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Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 42 · Heft 2 | 2017 Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH+Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 \ 72070 Tübingen \ Germany Tel. +49 (07071) 97 97-0 \ Fax +49 (07071) 97 97-11 \ info@narr.de \ www.narr.de \ periodicals.narr.de Notice to Contributors All articles for submission should be sent to the editor, Bernhard Kettemann, as a WORD document as mail attachment: bernhard.kettemann@uni-graz.at Manuscripts should conform to the AAA style sheet or follow either MHRA or MLA style. (Copies of the MLA Style Sheet may be obtained from the Treasurer of the Modern Language Association of America, 62 Fifth Ave, New York, N. Y., 10011; copies of the MHRA Style Book from W.S. Maney & Son Ltd., Hudson Rd., Leeds LS9 7DL, England.) Documentation can be embodied either in footnotes or in an appended bibliography, with name and date reference enclosed in brackets in the text. Footnotes should be numbered consecutively and listed on a separate sheet of paper. The footnotes will appear on the bottom of the page where they are mentioned. They should be limited to a minimum. Languages of publication are German and English. Authors are requested to provide an English abstract of their contribution of about 15 lines on a separate sheet of paper. In the normal procedure first proofs will be sent to the authors and should be returned to the editor within one week. Authors receive one free copy of the issue containing their contribution. It is our policy to publish accepted contributions without delay. Gründer, Eigentümer, Herausgeber und für den Inhalt verantwortlich / founder, owner, editor and responsibility for content: Bernhard Kettemann, Institut für Anglistik, Universität Graz, Heinrichstraße 36, A-8010 Graz. Web: http: / / periodicals.narr.de/ index.php/ aaa, Tel.: +43 / 316 / 380-2488, 2474, Fax: +43 / 316 / 380-9765 Herausgeber / editor Bernhard Kettemann Redaktion / editorial assistants Georg Marko Eva Triebl Mitherausgeber / editorial board Alwin Fill Walter Grünzweig Walter Hölbling Allan James Andreas Mahler Christian Mair Annemarie Peltzer-Karpf Werner Wolf Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 42 (2017) · Heft 2 Inhaltsverzeichnis Special issue “Metadiscourse in interactive contexts” Edited by Hermine Penz & Georg Marko Artikel : Hermine Penz & Georg Marko Metadiscourse in interactive contexts. An Introduction ........................185 Pia Resnik Metadiscourse in spoken interaction in ESL. A multilingual perspective ............................................................................................189 Nikola Jokić Metadiscourse in ELF spoken discourse of Erasmus students in Austria ..............................................................................................211 Klaus P. Schneider Is that a threat? Forms and functions of metapragmatic terms in English discourse ..............................................................................225 Georg Marko Power and status by definition. Preliminary theoretical considerations on a study of defining as a metadiscursive strategy in lay-to-lay interaction .........................................................................243 Johannes Scherling Pragmatics of power. On the intricacies of metadiscourse in the Labour leadership debates 2015 and 2016 ...........................................281 Hermine Penz Metadiscourse in multi-party conflict talk.............................................301 Inhaltsverzeichnis 184 Der gesamte Inhalt der AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Band 1, 1976 - Band 35, 2010 ist nach Autoren alphabetisch geordnet abrufbar unter http: / / www-gewi.uni-graz.at/ staff/ kettemann This journal is abstracted in: ESSE (Norwich), MLA Bibliography (New York, NY), C doc du CNRS (Paris), CCL (Frankfurt), NCELL (Göttingen), JSJ (Philadelphia, PA), ERIC Clearinghouse on Lang and Ling (Washington, DC), LLBA (San Diego), ABELL (London). Gefördert von der Geisteswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz. Anfragen, Kommentare, Kritik, Mitteilungen und Manuskripte werden an den Herausgeber erbeten (Adresse siehe Umschlaginnenseite). Erscheint halbjährlich. 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Printed in Germany ISSN 0171-5410 Metadiscourse in interactive contexts An introduction Hermine Penz & Georg Marko The fact that human beings can talk about language in the same way as they can talk about other things is one of the features distinguishing human language from animal communication and has been termed reflexivity by Charles Hockett (1960). This phenomenon has been discussed by linguists under various names, all with the prefix meta, such as metalanguage, metadiscourse, meta-talk, or metacommunication. According to Mey (2001: 173), “a ‘metalanguage’ indicates a language that is about language, one level ‘up’ from the language itself, the ‘object language’ […]. A metalanguage indicates, comments on, examines, criticizes etc. what happens on the level of the object language.” The aim of this special issue of the Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik is to explore the functions and usages of one particular type of metalanguage, namely metadiscourse, by which we understand discourse about the ongoing discourse (cf. Mauranen 1993 and 2010). Metadiscourse is an essential feature of written and spoken and of monologic and dialogic texts and is not restricted to any particular type of discourse or genre. In this volume, we will focus on metadiscourse in interactive contexts, i.e. with two or more participants, as we assume that in their attempt to co-construct meanings and to secure mutual comprehension and at the same time to foreground certain perspectives on the world and on their identities, interlocutors will draw upon metadiscourse and will use it for purposes that differ from those relevant to written monologic texts. Metadiscourse may refer to any level and any aspect of discourse such as channel (e.g. acoustic problems in understanding), roles of speaker and listener, speaking rights and turn-taking, word meaning, sentence and utterance meaning, topic of talk, frames and text types, conversational maxims, textual elements, discourse organization, etc. (cf. Bublitz 2001: 1332). AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 42 (2017) · Heft 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Hermine Penz & Georg Marko 186 Describing, organizing and commenting on the ongoing discourse often serve the purpose of achieving understanding and supporting acceptance. Therefore they are seen as the main functions of metadiscourse (cf. Techtmeier’s (2001: 1454) three basic functions of metacommunicative utterances). Metadiscourse can be applied prospectively and retrospectively in the process of negotiating and managing understanding (cf. Bublitz 2001: 1332). However, the use of metadiscourse has been found to vary substantially across different genres and different cultures (cf. Mauranen 1993, 2010, Hyland 2005, Ädel 2006, Penz 2011, Graf 2015). These differences are not surprising in view of findings that metadiscourse may provide some insights into underlying interactional and pragmatic norms of the language use of a community. This volume includes the written versions of six papers presented at a workshop called “Metadiscourse in spoken language” organized for the Annual Conference of Austrian Linguistics (ÖLT) 2016 at Karl-Franzens- University Graz (18-20 November 2016) by the two editors of this special issue. We have changed the title of this volume from in spoken language to in interactive contexts because the contributions to this workshop suggested to us that the interactive aspect was more central to the study of metadiscourse than the difference between writing and speaking per se. The six papers can informally be grouped into two - perhaps slightly heterogenous - groups. Pia Resnik’s and Nikola Jokić’s articles take a more language-acquisition/ learning-oriented or non-native-varietyoriented approach, investigating the special role that metadiscourse has for such situations of language use. Klaus Schneider’s, Georg Marko’s, Johannes Scherling’s and Hermine Penz’ articles take a pragmatic and/ or discourse analytical approach, focusing on the general and the specific social and political effects of metadiscourse (there are, of course, large areas of overlap). Pia Resnik’s paper examines the language of 24 one-on-one interviews with English-as-L2 users in order to find out how and to what extent they use metadiscourse in communication with other L2-speakers. Using descriptive and inferential statistical tools, she looks at the influence that different variables have on the frequency of metadiscourse use and the types employed. The most important factors seem to be a difference in L1 between interlocutors (in Resnik’s case, interviewer’s L1 = German, interviewee’s L1 = Mandarin Chinese; there is also a group where German is the L1 of both interviewer and interviewee) and the interviewees’ perceived competence in L1 and L2. Nikola Jokić’s article deals with metadiscourse as used by international students from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds when they are speaking English as a lingua franca with each other. He shows how extensively they draw upon different types of metadiscursive devices and how effectively they employ them to avoid communication problems before they actually occur. Metadiscourse in interactive contexts 187 The topic of Klaus Schneider’s contribution are metapragmatic expressions, more specifically meta-illocutionary expressions, i.e. words used to refer to different illocutionary acts, e.g. threat, invitation, or question. He examines their forms and functions qualitatively in examples from literary texts and quantitatively with the help of Google searches. Schneider defines four main functions of metapragmatic terms, viz. to perform a speech act, to report it, to comment on it and/ or to problematize it, all associated with particular formal realization patterns. The Google searches examine 12 meta-illocutionary nouns in the problematizing structure [BE + demonstrative pronoun + meta-illocutionary noun? ], e.g. Is this a threat? . Request, order, warning and other nouns with consequences for the addressee’s course of action occur frequently in this pattern, insult and apology are relatively rare in comparison, probably because they do not allow for a lot of interpretation and they have no immediate relevance for action. The past tense form of BE was and the distal demonstrative pronoun that were more common than present tense is and proximal this, probably because the distancing effects of the former better serve the confrontational nature of the problematizing function. Georg Marko’s paper outlines the theoretical framework for a study of definitions as metadiscursive devices and their social functions and effects in discussion forums on health. He argues that defining a lexical element implies that the speaker or writer knows its meaning, but that the other participants in the interaction do not, which creates a gap in knowledge (however real and however temporary) and thus a hierarchy and possible power imbalance between interlocutors. Marko describes various features of definitions that may enhance or mitigate this effect, such as whether they contain detailed information or just consist of an alternative term, whether they are by the speaker/ writer herself or coconstructed by other interlocutors, etc. In “Pragmatics of power,” Johannes Scherling takes a closer look at the functions of metadiscourse in political debates, analysing the Labour Party’s leadership debates in 2015 (when Jeremy Corbyn was a candidate) and 2016 (when Jeremy Corbyn was the leader of the Labour Party). Metadiscourse has mainly the function of organizing one’s own arguments and of positioning oneself in relation to other candidates in the debate. The frequent use of metadiscursive devices points to a debating style orienting towards one’s opponent, which could be seen as typical of a challenger, the infrequent use to a self-centred and confident debating style less concerned with others in a debate. Hermine Penz examines the functions and effects of metadiscourse in conflictual interaction in her contribution to this volume. Her analysis of small group discussions in the context of higher education shows that metadiscourse plays an important role in all phases of conflict, i.e. its initiation, development and resolution, and that metadiscourse primarily becomes manifest in naming different communicative acts and activities Hermine Penz & Georg Marko 188 and also parts of the discourse structure in the group discussions, thus explicitizing them and opening them up for comments and evaluation. These six articles do not only offer a practical or applied linguistic perspective on metadiscourse in interaction by presenting a wide range of different interactive texts and discourses, they also contribute to the theorization of metadiscourse in general by discussing its conceptual foundation, its distinctive features, and its structural-functional properties. This special issue of the Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik will therefore - hopefully - spark new ideas about what to investigate in metadiscourse as an interactive phenomenon and how to investigate it, thus stimulating further relevant and valuable research. References Ädel, Annelie (2006). Metadiscourse in L1 and L2 English Discourse. Amsterdam & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Bublitz, Wofram (2001). “Formen der Verständnissicherung in Gesprächen.” In: Klaus Brinker/ Gerd Antos/ Wolfgang Heinemann/ Sven F. Sager (eds.) (2001). Text- und Gesprächslinguistik/ Linguistics of Text and Conversation. KSK 16.2. Berlin & New York: de Gruyter. 1330-1340. Hockett, Charles F (1960). “The Origin of Speech.” Scientific American 203(3). 88- 96. Graf, Eva-Maria (2015). The Discourses of Executive Coaching. Linguistic Insights into Emotionally Intelligent Coaching. Habilitationsschrift: Universität Klagenfurt. Mauranen, Anna (1993). Cultural Differences in Academic Rhetoric. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang. Mauranen, Anna (2010). “Discourse Reflexivity - A Discourse Universal? The Case of ELF.” Nordic Journal of English Studies 9(2). 13-40. Mey, Jacob L. (2001). Pragmatics. An Introduction. Malden, MA & Oxford: Blackwell. Penz, Hermine (2011). “‘What do you mean by that? ’: Metadiscourse in ELF project discussions.” In: Archibald Alasdair/ Alessia Cogo/ Jennifer Jenkins (eds.) (2001). Latest Trends in ELF research. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 185-201. Schiffrin, Deborah (1980). “Metatalk: Organizational and Evaluative Brackets in Discourse.” Sociolinguistic Inquiry: Language and Social Interaction 50. 199-236. Techtmeier, Bärbel (2001). “Form und Funktion von Metakommunikation im Gespräch.” In: Klaus Brinker/ Gerd Antos/ Wolfgang Heinemann/ Sven F. Sager (eds.) (2001). Text und Gesprächslinguistik/ Linguistics of Text and Conversation. Ein internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung/ An International Handbook of Contemporary Research. Vol 2. Berlin & New York: de Gruyter. 