but while imperatives
and questions also occur in the textbooks, professional deference is largely
replaced by a less egalitarian relationship. This is based on an unequal
distribution of disciplinary knowledge so when the writer explicitly
addresses the reader it is often in the role of primary-knower:
(13)

Now, let’s look at the size of stores and how they are owned... (MKT7)

By this point you have probably realised that doing good research is not easy.
As a result, it shouldn’t surprise you that many research projects are done
poorly. You should also be aware that some research is intentionally mislead-
ing. (MKT6)

... the examples here will give you a general idea of what we mean by linguistic
strategies of involvement. (ALT4)

As you read this excerpt, pay particular attention to the roles that each student
assumes and the structure of the student–student interaction. Try to describe
the type of language that is generated and the type of language functions that
are carried out. Also, assess the extent to which this type of student–student
interaction creates opportunities for students to use language for classroom
learning and second language acquisition. (ALT6)

You may think that because it has passed through an animal’s digestive tract,
every... (MBT2)

This unequal relationship also permits textbook authors greater freedom

in expressing their opinions towards propositional content. Overall, the
frequency of attitude markers was similar in the two genres and mainly
consisted of examples which emphasised the authors’ judgements of import-
ance or their reactions to results:
(14)

Further, it would be of interest to compare the results obtained using the

method... (MK3)

Nevertheless, it is interesting because it shows a reduction which does not

follow... (AL3)

This is not too surprising...... (MBT6)

These are extremely important in academic writing where they can be used as
a.. (ALT1)

The textbook authors however intruded far more into their texts to offer
explicitly evaluative comments or to expressly suggest courses of action
through the use of modals of obligation:
 Talking to Students: Metadiscourse in Introductory Coursebooks 21

(15)

Their most recent find was the rare zygomycete, Heliococephalum. And I
expect more novelties to turn up in the years ahead. (MBT2)

The author cannot support either extreme position since he believes neither
approach is always correct. (MKT4)

My own view is that Krashen’s hypotheses do not, on closer inspection,

conform to the three linguistic questions. (ALT5)

In one sense comprehensible input is so blindingly obvious that is has to be

true, ... (ALT5)

‘‘Cohesion’’ and ‘‘coherence’’ are common terms that need to be considered in

teaching... (ALT2)

The cost of implementing this plan must, of course, be related to the expected
payoff. (MKT2)

Again, there is a clear implication here that the writer is an expert in full
command of the topic informing an audience which is both less knowl-
edgeable and which requires minimal professional deference.
In sum, the various distinctive aspects of metadiscourse in the two genres
indicate clear differences of purpose and audience. The textbooks were
characterised by an elaborate discursive style that clearly ordered material
and elucidated propositional connections, and an interpersonal stance that
emphasised an expert role towards both information and readers. The
research writers, on the other hand, typically addressed their readers as
experts and used both textual and interpersonal metadiscourse to draw on
shared understandings and emphasise solidarity. So while the patterns of
metadiscourse in the textbooks sought to clarify and inform, those of RAs
served to exclude outsiders and allow writers to control the knowledge they
constructed.

Conclusions and Implications

This analysis suggests that the primary goal of textbooks authors is to
make intellectual content accessible rather than to provide undergraduates
with the means to interact effectively with other community members. Thus
while the metadiscourse practices employed to facilitate knowledge transfer
can make textbooks easier to read, the different strategies used in RAs may
mean that students find it difficult to refer to the research literature in their
studies or to develop appropriate rhetorical skills. The differences discussed
here therefore emphasise the pedagogical limitations of employing textbook
extracts in courses for academic research writing and serve to undermine
their utility as complementary sources of content knowledge when used
with RAs. In other words, students need to be steered away from using
22 K. Hyland

