Re: A challenge to the definition of metadiscourse

[Ben Kovitz <apteryx -at- CHISP -dot- NET>]

Caroline Small wrote:

>On Thu, 22 Oct 1998, Ben Kovitz wrote:
>
>> Doug Nickerson wrote, about learning from other people's documentation:
>>
>> >One area piques my interst: how an
>> >author handles what Joseph  M. Williams [1] calls "metadiscourse" (writing
>> >about the writing).
>> >
>> >For example, "In this section, I talk about this, then I discuss that."
>>
>> Funny that you should bring this up.  I call it "metatext" and
>> it's one of my pet peeves.
>...
>Recognizing that "metatext" and "metadiscourse" are jargony terms that can
>pretty much mean what the community who uses them wants them to mean, I
>personally don't think this "saying what you're doing"  really counts as
>metatext in any but the most limited sense. My American Heritage
>Dictionary defines "meta" as "beyond, transcendent, more comprehensive, at
>a higher state of development." If my students only write "in this
>paragraph I do..." when I ask for metatext, I don't think they're
>transcending very much.
>
>Meta-language, as I understand it, isn't really writing about the
>"writing."  Although its meaning varies subtly in those fields which use
>the term in an etymologically self-conscious way, "metalanguage"  usually
>refers to the underlying definitions, descriptions and parameters that
>structure and describe--in fact, create the possibility of--the language
>to which "metalanguage" is "meta."

Interesting, but of course this isn't what the rest of us are talking
about.  When people explain what they mean, even going to the trouble of
inventing their own terminology, going to a dictionary is generally not an
effective method of finding out what they're referring to or addressing
what they've said.  The examples we've given count as what we're talking
about, not in a limited sense but in the fullest possible sense, because
they're what we've chosen to talk about.

If you can come up with a better word for what we're calling
"metadiscourse" or "metatext", I'm certainly open to suggestions.  One very
common meaning of "meta", though, particularly among computerites, is that
"meta-X" means "X about X".  "Metadata", for example, means computer data
that describes computer data (i.e. data about formats, how different data
sets map to each other, etc.).  So when most people see "metadiscourse" or
"metatext", especially when accompanied by both a definition and an
example, the meaning clicks pretty fast.  It wouldn't surprise me if the
people who wrote the American Heritage dictionary didn't know about this
sense of "meta".

This message, by the way, is metaconversation, usually a bad thing, so I'll
stop right now.

--
Ben Kovitz <apteryx -at- chisp -dot- net>
Boulder, Colorado


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