1449- 1463. Hermine Penz & Georg Marko Department of English Studies Karl-Franzens-University Graz Austria Metadiscourse in spoken interaction in ESL A multilingual perspective Pia Resnik Metadiscourse can fulfil various functions, two of them being to clarify and interpret what was said. These are highly relevant in spoken discourse in a language other than one’s L1, where miscommunication can easily happen. Due to globalisation and, along with it, migration, English is more and more being used in these contexts to bridge gaps when communicating with speakers of other L1s, who then run the risk of being misunderstood. Therefore, the present paper investigates the use of metadiscourse as a strategy to solve or prevent instances of miscommunication among multilingual speakers who communicate in their L2 (English). An analysis of 24 in-depth interviews with multilinguals from different language backgrounds (L1 German or L1 Mandarin Chinese) on verbalising emotions in various languages show different metadiscursive strategies to maintain mutual understanding. Quantitative analyses reveal that the L1 of the interlocutors had a significant effect on the overall frequency of using metadiscourse in general and, in particular, otheroriented forms. With regard to the underlying functions, no effect of the L1 can be shown. Furthermore, the bilingualism index proved to be a good predictor of metadiscursive instances in general as well as for those directed at the other interlocutor to clarify or interpret what was said. Furthermore, as the interlocutors were all individuals with more than one language at their disposal, code-switching (CS) instances on a metadiscursive level were also taken into account, which shows that CS was only used strategically in cases where both interlocutors shared the same L1 to restore comprehensibility. 1. Introduction When we ask ourselves what makes us fundamentally human, one of the core components mentioned by many is language. Even though communication as such is not unique to us human beings, the way we communicate via language is incomparable to the way other species do. Not only AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 42 (2017) · Heft 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Pia Resnik 190 are we able to talk about people or items that are not present or do not even exist, but we can also refer to past events and future developments via language. With a limited repertoire of sounds we can create an infinite number of utterances in a given language and we can also create entirely new expressions. Hockett (1960) identified his 13 well-known design features, which, according to him, in their entirety are unique to human language. One important feature contributing to our fundamentally human way of communicating is being able to reflect on language. Reflexivity is also crucial to spoken interaction as “[w]hen we communicate, we not only talk about the world and about ourselves (many people’s favourite topic), we also use language to talk about talk” (Ädel 2006: 1). This phenomenon is also referred to as metadiscourse, which is, as the term denotes, “meta, i.e. discourse about discourse” (Aguilar 2008: 58). As it can be realised in various ways ranging from morphemes to several sentences and is highly context-sensitive (cf. Ädel 2006), metadiscourse is difficult to categorise. Thus, it is crucial to focus on both form and function when analysing metadiscursive instances (cf. Aguilar 2008). This is what the present paper sets out to do with a particular focus on spoken, dialogic interaction in an LX, which refers to any language acquired after one’s first (L1), i.e. after the age of 3 (cf. Dewaele 2017). As most investigations into metadiscourse have analysed the written mode so far (cf. Ädel 2006), it is crucial to also focus on the spoken mode, as was already noted by Schiffrin almost 40 years ago (cf. Schiffrin 1980), because it employs different realisations and functions of metadiscursive instances. This holds especially true for dialogic situations, in which meaning is frequently negotiated metadiscursively in order to restore or maintain mutual understanding (cf. Mauranen 2010). As doing so is even more challenging in an LX, this paper seeks to provide a better understanding of the strategies employed by L2 users of English in dialogic situations. Due to different L1s of the interlocutors in the 24 interviews analysed for this paper, the use of metadiscourse can, furthermore, be analysed with regard to ELF (English as a lingua franca) contexts (cf. Jenkins 2007, 2009, Seidlhofer 2011) and contexts where the interlocutors communicate in their L2, but share the same L1. This way, we can gain insights into the likelihood, frequencies and functions of metadiscourse (cf. Penz 2011). Furthermore, a link to linguistic multicompetence will be established (cf. Cook 1991, 2016) in this paper, for which ELF contexts are said to be the perfect arena (cf. MacKenzie 2012). The paper is organised as follows: the literature review starts with defining the term metadiscourse and then continues with a discussion of its relevance in multilingual contexts. The subsequent section focuses on the methodology applied in the study and includes a description of the participants, procedure, independent and dependent variables as well as the research questions. Afterwards, the results from statistical analyses are Metadiscourse in spoken interaction in ESL 191 presented, which are discussed in the light of previous studies. The findings are then summarised and elaborated on in a conclusion. 2. Defining metadiscourse The term metadiscourse was first used by Zellig Harris in 1959 (cf. Hyland 2005), but was only theorized more comprehensively about 30 years ago (cf. Vande Kopple 1985, Crismore 1989). Two different research traditions have emerged: integrative and non-integrative approaches (cf. Mauranen 1993). These differ in their conceptualisations of metadiscourse (cf. Ädel/ Mauranen 2010). The former, also referred to as interactive models (Ädel 2010: 70), define it in a broad way, placing emphasis on “textual interaction” (Ädel/ Mauranen 2010: 2). Proponents classify hedges, for instance, as metadiscourse. In non-integrative models, also known as reflexive models (Ädel 2010: 70), these would not be considered metadiscourse (cf. Ädel/ Mauranen 2010), but the determining feature of metadiscourse in this approach is reflexivity (cf. Hockett 1960). Thus, proponents of the reflexive model take a comparatively narrow approach to defining the term and to, consequently, categorising metadiscursive instances (cf. Ädel 2010). Just as two different ways of conceptualising the term have emerged, so have different methods applied to identifying metadiscursive instances. Ädel and Mauranen (2010: 2) refer to them as ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ approaches. These mostly correspond to the above-mentioned research traditions. Proponents of ‘thin’ approaches usually analyse data purely quantitatively with regard to the frequencies and the distributions based on pre-defined lists of forms. Thus, these approaches usually lack taking variation in functions of the same form into account and are highly intuitive. Still, one of their core strengths is enabling automatised analyses of large corpora. Applying a ‘thick’ approach, on the other hand, requires a rather qualitative orientation, in which emphasis is placed on the contextdependence and dynamic nature of metadiscursive instances. Even though researchers usually also start their analyses with potentially reflexive forms in this case, the context is, furthermore, crucial as the metadiscursive unit of analysis is considered larger, taking, for instance, its function into account (cf. Ädel/ Mauranen 2010). The approach taken in this paper is in line with the latter. I will nevertheless also use quantification in order to be able to investigate possible effects of independent variables on the frequency and function of the metadiscursive units that were categorised depending on context. This way, a new perspective on the phenomenon will be provided. To put it simple, just as metalanguage is language about language (cf. Mey 2001), also metadiscourse is “discourse about the ongoing discourse” (Mauranen 2010: 16). As the focus in this paper will be on metadiscur- Pia Resnik 192 sive instances in spoken interaction, the definition adopted here is “speaking about the discourse at hand” (Mauranen 2010: 16). Even though most research on metadiscourse has focused on the written mode so far (cf. Ädel 2006), the importance of also investigating its uses in spoken interaction was already highlighted in 1980 (cf. Schiffrin 1980). In spoken interaction, metadiscourse clearly helps to monitor the current discourse in that it offers us the possibility to explicitly comment on the discourse as such (cf. Carter/ McCarthy 2006, see also Mauranen 2012). It is indeed a very effective way of negotiating meaning interactively on the spot in spoken conversations, which are simultaneous and transient. Some of these instances are easy to identify as the metadiscursive function of these forms is salient and, therefore, easily codable (e.g., you + BE + saying, you + mean). Other instances are less salient though and in these cases the context is often the key to understanding their metadiscursive function (cf. Mauranen 2010). In the present paper, metadiscourse will be analysed in interactive communication. This is important as the functions of metadiscursive instances in dialogues clearly differ from monologic uses. In conversations, metadiscourse is a particularly useful tool of negotiation (e.g., to clarify what was said) and thereby contributes to maintaining mutual understanding (cf. Hyland 2005, Mauranen 2010, Penz 2011, Schiffrin 1980). To conclude, investigating dialogues in this respect provides us with a better understanding of how discourse is managed strategically to, for instance, avoid conversation breakdowns and, more generally, to make points more explicit and precise (cf. Mauranen 2010). As Mauranen (2010: 20) puts it, “discourse reflexivity plays crucial roles in negotiating the flow of discourse between participants.” According to her, it can be directed at the self, but also at other people’s utterances and can be used for various functions in dialogic speech events, such as clarification, interpretation or as springboard to move on to another topic in a conversation (for a detailed discussion of the different functions, see section 4.4). How these instances are applied in communication in an LX will be the focus of the study included in this paper. Before moving on to the description of the methodology, I will explain the relevance of investigating the use of metadiscourse in LX users of English first. 3. Metadiscourse in multilingual contexts - the LX user When investigating metadiscourse in multilingual contexts, it is important to be aware of the following: LX users differ from L1 users in that they have more than one language at their disposal (cf. Ortega 2009). The languages a multilingual knows furthermore mutually influence each other, which means multi-competent (cf. Cook 1991, 2016) LX users will always differ in their language use from (idealised monolingual) L1 users Metadiscourse in spoken interaction in ESL 193 or native speakers of a language. I will therefore take a holistic, multilingual view on LX users (cf. Cook 2016, Cook/ Singleton 2014), which acknowledges multilinguals as language users in their own right. Of the approximately 2 billion users of English worldwide, multicompetent LX users of English by far outnumber its L1 users (cf. Graddol 2006, Mauranen 2012). For them, English today often is “the communicative medium of choice, and often the only option” (Seidlhofer 2011: 7) when communicating with someone whose L1 they do not share. It is thus regularly used to bridge communicative gaps in these contexts (cf. Phillipson 2008). Linking the idea of linguistic multi-competence to these typical lingua franca contexts, it becomes apparent though that ELF users are also skating on thin ice when communicating with each other as they “cannot rely on much shared linguistic or cultural knowledge with their interlocutors” (Mauranen 2010: 13, see also Firth 1996). As metadiscourse is a good way of monitoring dialogic speech events in general to ensure mutual understanding, this paper tries to provide a better understanding of how and to what extent multi-competent LX speakers use it to, for instance, avoid conversation breakdowns. Furthermore, I will examine whether the functions and frequencies of using metadiscourse differ in conversations among ELF users, who do not share the same L1, and non-ELF speakers, who communicate in their L2, but share the same L1 and, consequently, cultural and linguistic knowledge with their interlocutors. Gaining a deeper understanding of metadiscourse in such scenarios is important, as research on metadiscourse among ELF and LX users is, in general, still in a nascent stage (cf. Mauranen 2010). Even though previous studies show that metadiscursive strategies are used by both L1 and lingua franca users (cf. Mauranen 2007), no study to date has investigated the above-mentioned scenarios systematically. This is the objective of my contribution. 4. Methodology The focus of the present study is an investigation into both selfand other-centred metadiscourse in 24 interviews between L2 users of English. Similar to Mauranen (2010), the focus here will thus be on dialogic events, which have not been taken into account sufficiently in previous studies. 4.1 Participants The participants in this study were 24 multilinguals living in London at the time of the interviews. They were all L2 users of English. Among the interviewees, females were predominant (75%, N = 18). A female predominance is not rare in SLA research (cf. Dewaele 2010, Hammer 2017), Pia Resnik 194 an explanation for which might be females’ general predominance in language-related jobs and, consequently, greater interest in and willingness to participate in these studies (if they involve self-selection). The participants were on average 32 years old (min. = 20, max. = 53; SD = 9.812) with 14 aged 20 to 29, 3 between 30 and 39, 6 between 40 and 49 and one above 50. They were all well educated: 2 had finished their PhD, 19 their MA, 2 a BA and 1 had taken his A-levels. The interviewees differed in their L1s and were, consequently, divided into two groups: the 12 participants of group 1 shared German as their L1, and the 12 interviewees of group 2 shared L1 Mandarin Chinese. The participants’ age of onset of acquiring English as L2 was, on average, 10 years (min. = 4; max. = 20; SD = 3.919). While 7 participants started acquiring it between the age of 4 and 8, the majority did so between the age of 10 and 13 (N = 14). In the case of one participant, the age of 16 marked the starting point of acquiring English and another one started acquiring it for work at age 20. Their lengths of residence in London varied and ranged from 7 months to 21 years. Only one of them was bilingual. The remaining 23 were either trilingual (N = 9; 37.50%), quadrilingual (N = 11; 45.83%) or pentalingual (N = 3; 12.50%). They rated their proficiency in the L2 as relatively high on a scale from 1 to 5 in the different skills (reading, writing, speaking, comprehension). On average, the overall selfreported proficiency amounted to 15.67 (min. = 6; max. = 20; SD = 4.469). In the L1, the self-rated proficiency was considerably higher (mean = 19.29; SD = 1.429). Still, it ranged from a total of 16 to 20 points, which clearly demonstrates that not everyone perceived themselves as maximally proficient in their L1, which makes sense when taking the length of residence in the UK into account. 