textbooks as models. Too close a familiarity with the ways that textbooks
address readers, organise material and present facts may mean that learners
are poorly prepared when assigned research articles by their subject lec-
turers or ESP teachers or when asked to write argumentative prose.
Essentially, textbooks provide students with little understanding of the
meta-textual requirements of an academic audience or show how arguments
are constructed to anticipate the reactions of a relatively egalitarian com-
munity of peers. But while undergraduates are not expected to participate in
professional dialogues, they nevertheless have to gain control of appropriate
argument forms in both their reading of research materials and in persuasive
writing in order to participate in particular intellectual arenas.
Problems of reading relate to the fact that learning a discipline through
the linguistic forms of textbooks does not introduce students to the full
range of conventions within which the socio-cultural system of the discipline
is encoded. All language use is a social and communicative activity so, in
addressing readers in this way, textbooks inevitably develop a rather skewed
view of disciplinary practice: offering explicit assistance in extracting infor-
mation but providing only minimal training in the kinds of relations
employed in research discourse and the social functions of academic argu-
ment. With regard to writing, appropriate use of metadiscourse plays an
important part in creating successful texts. An awareness of audience is
recognised as crucial to the development of effective argument strategies
(Johns 1993; Park 1986), but a lack of appropriate metadiscourse knowledge
means students are likely to produce writer-based prose. Because many
tertiary students experience difficulty in adapting their prose for readers
(Cheng & Steffensen 1996; Redd-Boyd & Slater 1989) it seems vital that
they should receive appropriate models of argument to allow them to practice
writing within the socio-rhetorical framework of a given discipline.
Finally, while this paper has focused mainly on genre differences, it is
clear that some features of textbook metadiscourse are ‘intertextual’ in the
sense they reflect an indebtedness to a specialised literature. On the basis
of this admittedly small sample, the data suggests that students of applied
linguistics, for example, are likely to gain an understanding of authorial
stance in research writing through exposure to the appropriate use of person
markers and citation practices. Marketing students, on the other hand, may
learn something of how research writers in their discipline typically address
readers through attitude and relational markers. In biology the inclusion of
hedges in textbooks may assist undergraduates in acquiring an appropriate
schema of scientific research through an understanding of the provisional
nature of academic claims. Thus while audience and context significantly
influence the language required for argument and the background knowl-
edge that can be appealed to, textbooks are not blandly uniform and, in
various ways, partly represent the discourse of their parent cultures.
These differences remind us that discourse communities are not mono-
lithic entities. They include groups of individuals at various levels of experi-
ence and stages of membership, from apprentices to experts, who may
 Talking to Students: Metadiscourse in Introductory Coursebooks 23

participate at different levels of engagement and in various genres of inter-

action. However, while textbook authors principally address the potential
processing problems of an uninitiated readership in representing disci-
plinary subject matter, embedded in the conventions of this genre we also
glimpse the ways that students may be enculturated into the discoursal
practices of their new disciplinary communities.

(Revised version received June 1997)

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Appendix: Textbook and Article Corpus

Textbooks

Microbiology
Alexopoulos, C., & Mims, C. (1993). Introductory mycology (3rd ed.). John Wiley.
Atlas, R. M. (1989). Microbiology: fundamentals and applications (2nd ed.). Macmillan.
Brock, T. & Madigan, M. (1994). Biology of micro-organism (7th ed). Prentice Hall.
Kendrick, B. (1992). The fifth kingdom (2nd ed.). Focus Information Group.
Koneman, E. et al. (1992). Colour atlas and textbook of diagnostic microbiology (4th ed.). Lippin-
cott.
Moore-Landecker, E. (1990). Fundamentals of the Fungi (3rd ed.). Prentice Hall.
Onions, A., Allsopp, D., & Eggins, H. (1981). Smith's introduction to industrial mycology (7th
ed). Edward Arnold.

Marketing
Cateora, P. R. (1990). International marketing (7th ed.). Irwin.
Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (1994). Principles of marketing (6th ed.). Prentice Hall.
Lovelock, C.H. (1991). Services Marketing (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall.
Luck, D., Ferrell, O., & Lucas, G. (1989). Marketing strategy and plans (3rd ed.). Prentice Hall.
Lusch, R., & Lusch, V. (1987). Principles of marketing. Kent Publishing.
McCarthy, E., & Perreault, W. (1990). Basic marketing: a management approach. Irwin.
Stanton, W., Etzel, M., & Walker, B. (1994). Fundamentals of marketing (10th ed.). McGraw
Hill.

Linguistics
Bloor, T., & Bloor, M. (1995). The functional analysis of english: a Hallidayan approach. Arnold.
Brown, H. D. (1994). Principles of language learning and teaching (3rd ed.). Prentice Hall.
Cook, V. (1993). Linguistics and second language acquisition. St Martins Press.
Holmes, J. (1992). An introduction to sociolinguistics. Longman.
Johnson, K. (1995). Understanding communication in second language classrooms. CUP.
Schiffrin, D. (1994). Approaches to discourse. Blackwell.
Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. (1995). Intercultural communication. Blackwell.

Journals
Microbiology
Applied and Environmental Microbiology
Molecular Microbiology
World Journal of Microbiology & Biotechnology
Current Microbiology
26 K. Hyland

Journal of Industrial Microbiology

Applied Microbiology & Biotechnology
International Journal of Food Microbiology

Marketing
Marketing Science
Journal of Marketing Management
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
Journal of Marketing Research
Journal of Marketing
Journal of International Consumer Marketing
International Journal of Research in Marketing

Applied Linguistics
International Review of Applied Linguistics
Applied Linguistics
English for Specific Purposes
Research in the Teaching of English
TESOL Quarterly
System
Second Language Research

Ken Hyland is an Associate Professor at The City University of Hong

Kong. He has a PhD from the University of Queensland and has taught in
Britain, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand.
His articles on language teaching, academic discourse and written com-
munication have appeared in several international journals.