Metadiscoursal Superimposition as a Methodological Approach: Towards a Structured, Quantifiable, and Functionally Enriched Framework of Interactional Metadiscourse

Written Communication Mar 2026

Metadiscoursal Superimposition as a Methodological Approach: Towards a Structured, Quantifiable, and Functionally Enriched Framework of Interactional Metadiscourse

Višnja Pavičić Takač University of Osijek ; Vesna Bogdanović University of Novi Sad

Abstract

Despite extensive research on metadiscourse, methodology descriptions in research articles provide limited guidance on how to identify, classify, and, particularly in cases of clustered items, quantify metadiscourse markers. This article discusses the methodological challenges of analysing metadiscoursal adjectives, using the example of novice academic writers’ use of adjectival interactional metadiscourse markers. Our exploratory analysis of the corpus (654,925 tokens) revealed that, in a non-negligible number of cases (13.5%), metadiscoursal adjectives co-occurred with other linguistic items that were performing different metadiscoursal functions, thus putting a different interpretation on the initial observation. The phenomenon whereby both the adjective and its co-occurring item exercise a prominent metadiscoursal function—which we labelled superimposition —has been observed in previous studies but has not been adequately explored and has led to divergent, and often incomparable approaches, to metadiscourse quantification. We argue that metadiscoursal superimposition as a methodological approach can help bridge the gap between the individual marker analysis and their use in academic writing discourse, thus providing a structured, quantifiable, and functionally richer framework. We discuss the benefits, possible pitfalls, and implications of our proposal that superimposition be included and quantified as a supplementary step in metadiscourse quantification analyses.

Journal: Written Communication
Published: 2026-03-06
DOI: 10.1177/07410883251410162
Open Access: Closed
Topics: scientific writing multilingual writers

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (6)

Hint et al. (2025)

Decoding Metadiscourse Markers in Estonian Academic Texts: A Language-Specific …

Written Communication
Yoon et al. (2020)

Quantifying Disciplinary Voices: An Automated Approach to Interactional Metadis…

Written Communication
Aull et al. (2014)

Linguistic Markers of Stance in Early and Advanced Academic Writing

Written Communication
CRISMORE et al. (1993)

Metadiscourse in Persuasive Writing

Written Communication
BEAUVAIS (1989)

A Speech Act Theory of Metadiscourse

Written Communication

Show all 6 →

Kopple (1985)

Some Exploratory Discourse on Metadiscourse

College Composition and Communication

Also cites 24 works outside this index ↓

10.1177/14614456020040020101

↗
10.1075/scl.24

↗
Ädel A. (2023). Adopting a ‘move’ rather than a ‘marker’ approach to metadiscourse: A taxonomy for spoken stu…

↗
Bitchener J. Basturkmen H. (2006). Perceptions of the difficulties of postgraduate L2 thesis students writing…

↗
10.1016/S0889-4906(98)00022-2

↗
Cheung Y. L. Lau L. (2020). Authorial voice in academic writing: A comparative study of journal articles in E…

↗
Hyland K. (2010). Constructing proximity: Relating to readers in popular and professional science. Journal of…

↗
Hyland K. (2017). Metadiscourse: What is it and where is it going? Journal of Pragmatics 113 16–29. https://d…

↗
Hyland K. Jiang F. K. (2017). Is academic writing becoming more informal? English for Specific Purposes 45 40…

↗
Hyland K. Jiang F. K. (2018). “In this paper we suggest”: Changing patterns of disciplinary metadiscourse. En…

↗
Hyland K. Jiang F. K. (2022). Metadiscourse choices in EAP: An intra-journal study of JEAP. Journal of Englis…

↗
Jiang F. K. (2015). Nominal stance construction in L1 and L2 students’ writing. Journal of English for Academ…

↗
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331967.001.0001

↗
Larsson T. (2017). A functional classification of the introductory it pattern: Investigating academic writing…

↗
Lee J. J. Casal J. E. (2014). Metadiscourse in results and discussion chapters: A cross-linguistic analysis o…

↗
Molino A. (2010). Personal and impersonal authorial references: A contrastive study of English and Italian Li…

↗
10.1016/j.esp.2025.11.003

↗
Pavičić Takač V. Vakanjac Ivezić S. (2019). Frame markers and coherence in L2 argumentative essays. Discourse…

↗
Pearson W. S. Abdollahzadeh E. (2023). Metadiscourse in academic writing: A systematic review. Lingua 293 Art…

↗
10.1017/9781316423530.007

↗
Takimoto M. (2015). A corpus-based analysis of hedges and boosters in English academic articles. Indonesian J…

↗
10.1016/S0889-4906(99)00029-0

↗
Walková M. (2018). Author’s self-representation in research articles by Anglophone and Slovak linguists. Disc…

↗
Yoon H.-J. (2017). Textual voice elements and voice strength in EFL argumentative writing. Assessing Writing …

↗

CrossRef global citation count: 0 View in citation network →