4.2 Procedure The original purpose of the structured interviews was to investigate multilinguals’ verbalisation and perception of emotions in various languages and only later re-analysed with a focus on metadiscursive instances. They all took place in London, UK and were conducted by myself, an L1 speaker of German with L2 English living and studying in London at the time the study was conducted. The participants were approached via forums for multilinguals living in London and via colleagues I knew. The main strategy used in this study was snowball sampling. The sampling was, furthermore, not random as research into SLA requires participants who are users of at least two languages and meet further criteria depending on the research questions (cf. Wilson/ Dewaele 2010). In this case, two important selection criteria were the following: the participants’ L1 and their being L2 users of English, i.e. they started acquiring their L2 after the age of 3 (i.e. they were sequential bilinguals). Due to the original research topic’s sensitivity, the inter- Metadiscourse in spoken interaction in ESL 195 viewees’ needs and wants were considered important and the interviews were, consequently, conducted one-on-one either at the interviewer’s or the interviewee’s homes or in quiet seminar rooms at different universities in London (Birkbeck College, University of London, School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London, University of Roehampton). The interviewees were, initially, not aware of the research topic as the procedure also included further test tools and informing them about the focus might have led to a distortion of the findings. The interviewer and interviewees did not share any interpersonal background knowledge. The interviews’ duration ranged from 15 minutes to 25 minutes each. They were all conducted in English due to cross-linguistic variation in emotion and emotion-laden words and their occasional non-translatability. In 12 instances (group 1), the interviewer and interviewees shared the same L1. This is not as uncommon as it might seem at first sight as there are many situations in which multilinguals with the same L1 need to communicate in an LX, for instance, in the workplace if other interlocutors who do not share this language are also involved. In group 2, the L1 of the interlocutors differed. These scenarios thus represented typical ELF contexts. Even though the situation was to some extent artificial in group 1, it allowed for examining not only individual differences in various types of metadiscursive instances, but also inter-group differences without creating so much noise in the data that the reasons for using metadiscourse could no longer be disentangled. The interviews were transcribed in full length, which amounted to 65,850 words, and the metadiscursive instances were subsequently coded manually for orientation (self-directed versus other-directed) and function (clarification, interpretation, springboard) (cf. 4.4 below). Automatic annotation was not possible due to the context-dependence of metadiscursive elements (cf. Ädel 2006). The interviewees had additionally filled in a short questionnaire in which they were asked for information on their demographic background, language learning history as well as present language use. This information was also used for the current study. The quantitative data were analysed using SPSS 24. 4.3 Independent variables L1 The effect of the participants L1s will be investigated as it is one important aspect in which they differed. In this way, a better understanding of the use of metadiscursive elements in ELF-contexts versus contexts in which the LX users shared the same L1 should be achieved. As mentioned above, group 1 refers to interviews in which both speakers had L1 German and L2 English. In group 2, the participants’ L1s differed, with the L1 of the interviewer being German and the L1 of the interviewees being Pia Resnik 196 Mandarin Chinese. This analysis sheds light on possible effects of shared background knowledge on the use of metadiscourse to negotiate meaning. Bilingualism index I will also examine whether language proficiency shows any effect on the use of metadiscourse. In the questionnaire, in which the interviewees provided information on their language learner history and present habits, they were asked to rate their self-perceived proficiency in speaking, comprehension, reading and writing on a scale from 1 to 5. As previous studies have shown, self-rated proficiency measures are good indicators of actual language proficiency (cf. Dewaele 2010, MacIntyre et al. 1997). As the idea of linguistic multi-competence (cf. Cook 1991, 2016) is adopted in this paper, according to which the languages an LX user knows are not to be seen as isolated from each other, the participants’ self-reported bilinguality is reflected in a second-order variable, referred to as bilingualism index (cf. Resnik forthcoming). Based on Dewaele and Stavans’ global multilingualism measure (2014: 10), the bilingualism index acknowledges the mutual influence of the knowledge of the L1 and L2 in an L2 user’s mind in the present study. Thus, the bilingualism index here refers to a speaker’s overall self-rated proficiency in the L1 and L2. The participants rated their bilinguality on average as 34.96 on a scale from 0 to 40, ranging from a minimum of 22 to a maximum of 40 (SD = 5.328). Overall length As the lengths of the interviews differed, I will also examine whether the overall duration of an interview had any effect on the overall number of metadiscursive instances. 4.4 Dependent variables The two main dependent variables are frequency and type of metadiscourse use. So in addition to counting metadiscursive instances, the latter were also categorised for two dimensions: orientation and function. These categorisations will be illustrated with examples from the corpus below. Self-oriented versus other-oriented metadiscourse As a first step, the metadiscursive instances in the corpus were classified according to their orientation, i.e. whether they refer to an utterance by the current speaker or by another participant (cf. Mauranen 2012). Selforiented metadiscourse can help speakers to clarify what they said, e.g.: Metadiscourse in spoken interaction in ESL 197 As I said… Well, that’s not exactly what I meant Other-directed metadiscourse, on the other hand, can be used to offer or seek clarification of what someone else said, e.g.: Do you mean linguistically? It’s about German words you are talking now? Functions of metadiscourse In a second step, metadiscourse were classified according to their functions. Mauranen (2010), in her study of metadiscourse in the ELFA corpus (Spoken English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings, www.eng.helsinki.fi/ elfa), identified three functions: clarification, interpretation and springboard. I also used these for my own data. Clarification refers to instances where a speaker wants the addressee to repeat, confirm or elucidate something the latter has said (cf. Mauranen 2010), e.g.: Do you mean linguistically? It’s about German words you are talking now? What do you mean? Do you mean generally or only in the L2? Yeah, but were you saying society? In interpretation, the speaker interprets the meaning of another utterance. Typical examples of this type are: As you said before... So you’re saying... Clearly, a speaker could theoretically also interpret their own utterance or, in self-talk, try to clarify what they meant. None of these functions were included in the data though. The springboard function is the last one identified by Mauranen (2010). It refers to instances where an interlocutor paraphrases another speaker’s previous utterance as a start for a new direction in the conversation. These instances can be evaluative and can be used to criticise what someone else said, but also to support it. No clarification from the other interlocutor is expected in these cases. Typical examples of this type are: If you swear… I think you do because you said so before... So, when swearing... And just because you mentioned “I love you“... Pia Resnik 198 I think it’s true what you’re saying that women and men… Also, speaker-oriented metadiscourse can function as a springboard though. In the present corpus, some instances of self-directed metadiscourse clearly worked in a similar way as illustrated in the following example by Emma (L1 German, L2 English, L3 Italian, L4 Kurdish), in which she referred to something she had previously mentioned, which served as a starting point for a different topic: I was just saying that with my friend in Boston we normally speak English, but… eh… I just realized that… Thus, not only you + BE + saying instances (cf. Mauranen 2010) were counted in this respect, but also self-directed forms. All these categories were, of course, quantified, too. 4.5 Research questions The following research questions were formulated in order to investigate metadiscursive elements in spoken interaction between L2 users of English: 1. Are metadiscursive strategies more common in ELF conversations than in conversations between L2 users of English who share the same L1 because they are more eager to ensure mutual understanding? 2. Do the strategies employed differ qualitatively? 3. Do speaker-related differences, such as self-rated proficiency, of L2 users affect the frequency of metadiscursive strategies? 4. Does the length of the conversation correlate positively with the frequency of metadiscourse use? 5. Results In the following, the results from various statistical analyses will be presented. In case the data showed normal distribution, independent samples t-tests and regression analyses were run. The former allow for testing inter-group differences by testing differences in mean values (e.g., L1based differences in the number of metadiscursive instances in the interviews). Linear regression analyses are also used to calculate possible relations between an independent and a dependent variable. In the following, one aim is to also test if the independent variable taken into account, which is in this case the bilingualism index, is a good predictor of the use of (various types of) metadiscursive instances. In case the data were not Metadiscourse in spoken interaction in ESL 199 normally distributed, Mann-Whitney tests were used as non-parametric equivalents of t-tests. 5.1 Inter-group differences Frequency of metadiscursive instances: inter-group differences As a first step, possible inter-group differences in the overall frequency of metadiscourse use are analysed. This analysis is based on the overall use of metadiscursive instances in each interview and includes the interviewer herself, as the focus here lies on both interlocutors’ use of metadiscourse in each dialogue to co-construct meaning. Thus, including those of the interviewer does not lead to a distortion of the findings as the instances were coded for each interview separately and not for each interlocutor. As a series of Shapiro-Wilk tests showed normal distribution (group 1 total : p = .096, group 2 total : p = .199), an independent samples ttest was run. It showed a significant difference between the groups (p = .030; t = -2.411; df = 14.518): the interviews in group 2 (different L1s) showed on average a greater number of instances of metadiscourse (group 2: N = 12, mean = 18.75, SD = 9.430) than those of group 1 (group 1: N = 12, mean = 11.67, SD = 3.882). A comparison of the mean values shows that the interviews in group 2 contained on average 60 percent more metadiscursive elements than those of group 1. The overall distribution of frequencies for each group is found in Figure 1. All in all, the interviews in group 1 included 140 elements of metadiscourse, while the interviews of group 2 included 225 such instances. Speakerversus other-oriented metadiscourse The data with regard to speakerversus other-oriented types were also normally distributed (group 1 speaker-oriented MD : p = .080, group 2 speaker-oriented MD : p = .271; group 1 other-oriented MD : p = .091, group 2 other-oriented MD : p = .104). An independent samples t-tests shows that, as illustrated in Table 1, both speakerand other-oriented instances of metadiscourse occurred on average more frequently in group 2 than in group 1: on average, the interviews in group 2 contained almost double the amount of otherdirected instances than the interviews in group 1 (mean group1 = 7.5; mean group2 = 13.08). Also the use of self-oriented metadiscourse was used on average more frequently in the interviews in group 2. Here, the difference was not as great as in the previous case (mean group 1 = 4.17; meangroup 2 = 5.67) and it was not significant (cf. Table 1). Figure 1 illustrates the overall frequency of use of metadiscourse for each group, but also includes illustrations of inter-group differences in the sum of selfand other-oriented forms (group 1: total = 140, other-oriented = 90, selforiented = 50; group 2: total = 225, other-oriented = 157, self-oriented Pia Resnik 200 = 68). In general, other-directed instances were more frequently applied in both groups than self-directed elements. When investigating possible links between the overall number of metadiscursive elements and the two different forms investigated, a regression analysis showed that the former was only a strong predictor for self-directed forms in ELF contexts (p = .004; F = 14.158; adjusted R 2 = .586; regression coefficient b = .400; β = .766). Variation in the overall number of metadiscursive instances explains 58.6% of the uses of self-directed forms. This does not apply to group 1 (p = .140; F = 2.573; adjusted R 2 = .125; regression coefficient b = .353; β = .452). For other-oriented forms, the overall numbers of metalinguistic elements used in each interview were a good predictor in both groups and explained 41.1% in group 1 and 73.8% in group 2 (group 1: p = .015; F = 8.666; adjusted R 2 = .411; β = .681; regression coefficient b = .647; group 2: p < .0001; F = 31.936; adjusted R 2 = .738; β = .873; regression coefficient b = .600). Figure 1: Instances of metadiscursive elements per group. Other-oriented instances N Total p t df Group 1 Group 2 24 .016 -.903 22 N mean SD N mean SD 12 7.50 3.631 12 13.08 6.487 Speaker-oriented instances N Total p t df Group 1 Group 2 24 .376 -2.602 22 N mean SD N mean SD 12 4.17 2.980 12 5.67 4.924 Table 1: Inter-group differences in speakerversus other-oriented metadiscourse. Metadiscourse in spoken interaction in ESL 201 Functions of metadiscursive elements As stated above, the data were also analysed with regard to the functions underlying the metadiscursive instances. As illustrated in Figure 2, the metadiscursive elements were most often used to clarify or interpret what was said (group 1: clarification = 72, interpretation = 62; group 2: clarification = 107, interpretation = 114). The number of instances serving a springboard function was comparatively low (group 1: springboard = 6; group 2: springboard = 4). As Shapiro-Wilk tests only showed a normal distribution of the metadiscursive instances serving the purpose of interpreting what was said in the interviews (group 1: p = .255; group 2: p = .081), in this case only an independent samples t-test was run. Even though the mean values (group 1: 5.12; group 2: 9.50) show that group 2 used this strategy more frequently, this difference remains on the level of tendency only and is not significant (cf. Table 2 for details). With regard to clarifications (group 1: p = .044; group 2: p = .026) and springboards (group 1: p < .001; group 2: p < .001), nonparametric equivalents were used. Instead of t-tests, Mann-Whitney-tests were run here. In both cases, no significant differences were observable (cf. Table 2 for details). Figure 2: Functions of metadiscursive elements per group. Pia Resnik 202 Interpretation N Total p t df Group 1 Group 2 24 .054 -2.052 18.744 N mean SD N mean SD 12 5.12 3.950 12 9.50 6.157 Clarification N Total p Z U 24 .076 -1.775 41.500 Clarification: mean ranks Mean rank: Group 1 Mean rank: Group 2 9.96 15.04 Springboard N Total p Z U 24 .613 -.506 65.000 Springboard: mean ranks Mean rank: Group 1 Mean rank: Group 2 13.08 11.92 Table 2: Inter-group differences in functions of metadiscursive elements. 5.2 Bilingualism index A regression analysis showed that the bilingualism index is a good predictor of the overall amount of metadiscursive instances in the conversations. The results show that the higher the bilingualism index, the lower the number of metadiscursive instances (see regression coefficient, Table 3). The same effect can be seen in other-oriented metadiscourse, which is also used significantly less often, the higher the self-ratings concerning one’s competencies in L1 and L2. As the adjusted R 2 values indicate, 14.7% of the overall number of metadiscursive instances can be explained by variances in the bilingualism index. In the case of otheroriented forms, the percentage is much higher and 32.1% of these can be explained this way. This does not apply to self-directed metadiscourse, as a regression analysis did not reveal a clear relation here (for a summary of statistics, see Table 3). The effects of self-rated L1 and L2 proficiency were also calculated as post-hoc tests to identify which of these shows an effect regarding the three dependent variables when taken into account separately. As can be seen in Table 3, participants’ self-rated proficiency in the L1 is a good predictor of the overall number of metadiscursive instances and of otherdirected forms. While it explains 14.3% of the former, variances in L1 proficiency explain 26.9% of the latter. In both cases, the following relation is shown: the higher the self-rated proficiency in the L1, the less frequently metadiscursive instances were used in general and so were other-directed forms of it. Self-rated proficiency in the L2 is only a good predictor of the frequency of other-directed forms: the higher the selfratings in L2 proficiency, the lower the number of metadiscursive in- Metadiscourse in spoken interaction in ESL 203 stances. Variance in self-perceived L2 proficiency explains 24.9% of those. Thus, both show an effect on the frequency of use of other-directed metadiscursive elements in L2 dialogic speech events. Still, the bilingualism index is seen here as the more realistic approach and, as demonstrated, is also a better predictor for other-directed metadiscourse. Bilingualism index Variable N p Regression coefficient b (Adjusted) R2 β F Total instances 24 .037 -.637 .147 -.429 4.957 Other-oriented 24 .002 -.654 .321 -.592 11.887 Speaker-oriented 24 .919 .017 .000 .022 .011 L1 proficiency Variable N p Regression coefficient b (Adjusted) R2 β F Total instances 24 .039 -2.352 .143 -.425 4.844 Other-oriented 24 .005 -2.258 .269 -.549 9.484 Speaker-oriented 24 .878 -.094 .001 -.033 .024 L2 proficiency Variable N p Regression coefficient b (Adjusted) R2 β F Total instances 24 .071 -.665 .102 -.375 3.610 Other-oriented 24 .008 -.698 .249 -.531 8.624 Speaker-oriented 24 .864 .033 .001 .037 .030 Table 3: The effect of the bilingualism index, L1 proficiency and L2 proficiency on the frequency of metadiscursive elements. 5.3 Overall number of tokens produced I was also interested in whether the overall length of the interviews has an effect on the use of metadiscourse. A Pearson correlation reveals that the overall number of tokens produced in an interview does not correlate with the number of times metadiscourse is used (p = .159; N = 24). Thus, the overall length of the interviews is not linked to the frequency of metadiscursive elements. 5.4 Code-switching in metadiscourse A very interesting aspect, only observable in group 1 and thus only elaborated on descriptively, is code-switching (CS) in metadiscourse for the purpose of clarifying what was said. This strategy was employed 19 times by the discourse participants in the 12 interviews between L1 German users of English. The following extract, in which Hanna (L1 German, L2 English, L3 French, L4 Italian) was interviewed, illustrates the aforementioned: Pia Resnik 204 I: Okay. And now a few questions on language, emotion and gender - so if you now think of women and men when talking: Have you ever had the impression that they differ in the way they express their feelings? Such as, that women, for example, show love more openly and men… I don’t know… express anger more openly? H: Ehm, it’s just the… ehm… you mean now… Meinst, du, das hat jetzt nichts damit zu tun mit den verschiedenen languages, sondern nur zwischen Mann und Frau? [‘Do you mean differences between men and women in general and not across languages? ’] These instances, in which CS was used in metadiscourse to demand clarification, were all related to LX proficiency. In cases where it was either difficult for the interviewed LX user to express their ideas in the LX, they resorted to the L1 as they were aware of mutual understanding. In group 2, interlocutors were forced to put more effort into circumscribing and paraphrasing original ideas in these cases, as there was no common L1 and competence in the speaker’s own L1 could not be expected. The interlocutors in group 1, furthermore, took advantage of the possibility of switching to the L1 when they did not understand a question or particular word in the L2 as is the case in the following instances, in which both Mia (L1 German, L2 English, L3 Italian) and Alex (L1 German, L2 English) reacted in similar ways in the two interviews: I: And, if you swear… A: If I swear? I: Yeah. A: Ah, okay. I: What language do you swear in most of the time? A: What do you mean by swearing? Fluchen? […] M: What does it mean, to swear? Fluchen? It is interesting to note that both interviewees’ proficiency in English was not only the lowest on the level of self-perceived proficiency, but stories they were asked to produce in the L2 (for a different study) also demonstrated their comparatively low proficiency. Even though in 18 instances, CS happened in a controlled way to ensure mutual understanding, Alex’ low proficiency in the L2 clearly also led to communication breakdowns. Not only did he misunderstand a previously mentioned question, but he clearly misunderstood a follow-up question included in the following extract, too: I: Your personal opinion. What do you think? A: (5) Hm, I don’t understand this question. Too... eh... difficult for me. I: Shall I say it in German? Metadiscourse in spoken interaction in ESL 205 A: Ich versteh die Frage nicht ganz. [‘I do not understand this question.’] All in all, switching between codes was, in general, not very frequent in the interviews and switches to the L1 only occurred in group 1, where participants shared the L1. This shows the important role the awareness of the languages an interlocutor knows plays with regard to the frequency and likelihood of CS (cf. Dewaele 2010). Furthermore, CS happened comparatively often in interviews where the interviewee’s knowledge of English was relatively low. Thus, proficiency showed to be influential, too. The relatively low number of CS instances in this study, unfortunately, did not allow for any statistical analyses though. 6. Discussion The results from this study demonstrate that L2 users of English make use of metadiscourse as a means to negotiate meanings and to ensure mutual understanding in spoken interaction. This is in line with findings from previous studies, the results of which also indicate that L1 as well as LX users both apply these strategies in spoken (cf. Mauranen 2007, 2010, 2012), but also in written communication (cf. Ädel 2006). By means of analysing interviews from two groups which differed in their L1s (either sharing the same L1 or not), I also show that LX users of English made use of these strategies significantly more frequently in ELF contexts than in contexts where the interlocutors communicated in their L2 (English), but still shared an L1 (German) and, linked to it, cultural background knowledge. This suggests that metadiscourse seems to be needed and, consequently, used more frequently to monitor dialogic speech events effectively in ELF contexts. Thus, in cases where the interlocutors share less linguistic and cultural knowledge, clarification and interpretation of what is being said and, consequently, explicit coconstruction of meaning seems to occur more frequently. Also, the results seem to point to ELF users’ awareness of the impossibility of relying on common ground (cf. Mauranen 2010), which is why they actively engage in achieving mutual comprehensibility. To put it in Mauranen’s (2012: 7) words, “they seem to be prepared for the possibility of misunderstanding, and take steps to pre-empt that, which in effect results in misunderstandings being rare (cf. Mauranen 2006, Kaur 2009).” Cook’s idea of multicompetence (1991, 2016) furthermore offers an explanation for the increased use of metadiscourse in dialogic speech events among ELF users: as the knowledge of the L1 influences the use of the LX (and vice versa), two interlocutors with the same L1 are likely to be more similar in their LX usage than interlocutors who differ in their L1s. In case of the latter, this difference is likely to lead to greater differences in LX usage, which leads to a greater potential for miscommunication, too. ELF users seem to Pia Resnik 206 employ metadiscourse more frequently to overcome these obstacles and seem to do so effectively. The data furthermore revealed that metadiscourse is used in both selfand other-directed ways in dialogic situations. Other-directed instances occurred much more frequently though, which highlights the relevance of studying metadiscourse in interaction, as this function is irrelevant in monologic texts. The findings support Mauranen’s (2010: 24) suggestion that “it seems discourse reflexivity is not so entirely speaker-oriented as we are used to thinking.” The analyses furthermore revealed significant inter-group differences in the frequency of other-directed instances: ELF users generally draw upon these to a much greater extent, mostly if there are problems of comprehension. This possibly points to an awareness of the presence or absence of common ground or, at least, to using metadiscourse to maintain mutual understanding. Self-directed instances were much less common in general and inter-group differences were not significant, which means sharing or not sharing knowledge of the L1 did not affect speaker-oriented use of metadiscourse in this study. Linked to the previously mentioned awareness of common ground is another finding, which was only analysed descriptively though, namely code-switching. CS intended to discuss the current discourse was only used by interviewees sharing an L1 with the interviewer. This agrees with previous studies of CS in different contexts, which showed that familiarity with the interlocutor’s language background played a decisive role in the frequency of doing so (cf. Dewaele 2010, Resnik forthcoming). In group 1, participants thus switched to their L1 when they ran the risk of miscommunication because they knew the interviewer also spoke the language. This might be linked to a conscious awareness and supports Grosjean’s (2010) assumption of CS occurring mostly in a controlled way - at least in situations in which we are not emotionally aroused. Furthermore, the CS instances might be explainable by means of Grosjean’s Complementarity Principle (2008, also 2001), saying that bilinguals’ languages are always activated to different degrees and people always need to make a choice which language to use at a particular point. If we are aware that we are speaking to someone in an L2 who shares the same L1, the L1 might still be activated to a greater extent than when we are speaking to someone in an L2 who does not know our L1. As far as the functions of metadiscourse is concerned, no significant differences between the groups were found. This suggests that LX users employ metadiscourse for similar purposes in ELF and non-ELF contexts in conversations, namely mostly to clarify or interpret an utterance or as a springboard for a change of topic (cf. Mauranen 2010). The main difference here clearly seems to be the extent to which they do. Not only was the L1 background of the interlocutors influential, but so was their proficiency. To show this, I also examined the effect of the bilingualism index, a second-order variable which reflects a speaker’s over- Metadiscourse in spoken interaction in ESL 207 all self-rated proficiency in the L1 and L2 (cf. Resnik forthcoming, see also Dewaele/ Stavans 2014). It was a good predictor of the frequency of metadiscursive instances in general and of other-directed forms. The higher the bilingualism index, the lower the number of metadiscursive instances. As these were mostly used for interpretation and clarification purposes in these interviews, this again demonstrates the crucial role of metadiscourse in the co-construction of meaning (cf. Mauranen 2012). It was furthermore demonstrated that variance in the bilingualism index is a stronger predictor than the self-rated proficiency in the L1 or L2 as such. As the interviews differed in length, the effect of their overall length on metadiscursive instances was also analysed. These factors did not correlate though. 7. Conclusion To sum up, the present paper investigated distributions and functions of metadiscourse in 24 interviews of L2 users of English, which were also conducted in the L2. In half of these interviews, both interlocutors shared an L1 and the concomitant linguistic and cultural background knowledge. In the other interviews, the participants spoke different L1s (German and Mandarin Chinese) and could therefore not resort to common linguistic (or cultural) ground (cf. Firth 1996, Mauranen 2010). This difference led to significant differences in the frequency of using metadiscourse: in ELF contexts, metadiscourse was used significantly more frequently, mostly to ensure mutual understanding, which can possibly be explained by LX users’ awareness of being on dangerous ground when using English as a contact language (cf. Jenkins 2009) with speakers who do not share their L1. Apparently, using “language to talk about talk” (Ädel 2006: 1) is a frequently employed strategy to negotiate and co-construct meaning (cf. Mauranen 2012) and to avoid conversation breakdowns in dialogic ELF contexts, which interlocutors of group 2 mostly applied effectively. The underlying purposes for using metadiscourse were similar in both groups: the interlocutors used it mostly for clarification and interpretation purposes. Not only common knowledge proved to be influential though, but also self-rated proficiency. The less proficient the LX users were, the more they made use of metadiscursive strategies. This again points to an awareness of possibly running the danger of miscommunication and demonstrates the importance of metadiscourse in LX users’ conversations for monitoring problematic contexts. In case the interlocutors shared the same L1, CS to the L1 was a commonly used strategy, too. Even though CS is a reality in most multilinguals’ lives and is commonly used (cf. Cook 2008) - consciously as well as without being aware of it - in meta- Pia Resnik 208 discourse it seems to be applied strategically (for a detailed discussion of CS, see Grosjean 2008). All in all, it has been shown that metadiscourse is an important strategy applied by LX users to communicate successfully in an LX. Further research in multilingual contexts is needed to gain a deeper understanding - for instance, also with a focus on individual differences in LX users. More studies of the use of metadiscourse in interaction are also needed as “dialogue brings out new facets and different emphases on the functions of self-referential language in communication as compared to written text analysis” (Mauranen 2010: 37; see also Ädel/ Mauranen 2010: 6). A final point needs to be made: even though reflexivity is seemingly easy for us human beings to apply, the term metadiscourse apparently is not easy to define. Just as researchers’ understanding of it differs, so do the methodologies applied and the ways of classifying uses of metadiscourse. This makes results from various studies difficult to compare and also poses challenges with regard to frameworks for analysis. 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MacKenzie, Ian (2012). “English as a Lingua Franca in Europe: Bilingualism and Multicompetence.” International Journal of Multilingualism 9(1). 83-100. Mauranen, Anna (1993). Cultural Differences in Academic Rhetoric: A Textlinguistic Study. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang. Mauranen, Anna (2006). “Signalling and Preventing Understanding in English as a Lingua Franca Communication.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 177. 123-150. Mauranen, Anna (2007). “Hybrid Voices: English as the Lingua Franca of Academics.” In: Fløttum (2007). 244-259. Mauranen, Anna (2010). “Discourse Reflexivity - a Discourse Universal? The Case of ELF.” Nordic Journal of English Studies 9(2). 13-40. Pia Resnik 210 Mauranen, Anna (2012). Exploring ELF: Academic English Shaped by Non-native Speakers. Cambridge: CUP. Mauranen, Anna/ Elina Ranta (eds.) (2009). English as a Lingua Franca. Studies and Findings. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholar Publishing. Mey, Jacob L. (2001). Pragmatics. An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. Nicol, Janet (ed.) (2001). One Mind, Two Languages: Bilingual Language Processing. Oxford: Blackwell. Ortega, Lourdes (2009). Understanding Second Language Acquisition. Oxon: Routledge. Penz, Hermine (2011). “‘What do we mean by that? ’ Metadiscourse in ELF Project Discussions.” In: Archibald/ Cogo/ Jenkins (2011). 185-201. Phillipson, Robert (2008). “Lingua franca or lingua frankensteinia? English in European Integration and Globalisation.” World Englishes 27(2). 250-267. Resnik, Pia (forthcoming). Differences in Feeling - Feeling the Difference: Multilinguals’ Verbalisation and Perception of Emotions. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Schiffrin, Deborah (1980). “Metatalk: Organizational and Evaluative Brackets in Discourse.” Sociolinguistic Inquiry: Language and Social Interaction 50. 199-236. Seidlhofer, Barbara (2011). Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: OUP. Vande Kopple, William J. (1985). “Some Exploratory Discourse on Metadiscourse.” College Composition and Communication 36. 63-94. Wilson, Rosemary/ Jean-Marc Dewaele (2010). “The Use of Web Questionnaires in Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism Research.” Second Language Research 26(1). 103-123. Pia Resnik Department of English University of Vienna Austria Metadiscourse in ELF spoken discourse of Erasmus students in Austria Nikola Jokić The aim of this paper is to provide insights into the use of metadiscourse in English as a lingua franca (= ELF), in particular its communicative effectiveness in international student exchange. The goal is to demonstrate how and to what extent ELF speakers employ metadiscourse in polyadic speech events in order to secure mutual understanding. For my research, qualitative methods were deployed; i.e. informal spoken ELF conversations of exchange students who participated in an Erasmus exchange in the academic year 2015/ 16 at the University of Graz, Austria, were tape-recorded and transcribed. A selection of examples relevant for the explicit use of metadiscourse is presented. Furthermore, the paper focuses on the concept of other-orientation previously advocated by Mauranen (2012) and its role in metadiscourse. The analysis shows that regardless of the highly variable nature and heterogeneity of ELF, its speakers use metadiscourse as a clarity and precision strategy to resolve any potential communicative problems. 1. Introduction The unique status of English among the world’s languages and its global reach are indisputable. Suffice it to say that English has firmly established its role as the main language of communication for international business, education, trade, transport and culture. Yet, what is so interesting about this unprecedented linguistic situation is that most communication in English is carried out between speakers of what Kachru (1985) labelled the Outer Circle and the Expanding Circle, leading to the conclusion that “native speakers may feel the language belongs to them, but it will be those who speak English as a second or foreign language who will determine its world future” (Graddol 1997: 10). In higher education, English is often used for teaching and publishing. Graddol (2006: 76) observed that each year there are approximately 2-3 AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 42 (2017) · Heft 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Nikola Jokić 212 million international students for more than a half of whom English is a language of instruction. It should therefore come as no surprise that there has been an upsurge of 40% in the number of second language users of English in the last 20 years (cf. Gnutzman/ Intemann 2008: 13, cit. in Smit 2010: 46). The European Commission has promoted several programmes such as Erasmus or Erasmus Mundus in order to encourage the internationalisation of higher education (cf. Doiz/ Lasagabaster/ Sierra, 2011: 346). By doing so, universities started to connect, creating an exponential growth in student and staff mobility. One significant consequence of this is that at the majority of university campuses around the globe, English is used as a vehicular language by non-native speakers of English to achieve communicative goals. In an Erasmus community, where English serves as a lingua franca, communication might be expected to be inconsistent, unpredictable and prone to misunderstandings as people do not share common accents, levels of competence, background knowledge, perspectives or attitudes. However, researchers who investigate ELF have found that despite the highly variable nature of ELF, communicative misunderstandings rarely occur in such interactions. This is mainly due to the effort ELF users put in so as to prevent such problems, seeking to ensure mutual understanding at all times. The present paper will explore the use of metadiscourse in international students’ English interactions and attempt to shed light on this phenomenon and on the question of how metadiscourse functions in these interactions. The paper will first introduce English as a lingua franca and will define and explain the term metadiscourse. Secondly, I will describe the methodology used in my study. Finally, I will systematically analyse the frequency of items used metadiscursively and reflects on other-orientation. 2. English as a lingua franca The concept of ELF was first used by the German scholars Hüllen (1982) and Knapp (1985, 1987) in the 1980s. As one author later stated, the interest at that time was “mainly conceptual in nature, stressing the importance of ELF as an objective for English language teaching and also postulating the necessity of empirical studies that could identify formal or functional aspects to be taken account of in teaching” (Knapp 2002: 218, cit. in Jenkins et al. 2011: 282). During the late 1980s and 1990s several linguists expressed their interest in this topic (cf., e.g., Haberland 1989, Firth 1996, Jenkins 1996a, 1996b, Firth/ Wagner 1997, Jenkins 1998, House 1999) without producing a more elaborate theoretical framework to explain the phenomenon. Many applied linguists and teaching professionals agree that the publica- Metadiscourse in ELF spoken discourse of Erasmus students in Austria 213 tion of two seminal works were essential in the development of the study of ELF. One is Jenkins’ (2000) The Phonology of English as an International Language, which represents an empirical study of ELF pronunciation. She concluded that ELF communication contexts should not be measured against native English pronunciation (cf. Jenkins et al. 2011: 281-282). The second influential publication is Seidlhofer’s (2001) article dealing with the ‘conceptual gap’ and the notion of nativeness, which is deeply ingrained in people’s minds. She emphasizes that there is a lack of empirical evidence and that comprehensive and reliable descriptions are needed. As a consequence, she initiated the creation of the first ELF corpus, the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE), compiled under her supervision at the University of Vienna and available online since 2013. In 2008 the second major corpus appeared (though it is an ongoing project), compiled under the supervision of Mauranen at Tampere (now Helsinki) University, namely the corpus of English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings (ELFA). In addition to these two corpora, the Asian Corpus of English (ACE) was compiled in Hong Kong under the supervision of Andy Kirkpatrick (cf. Jenkins et al. 2011: 282). Since the publication of Jenkins’ and Seidlhofer’s research, many articles, journal issues and doctoral theses have been dedicated to the study of English as a lingua franca. Since 2008, annual ELF conferences have been held and as of 2011, the Journal of English as a Lingua Franca has dealt with challenges in this area of linguistics. However, despite the wealth of research into ELF, the practice remains largely shrouded in uncertainty and it has also created some controversial debates in the linguistic community. 2.1 Research on ELF pragmatics The field of pragmatics was the first to explore the contexts in which ELF occurs. Jenkins et al. (2011: 293) provide an overview of research examining different settings, suggesting that two are most prominent, viz. business-related telephone conversations (e.g. Firth 1996, Firth/ Wagner 1997, Haegeman 2002) and face-to-face conversations in an academic environment (e.g. House 1999, 2002, Knapp 2002, Meierkord 2002, Lesznyak 2002, Mauranen 2003, Watterson 2008). Mutual cooperation was the object of research in the early studies, stressing the importance of mutual understanding and undermining the notion of correctness by using strategies like ‘let it pass’ (cf. Firth 1996). Conversely, subsequent research focused more “on miscommunication and the negotiation and resolution of non-understanding” (Jenkins et al. 2011: 293). What further studies have shown is that in native speaker of English (= NSE) interaction, there is a higher possibility that mutual understanding is not achieved. Pitzl (2005) says that even when misun- Nikola Jokić 214 derstandings occur in ELF contexts, participants quickly resolve them by using a range of pragmatic strategies. As far as pragmatic strategies are concerned, the research often emphasizes repetition (Lichtkoppler 2007, Watterson 2008, Cogo 2009). Mauranen (2006) mentions clarification and self-repair, while Kaur (2009) highlights paraphrasing as one of the measures an ELF speaker tends to resort to when having difficulties with understanding (cf. Jenkins et al. 2011: 293). Penz (2007a, 2007b and 2011) deals with the use of metapragmatic comments and metacommunication and also reaches the conclusion that clarification is the tool-of-choice in securing understanding among ELF speakers. In the next chapter, I will introduce the concept of metadiscourse and its definitions. 3. Metadiscourse Over the course of the last 30 years, scholars interested in metadiscourse have repeatedly tried to define it. An extensive body of literature exists on metadiscourse and its uses in various cultures (cf. Bäcklund 1998), various branches of knowledge (cf. Hyland 2000, 2005) and in L1/ L2 English (cf. Ädel 2006). However, there is no consensus concerning a definition of the concept, which can be seen in the fact that two distinct research traditions that have emerged. One of them offers a broad definition and puts textual interaction at the center (interactive model), while the other offers a narrow definition of metadiscourse with a focus on reflexivity (reflexive model) (cf. Ädel/ Mauranen 2010: 2). Apart from these different conceptions, there also two distinct methodological approaches to the study of metadiscourse. The ‘thin’ approach is quantitatively-oriented and decontextualized, whereas the ‘thick’ approach uses qualitative methods and examines units in context. (cf. Ädel/ Mauranen 2010: 3). What is common to all these different perspectives is that they agree that metadiscourse represents ‘discourse about discourse’. As metadiscourse is common to language use crosslinguistically, it should come as no surprise that it is also a regular feature of ELF discourse. ELF speakers have different lingua-cultural backgrounds, which means that in a situation where English is used as a lingua franca, discourse participants need to adapt to unpredictable circumstances while also achieving comprehension. In order to overcome potential problems in communication, they very often use communicative strategies that rely on explicitness. As the term metadiscourse refers to the act of making aspects of the current interaction explicit, we can legitimately assume that ELF speakers generally - and the Erasmus students in the current study, more specifically - use explicit metadiscourse abundantly. Few articles have been published on the subject of metadiscourse in ELF. There have been comparisons of metadiscourse in academic speech Metadiscourse in ELF spoken discourse of Erasmus students in Austria 215 between native speakers of English and ELF speakers which show that it is widespread in both groups (cf. Mauranen 2005, 2007a 2007b). Moreover, Penz (2008 and 2011) concludes that metadiscourse is commonly used among intercultural participants. However, in the past the research generally placed emphasis on written monologic language (cf. Mauranen 2007b: 2) as opposed to spoken interaction. This paper draws primarily on the seminal work of Mauranen (2010), which laid the foundation for the study of metadiscourse. This paper will contribute to the field of metadiscourse research by analyzing spoken metadiscourse in ELF, not in an academic context, but rather in an uncontrolled, informal setting, thus filling a noticeable gap in ELF research. 4. Data and methodology The present data comprise approximately 10 hours of tape-recorded informal ELF conversations among exchange students who participated in an Erasmus exchange at the University of Graz in the academic year 2015/ 16. All students were non-native speakers of English with varying degrees of proficiency, ranging from a highly proficient speaker to a speaker with intermediate English skills. There were 9 sessions which included male and female speakers with different first-language backgrounds who also differed in age. To be more specific, 23 participants - 9 male and 14 female - from 10 different lingua-cultural backgrounds took part in this study. The participants came from mixed national backgrounds: Croatia (7), Spain (4), Portugal (4), Italy (2), Slovenia (1), the Czech Republic (1), Belgium (1), France (1), Greece (1) and Ukraine (1). The groups usually consisted of two participants plus the interviewer. However, there were two sessions which involved three participants (with two of them sharing first-language backgrounds) and one session in which five participants were involved in the discussion. While the participants were informed about the recording and its use for a prospective thesis, they did not receive any information about the specific aim of the research. The interviews were conducted in English and facilitated by the researcher. In order to engage participants in conversation, basic questions were asked concerning their Erasmus stay in Graz and their experiences. The researcher was there to facilitate conversation but tried to minimize his role. The examples of metadiscourse found in his speech were extracted. For the purpose of this analysis, all interactions were transcribed using VOICE transcription conventions. The corpus consists of approximately 80,000 words. A qualitatively-oriented methodological, i.e. a ‘thick’, approach was chosen. Instances of metadiscourse were identified by looking at the previous and following turns and by considering the discourse carefully. For Nikola Jokić 216 small items, the search-function in the corpus (in MS Word format) was used and then examples were either included for analysis if the context suggested they had a metadiscursive function or disregarded. By proceeding like this, I was able to gain a better understanding of metadiscourse and its functions. There will, however, also be a quantitative element as I will compare different functional categories with respect to their frequencies. Since the negotiation of meaning can be expected to occur in ELF discourse, my main research question in this study was to determine whether metadiscourse is applied as a way to establish meaning between speakers. Having seen the results Mauranen (2007b) obtained from her corpora, I tried to analyse informal polyadic speech events in order to determine the extent to which the participants use metadiscourse and in which situations. My research focuses on two types of metadiscourse, which will be compared throughout this paper: speaker-oriented and other-oriented metadiscourse. Speaker-oriented metadiscourse means that the speaker refers to something that he or she has said or is going to say. What I am interested in here are the words typically found in metadiscourse that would help the speaker achieve better understanding and comprehensibility with the listener. Other-orientation means that speakers refer to utterances not by themselves, but by their interlocutors. One of my goals was to discover whether this also applies to my data. A comparison of the two types should also be included as in her study of metadiscourse in ELF, Mauranen (2010: 24) concludes that metadiscourse is more commonly other-oriented than self-oriented. 5. Analysis In a conversation where a number of languages and cultures come into contact, a considerable amount of time is dedicated to metadiscursively framing speech acts, especially questions, with the help of certain trigger verbs or nouns. Speakers do this because they think that the lack of English native-speaker-status may generate some unexpected problems in communication. In her study, Mauranen (2007b) discusses this issue at length and focuses narrowly on two question-related items in her academic ELF corpus: the verb ask and the noun question. I thoroughly examined the occurrences of these question-related items in my own ELF corpus. Mauranen’s study has revealed that in the academic ELF corpus the most frequent speech-act-related item is the noun question followed by the verb ask. My corpus shows the reverse order. The noun question occurs 30 times. However, only in 16 examples does this word have a metadiscursive function. Examples from my corpus can be seen below: Metadiscourse in ELF spoken discourse of Erasmus students in Austria 217 S2: yeah yeah we are gonna that that is my next question (.)(.)(.)(.) so what are the aspects you don’t like S4: okay I had one question (.)(.)(.) okay so what do you miss most from your home country now at this point what do you miss most S3: yeah one question (.)(.)(.) do you find do you find that before you came here that you that you have the same pattern of habits for example that you are still doing things that you were doing in in Greece in France or in Belgium S2: okay but I had the question (.)(.)(.)that that came up during your discussion what did you did you mean by this term What becomes evident from these examples is that they all show an inclination to introduce the actual point of inquiry by using the word question. In other words, the participants prepare the floor by explicitly naming the speech act to follow. Furthermore, after saying the word in question they make a pause with a duration of no less than 3 seconds. My interpretation is that they do this in order to be explicit, hence securing understanding and signifying coherence with the rest of the discourse is of utmost importance to them. The predominant reason for doing so may stem from the fact that they come from different linguistic backgrounds. In my corpus, there are 72 instances of the verb ask, and 32 of these have a metadiscursive function. Some of the examples are shown below: S2: we had to ask every professor (.)(.)(.) “Can you please allow us to follow your course we are just Erasmus students we will be staying only for 4 months? ” S3: webpage so I sent her an email and asked her (.)(.)(.) “Could you please register me at uni-graz online so that […]? ” S4: or you feel bad when the waiter asks you (.)(.)(.) “Is everything ok do you want something else? ” and I’m like […] What is noteworthy about the metadiscursive use of ask is that in 90 per cent of the examples, participants use direct speech rather than indirect speech. The logic behind this is probably the addresser’s wish to manage comprehension by pausing and asking direct questions. The speaker may do this in order to improve understanding between participants. Further comparisons show that the most dominant pattern in the ELF academic corpus, viz. I would like to ask (you), does not occur in my corpus. The reason could be that the pattern in question is too formal for the rather informal contexts of ELF conversations I included. 5.2 Other-oriented metadiscourse Mauranen (2010) clearly shows that other-oriented metadiscourse appears in the ELF in formal academic settings. She examined the verb say and found the metadiscourse pattern you + BE + saying. She postulates Nikola Jokić 218 three main functions: clarification, interpretation and springboard (see below). For the purpose of comparability, I also chose say, which appears 182 times in my corpus, almost half of them (88) in the other-orientation function. I will now explain every other-oriented function and provide examples below. a. Clarification/ elucidation The speaker wants another participant to clarify and elucidate his or her words. S1: that could be said yes but were you saying that in time in Graz you haven’t found so many friends S3: correct me but are you saying that people should not take animals or babes at the university In these examples, the speaker checks whether he or she understood the context and invites the interlocutor to respond to it. In my data, this is always done through the use of a question. b. Interpretation The speaker gives an interpretation of the intended meaning of another participant’s words. S3: so you are saying that it is it is funny being the only exchange student and not speaking German S2: there is also interaction and I feel that as well here in my degree personally chemistry I think when I came here I thought it was much better because it’s a bigger university so you are saying that in Portugal things are different The utterances above demonstrate the way in which the speaker reveals his or her own view of the situation and expects a reaction from the other participant. c. Springboard The speaker rewords what another participant has said, and then uses this as a starting point for another topic in the discussion. S2: I cannot really comment because I didn’t attend attend any courses I just had 2 German courses here and I had to write my master thesis so I have no idea if what you are saying is true regarding the fact that they only speak in German in a class I mean I met the the guy one teacher from our department and he was really nice he helped me a lot with my master thesis so he was really nice but I don’t know about other teachers Metadiscourse in ELF spoken discourse of Erasmus students in Austria 219 S4: yeah me too part of what you are saying about safety is is true but I think the only reason I feel so safe is because I wasn’t born here so I am not sure how to react or what to say to someone who starts like talking to me in the middle of the night when I am walking home and in Croatia that happens as well but at least I can tell them something or like I know where to run or call the police or whatever here I don’t know any of these things so In these examples, the speaker does not expect a response from the interlocutor, which shows in the fact that there is no change of turn afterwards. The speaker refers to another participant’s utterance and goes on to talk about another related or unrelated topic. Figure 1: Percentages of the different functions of ask in the other-oriented perspective in the corpus of informal ELF communication among Erasmus students. As represented in the pie chart, clarification (32 instances) and interpretation (37 instances) were found to be dominant in informal verbal interactions among Erasmus students. The springboard function took the third place with 19 occurrences in the corpus and is the least prominent function. The reason for this is probably that speakers prefer the option of securing comprehension rather than securing the floor and continuing with a cycle of argument and counter-arguments. 6. Conclusion The research into ELF has become a fast-developing field since the publication of the first seminal works (Jenkins 2000, Seidlhofer 2001, Mauranen 2003). By setting out a coherent set of theoretical assumptions, researchers have tried to reconceptualise the non-native speaker as a legitimate user of English rather than as a failed native speaker. The Nikola Jokić 220 emergence of ELF corpora has made a significant contribution to the study of ELF. Furthermore, an increasing number of books, PhD dissertations, special issues of journals and conferences on ELF indicate how the field has grown at a quickening pace. While earlier research of ELF metadiscourse focused heavily on written corpora and English in an academic setting, current research is mainly concerned with spoken interaction among participants. The aim of this paper was to study metadiscourse in informal spoken interactions among Erasmus students in Austria. The analysis reveals that metadiscourse plays a pivotal role in ELF speakers’ attempt to achieve understanding. It strengthens comprehensibility by using explicitness strategies or by seeking clarity. The investigation of the question-related items question and ask show that speakers feel the need to prepare the floor before posing a question. It should also be noted that they do this by using pauses or in the case of ask by asking direct questions. My study also shows that other-oriented metadiscourse is of paramount importance in polyadic speech events since it secures comprehension by creating an argumentative discourse among speakers where they confirm, interpret or paraphrase other speakers’ meanings. Investigating ELF and metadiscourse is still challenging. One of these challenges is moving from the predominant focus on written monologic corpora towards spoken and interactive language. Extensive elaboration of the theoretical framework is needed in addition to finding ways to use the rich data of ELF corpora. References Ädel, Annelie (2006). Metadiscourse in L1 and L2 English. Amsterdam. John Benjamins Publishing. 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Penz, Hermine (2007b). “English as a lingua franca in intercultural project work.” In: Hermine Penz (ed.) (2007). Language, Culture and Social Interaction: Linguistic Aspects of Communication across Cultures. Habilitationsschrift: University of Graz. 126-136. Penz, Hermine (2008). “‘What do we mean by that? ’ - ELF in intercultural project work.” ESSE conference. University of Aarhus, Denmark, August 2008. Penz, Hermine (2011). “‘What do we mean by that? ’ Metadiscourse in ELF Project Discussions.” In: Archibald/ Cogo/ Jenkins (2011). 185-201. Pitzl, Marie-Luise (2005). “Non-understanding in English as a lingua franca: Examples from a business context. 2005.” Vienna English Working Papers 14(2). 50-71. Quirk, Randolph/ Henry G. Widdowson (eds.) (1985). English in the world. Teaching and learning the language and literature. Cambridge: CUP. Metadiscourse in ELF spoken discourse of Erasmus students in Austria 223 Seidlhofer, Barbara (2001). “Closing a conceptual gap: The case for a description of English as a Lingua Franca.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics 11(2). 133-158. Smit, Ute (2010). English as a lingua franca in higher education. A longitudinal study of classroom discourse. Berlin: Mouton. VOICE Project (2007). VOICE Transcription Conventions [2.1]. http: / / www.univie.ac.at/ voice/ voice.php? page=transcription_general_inform ati.on (15 July 2017). Watterson, Matthew (2008). “Repair of non-understanding in English in international communication.” World Englishes 27(3/ 4). 378-406. Nikola Jokić Department of English Studies Karl-Franzens-University Graz Austria Is that a threat? Forms and functions of metapragmatic terms in English discourse Klaus P. Schneider Language users are able not only to recognize the illocutionary force of their interlocutors’ utterances, but also to name these illocutions. Expressions such as apology or compliment are part of their everyday vocabulary and are used to talk or write about speech acts. Such metapragmatic terms occur frequently in discourse and serve a range of communicative functions. Not only are they used to perform or report speech acts, they are also used to clarify or challenge a speaker’s intentions. It seems that each of these functions correlates with specific grammatical properties. The present paper focuses in particular on the forms and functions of meta-illocutionary expressions. A qualitative analysis of their communicative functions is based on fictional material, whereas corpus data are employed to exemplify a quantitative analysis of the frequencies and distributions of meta-illocutionary expressions and the constructions they are used in. 1. Introduction The purpose of this paper is to introduce an approach to metadiscourse which is specifically focused on metapragmatic terms employed by language users to talk and write about speech acts, or, more technically, about the illocutionary force of utterances. The type of metapragmatic terms focused on in this paper is a subdivision of everyday vocabulary and includes verbs such as apologize, threaten and invite, and nouns such as apology, threat and invitation as well as occasional adjectives and adverbs such as apologetic(ally). Words such as these can be referred to collectively as the meta-illocutionary lexicon (= MIL). With this particular focus, the present approach differs from other analytic approaches to metapragmatics, metadiscourse, and metacommunication which consider, for instance, aspects of (im)politeness (e.g. Culpeper 2011), humour (e.g. AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 42 (2017) · Heft 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Klaus P. Schneider 226 Ruiz-Gurillo 2016), and a wide range of further discursive features and communicative practices that have been examined in many different contexts including e.g. physics lectures (Smith/ Liang 2007), courtrooms (Carranza 2008) and public hearings (Unuabonah 2017). The present approach is similar to the “metacommunicative expression analysis” championed by Jucker and Taavitsainen (2014). These authors are also interested in meta-illocutionary expressions such as compliment, their aim is, however, a different one. Their type of analysis was developed to overcome one of the biggest problems in corpus-based speech act analysis. While several large machine-readable corpora are grammatically annotated and, hence, grammatical phenomena such as a particular word class or clause type can be searched for with a mouse click, pragmatically annotated corpora are still extremely scarce and, hence, pragmatic phenomena such as a particular speech act cannot easily be searched for (for an overview of the current state of pragmatic corpus annotation, cf. Archer/ Culpeper forthcoming). To employ large machine-readable corpora in the study of speech act realizations, Jucker and Taavitsainen (2014) suggest searching a corpus for e.g. the form compliment, since this form will often co-occur with a realization of a compliment. The type of analysis outlined in the present paper, on the other hand, serves a different purpose altogether. The following example is chosen to illustrate the differences between the two approaches. (1) “Sorry, the bus took forever; I should have taken the Tube,” Iona apologises. (Guo 2015: 187) This example, taken from a contemporary British novel (cf. Chapter 3), includes the meta-illocutionary verb apologise, which co-occurs with the realization of an apology. While Jucker and Taavitsainen (2014) would be interested in the latter (e.g. the account typical of apologies for time offences), the present approach concentrates on the former, specifically on the form and function of apologises, which is employed in its 3 rd person singular present simple form, co-occurs in a “meta-utterance” (cf. Hübler/ Bublitz 2007) with direct speech in the position of a verbum dicendi, classifying the utterance in the direct speech as an instance of a particular speech act and serving a reporting function (cf. Chapter 4). This example illustrates that the different communicative functions that meta-illocutionary expressions serve in metadiscourse correlate with specific grammatical properties of these expressions. The key questions addressed in this paper therefore are: (a.) Which functions do metaillocutionary expressions serve in metadiscourse? , (b.) Which formal features do they display in each of these functions? , and (c.) With what frequencies and distribution do they occur? In Chapter 2, the present approach to the meta-illocutionary lexicon is situated in the context of metapragmatics. In the next three chapters, an exploratory study is presented. After describing the methods employed in Is that a threat? 227 Chapter 3, Chapter 4 includes a qualitative investigation of the communicative functions of metapragmatic terms. It is shown how these functions correlate with specific grammatical choices. Chapter 5, on the other hand, contains a quantitative analysis of one particular construction, namely Is that an X? , to illustrate the gains of searches in big data for an understanding of the uses of meta-illocutionary vocabulary in everyday discourse. Chapter 6, the conclusion, includes a summary of the results and addresses some perspectives for future research on the metaillocutionary lexicon. 2. Metapragmatics and the meta-illocutionary lexicon Currently, there is extensive scholarly discussion about metapragmatics, often in the broader context of metalanguage, metacommunication and, more recently, metadiscourse (for an overview, cf. Culpeper/ Haugh 2014: 235-263, also Haugh forthcoming), and there are several often radically different interpretations of the term. As Hübler (2011: 107) aptly observes: “The term ‘metapragmatics’ is slippery, many meanings have been ascribed to it, too many perhaps.” It is not easy to provide even a general definition of metapragmatics, by analogy to the definitions of metalanguage as ‘language about language’, of metacommunication as ‘communication about communication’ and metadiscourse as ‘discourse about discourse’, since ‘pragmatics about pragmatics’ does not seem to make very much sense, unless it is interpreted as a “metatheory of pragmatics” (Hübler 2011: 126-129); yet this interpretation is more abstract and not analogous to the standard interpretations of metalanguage, metacommunication and metadiscourse given above. An alternative definition of metapragmatics as “the use of language about the use of language” (Culpeper/ Haugh 2014: 237), apparently based on the general textbook definition of pragmatics as the study of language use, is not very helpful either, because it is not clear how language use should be understood in any specifically pragmatic way, given that other disciplines in linguistics and beyond also examine language use. The slipperiness of the term metapragmatics results, at least in part, from the large number of competing conceptualizations of pragmatics itself, which has been defined in broad and narrow terms, e.g. “as the study of language use, meaning in context, communicative functions of utterances, speaker intentions, hearer interpretations, participant practices, talk-in-interaction, relational work, displays of identity, and so on” (Schneider 2017: 316). Therefore, it is not surprising that the term metapragmatic expressions also has multiple meanings. Watts (2011), for instance, defines metapragmatic expressions as “linguistic expressions that lie beyond the level of the propositional structure of utterances and are used in a number of ways to position the speaker and the hearer with respect Klaus P. Schneider 228 to those utterances” (Watts 2011: 56). What Watts has in mind here are, first and foremost, discourse markers such as anyway, well, you know, and I mean, which he refers to elsewhere as expressions of procedural meaning (Watts 2003), and which he distinguishes from metadiscursive expressions, “positioning the speaker or the interlocutor outside the ‘world’ of the discourse by commenting on it in the here-and-now of the interaction” (Watts 2011: 56-57). As Watts’ examples show, such metadiscursive expressions may be freely-formulated utterances which are not an immediate part of, but commenting on, e.g. a conversational narrative. For further uses of the term metapragmatic expressions, the reader is referred to, e.g., Smith/ Liang (2007), Liu/ Ran (2016), and Unuabonah (2017). For the purposes of the present study, metapragmatic terms is narrowly defined, based on the literal meaning of pragmatics, derived from Greek pr - gma for ‘action’. In this sense, they are expressions used to refer to linguistic action. Specifically, they are employed to label speech acts or, more technically, to categorize utterances as ‘instantiations’ of particular illocutions (cf. Hübler/ Busse 2012: 1). Metapragmatic expressions of this particular type are therefore more unambiguously (but much less commonly) called meta-illocutionary expressions or, for short, MIEs. Examples include promise, request and compliment. MIEs are lexical items belonging to the so-called metacommunicative lexicon and as such part of the metalanguage of ordinary language users. MIEs, thus defined, can be subsumed under pragmatic acts and activities as one of three subsets distinguished by Culpeper and Hardaker (2016: 126) within the metacommunicative lexicon, the other two subsets being inferential acts and activities (e.g. hint, imply, sarcasm) and evaluative acts and activities (e.g. friendly, rude, aggressive). MIEs are, however, only a subdivision of pragmatic acts and activities, as these include not only e.g. metaillocutionary verbs such as apologise and threaten, but also verbs not used for attributing illocutionary force such as joke and tease (cf. also Jucker/ Taavitsainen 2014: 12). The term meta-illocutionary expressions as it is defined here covers a different range of phenomena from apparently competing terms. First of all, MIEs do not, strictly speaking, include the category verba dicendi, if this category is narrowly defined to include only such verbs as speak, shout or whisper, which merely denote that something was uttered or how it was delivered, but not with what intention. Secondly, the term MIEs is preferred over the term performative verbs because some metaillocutionary verbs cannot be used performatively, e.g. threaten and insult (cf. section 4.1 below). For this reason, Mey (2001) uses the more general term speech act verbs, which is, however, not adopted here because there are not only meta-illocutionary verbs but also meta-perlocutionary verbs (e.g. intimidate) as well as meta-illocutionary nouns (e.g. threat, apology, invitation). In some cases, meta-illocutionary verbs and nouns have the same form, e.g. request, offer, promise and compliment. More importantly, Is that a threat? 229 verbs and nouns may have the same functions as will be demonstrated in Chapter 4. Finally, MIEs is a more adequate term since the acts referred to by verb or noun do not only occur in speech but also in writing, e.g. a written apology or a letter of complaint. In summary then, MIEs are verbs and nouns (and occasionally also adjectives or adverbs such as apologetically) used to talk about verbal communicative acts in spoken or written discourse, specifically to name, perform, negotiate or discuss these acts. 3. Methods employed For the investigation of the meta-illocutionary lexicon presented in this paper, a mixed-method approach is adopted which combines qualitative and quantitative analysis. The qualitative analysis is aimed at establishing communicative functions of meta-illocutionary expressions in everyday interactions and at identifying typical function-to-form mappings, i.e. how the communicative functions correlate with specific grammatical forms and constructional choices. The quantitative analysis, on the other hand, is focused on the relative frequencies and distribution of metaillocutionary expressions and the various forms and constructions in which they are used. The data examined in the qualitative part of this study were collected by employing the philological method (Jucker 2009), i.e. extracted manually from fictional literature. Jucker (2009) classifies this method as a ‘field’ method, which means that fictional data have essentially the same status as naturally occurring discourse which is audiotaped, video-taped, recorded as ethnographic field notes or included in large machinereadable corpora. The criterion for classifying the philological method as a field method is that fiction is not written for the purposes of research in linguistics, but comes into existence without the involvement of researchers, by contrast to experimental data elicited by using e.g. production questionnaires, role-plays or interviews. There is, however, no denying that written representations of spoken discourse such as dramatic dialogue and direct speech in prose fiction differ from everyday conversation and other genres of naturally occurring spoken discourse because they do not as a rule include phenomena collectively referred to as ‘normal nonfluency’ (Short 1996: 176), i.e. hesitation, backchannelling, interruptions, overlap, and so on. Therefore, if the focus of linguistic analysis is specifically on such phenomena, then employing the philological method and using fictional data is unsuitable. If, however, the focus is on metaillocutionary expressions, as in the present study, then fictional material can be used as it is assumed that the communicative functions of MIEs and the corresponding forms and constructions are essentially the same in fictional and naturally occurring discourse (cf. Schneider 2011: 16-18 for some discussion of these issues). The material analysed in the present Klaus P. Schneider 230 study was taken from works of contemporary English prose fiction, published between 1990 and 2015 and listed in the References. The results of the qualitative analysis are presented in Chapter 4 below. The quantitative analysis, which complements the qualitative analysis, is based on corpus data. In general, corpus linguistic methodology, which is today’s dominant methodology in most areas of linguistics, cannot easily be used in research in pragmatics (cf. O’Keeffe forthcoming). This is due to the fact that corpora can only be searched for forms, but not for communicative functions such as illocutions, and pragmatic annotation in corpora is still extremely rare (cf. Archer/ Culpeper forthcoming). For the present study, however, corpora can be searched for metaillocutionary expressions in their various grammatical forms and in specific constructions. Any corpus can be selected for this purpose; for this paper, the big data included in the internet were chosen to exemplify the overall approach advocated here. Illustrative results are presented in Chapter 5. 4. Communicative functions of meta-illocutionary expressions Four functions are tentatively suggested here which meta-illocutionary expressions may serve in (spoken) discourse. For lack of better terms, I call these functions performing, reporting, commenting, and problematizing. No claim is made that this account is exhaustive, but in the light of the data used these seem to be salient and frequent functions. Even from a small collection of occurrences of MIEs in context specific structural patterns emerge which seem to correlate with distinct communicative functions. I will now characterize and discuss in turn each of the four functions identified. 4.1 Performative function In the performative function, an expression naming a speech act is employed to actually perform this speech act. In this case, the MIE is a verb which surfaces in the realization of the speech act, in a particular type of construction. In the following example, the MIE is the verb promise, used to perform an act of promising. (2) ‘Look, Neil, I promise you that libel action will never come to court.’ (Phyllis D. James, Devices and Desires, 1990: 63) In this function, the MIE makes explicit the illocutionary force of the utterance in which it occurs (cf. Austin 1962: 149). The MIE is, in other words, an illocutionary force indicating device (= IFID). This is not a new insight, as the reference to Austin (1962) shows. Since the early days of speech act theory, the so-called performative formula has been regard- Is that a threat? 231 ed as a test for identifying the illocutionary force of an utterance. The format of this formula is I (hereby) VERB you, i.e. “the first person singular present indicative active form” (Austin 1962: 149). The verb in example (2) is unhedged, which is typical, in general, of written, and especially formal, communication. In spoken, and less formal, communication, an invitation, for example, would be issued with a hedged performative. In such a context, a speaker would say I’d like to invite you to my birthday party, rather than I invite you to my birthday party or even I hereby invite you to my birthday party, unless this was said in jest. Similarly, requests are also often realized by employing a hedged performative. An explicit performative such as I ask you to leave the room sounds very harsh, or authoritative, and seems to require a power differential between the interactants with the speaker in the more powerful position. A hedged version, I’d like to ask you…, would be more common between equals (cf. Blum-Kulka et al. 1989a). A more indirect performative strategy involves the deployment of the May I …? construction, as in May I ask you to leave the room? or May I invite you to my birthday party? This indirect performative strategy, which literally is permission seeking (cf. Trosborg 1995: 205), is used for realizing polite directives such as polite requests and so-called commissive-directives such as e.g. invitations, offers and suggestions, entailing not only obligations for the speaker, but also the speaker’s attempt to direct the addressee’s behaviour (cf. Hancher 1979). Pure commissives, by contrast, appear to be realized predominantly by employing unhedged performatives. For instance, I’d like to promise… does not work as a promise. Expressive speech acts, on the other hand, can also be performed by using meta-illocutionary nouns, e.g. Congratulations! Unlike performative directives, which are hedged by non-imposing speakers, performative expressives are upgraded to attend to the addressees’ face wants, e.g. Huge apologies about this, […] (Guo 2015: 91). Given the explicit nature of performative realizations, which makes it easy for hearers or readers to identify the illocutionary force of an utterance, the performative strategy lends itself to deceiving and manipulating hearers or readers. Here are three examples in which the MIE employed actually camouflages the true intentions of the speaker or writer: (3) I warn you! (4) I suggest you clean the kitchen now. (5) I would like to invite you to review the following article: Example 3 is not a warning, which would be in the addressee’s interest, but a threat (cf. König 1977: 22), which is an aggressive speech act in the speaker’s interest. The meta-illocutionary verb warn, unhedged and with matching intonation, is conventionally used to perform threats (threaten, like the verb insult, cannot be used performatively). Examples 4 and 5 are Klaus P. Schneider 232 both requests, and not a suggestion and an invitation, respectively. The performative used in example 6 is closely related to the indirect requesting strategy termed suggestory formula (Blum-Kulka et al. 1989a), which involves formulaic constructions such as How about …? and Why not…? , otherwise used to realize suggestions, which are, like warnings and invitations, and unlike threats and requests, in the interest of the addressee. Example 5 typically occurs in emails in which publishers or editors try to persuade scholars to review an academic article (Bardovi-Harlig 2016). To sum up, MIEs in the performative function are prototypically verbs used in a construction in which speakers or writers pronominally surface as the grammatical subject in the first person, followed by the verb in its present simple indicative active form. Verbs may be unhedged or hedged, depending on the illocutionary type the speech act belongs to and the relationship between the interactants. Meta-illocutionary nouns can also be used in the performative function, although they seem to occur much less frequently. Whenever meta-illocutionary verbs or nouns are used in the performative function, they both name the speech act they are used in and help to perform it in the specific constructions available for the purpose. Explicit naming can, however, also be employed in a camouflaging strategy to manipulate the addressee. 4.2 Reporting function This function is probably less complex than the performative function since there are, as a rule, no immediate interactional intricacies such as camouflaging or the motivation for hedging. In the reporting function, MIEs are used in assertive acts to inform hearers or readers that a particular speech act was performed in the more or less distant past or what the illocutionary force of an utterance was in the understanding of the speaker or writer. Reporting MIEs are prototypically verbs in their simple past tense form, used in indirect speech (as in example 6) or with direct speech, in the position of a proper verbum dicendi (as in example 7), and employed to categorise the respective speech as the occurrence of a particular speech act. (6) … he promised he wouldn’t leave them. (7) ‘Bloody cheek! ’ complained Oliphant. (Phyllis D. James, Devices and Desires, 423 (6) and 428 (7)) In either case, the MIE could be replaced by a less informative verb of saying (e.g. … he said he wouldn’t leave them), merely asserting that something had been said, but not what it was in terms of illocution or speaker intention. MIEs in the reporting function are typically used in narratives, either in prose fiction or in conversational narrative, where the writer or speak- Is that a threat? 233 er wishes to share an experience with the addressee who was not present in the situation reported. While in this particular communicative function meta-illocutionary verbs usually take the simple past tense, they may take the simple present, if the narrator employs a device traditionally known as historical present in order to create a sense of immediacy or to foreground particular events. Example (1), discussed in the introduction, is a case in point. As a rule, the grammatical subject of a reporting MIE refers to a third person. However, when narrators report their own speech acts, they naturally use the first person singular pronoun, as in example (8). (8) I suggested we did the filthiest stuff first, lavatories, bathroom, kitchen, clearing the rubbish, […] (Ian McEwan, Sweet Tooth, 2013: 91) The next example illustrates two further variations. One is that the metaillocutionary verb may also occur in the present perfect. In this case, the speech act reported is of immediate relevance to the situation of reporting and may directly affect the addressee. Perhaps this particular subtype of the reporting function could be termed updating function. The second variation is that the MIE merely asserts that a particular speech act was performed, but what exactly was said is not reported. (9) ‘We’ll be six, incidentally. I’ve invited Adam Dalgliesh.’ (Phyllis D. James, Devices and Desires, 1990: 77) To sum up, MIEs in the reporting function are typically verbs in their past tense form which are used in constructions with third person subjects (nominal or pronominal, usually singular). The MIEs occur in assertive acts reporting utterances as direct or indirect speech, and ascribe an illocutionary force to these utterances. First person subjects appear in selfreports. Speech acts are reported in narratives, which may be either prose fiction or conversational narrative. Simple past may be replaced by simple present to create a sense of immediacy (historical present), or it may be replaced by present perfect if the reported speech act is of direct relevance at the moment of reporting. What exactly was said may be irrelevant, and thus not mentioned, in those particular reports. 4.3 Commenting function The commenting function is typically expressed by using a metaillocutionary verb in its first person singular present progressive form. An utterance including such a verb is a retrospective comment by a speaker on a previous act by this same speaker, usually in this speaker’s last turnat-talk, with the comment serving the purpose of explicating the illocutionary force of the earlier utterance to explain the speaker’s intention Klaus P. Schneider 234 behind it. This is illustrated in the following example, which was posted to the website “British Problems” in 2013. (10) I live outside the UK so when I say “With all due respect” nobody realises I’m insulting them. (http: / / www.reddit.com/ r/ britishproblems) More specifically, in face-to-face interaction the commenting function is commonly realized by employing the constructional pattern I am not Xing, I’m Y-ing, in which X and Y are two different meta-illocutionary verbs. This particular pattern is used in situations in which a speaker thinks their interlocutor has misinterpreted the speaker’s illocution. In this type of situation, the speaker rejects the illocution attributed by the interlocutor by negating the respective meta-illocutionary verb and contrasting it with the verb labelling the speaker’s desired interpretation. Consider the following example. (11) A. I did that. B. I’m glad you have the courage to admit it. A. I’m not admitting it, I’m telling you that I did it. (Hatcher 1974: 204-205, quoted in König 1977: 22) It seems that the constructional pattern is not only used for clarifying comments, but also, and perhaps more frequently, for manipulative purposes in comments which could be called defensive denial. In this case, the hearer correctly identifies the speaker’s illocution, but the speaker, realizing that their original illocution is face-threatening, tries to minimize this face-threat by strategically reinterpreting their original illocution as a less face-threatening one. The following example serves as an illustration. (12) […] I’m not apologising - I’m only saying that up to now I’ve been under orders.” (J.T. McIntosh, Born Leader, 2013: eBook) In this example, the denied action of apologising threatens the speaker’s own face. By contrast, frequently heard (elliptical) Just saying… is commonly used to strategically deny or mitigate an act threatening the hearer’s face. What is implied in such cases could be glossed as I’m not complaining/ criticizing, etc. In sum, in the commenting function, meta-illocutionary verbs are used in their present progressive form. The default case is that the verb refers to the speaker’s own illocutionary act and, hence, the grammatical subject surfaces as the personal pronoun in the first person singular. By using this construction, speakers explicate the illocutionary force of their earlier utterance. A particularly conspicuous construction is I am not Xing, I’m Y-ing, in which the speaker contrasts the illocution wrongly attributed by the interlocutor with the speaker’s intended illocution. Com- Is that a threat? 235 ments of this type may be used for mere clarification or for strategic manipulation. 4.4 Problematizing function The last function discussed in this chapter is the problematizing function. In this function, meta-illocutionary nouns, rather than verbs, are used, as a rule in the singular and characteristically in a Yes/ No-question (Is/ was this/ that an X? ). The following example includes a question of this type. (13) [Desmond Pepperdine to his pregnant wife Dawn] ‘I’m going to be fussing over you. You won’t have a minute’s peace.’ […] She gave her new laugh (half an octave deeper) and said, ‘Promise? ’ ‘Promise.’ (Martin Amis, Lionel Asbo: State of England, 2013: 181) The first occurrence of the noun promise (with question intonation) can be interpreted as an ellipsis of the interrogative construction Is/ was this/ that an X? , functioning as a request for confirmation that the interlocutor’s illocution has been correctly understood; alternatively, it could be interpreted as requesting a promise. In either case, there seems to be an element of uncertainty or even fear that the interlocutor’s intention may not be the one desired. Further examples suggest that the construction Is/ was this/ that an X? is not, or not just, used to request confirmation that the interlocutor’s illocution has been correctly identified, but, perhaps more frequently, to challenge this illocution or, more precisely, the interlocutor’s right to perform the speech act identified in the given situation. Example (14) is a case in point. (14) ‘In the interests of the station I think you should drop it.’ ‘Is that an order? ’ ‘I’ve no power to compel you and you know that. I’m asking you.’ (Phyllis D. James, Devices and Desires, 1990: 71) This exchange takes place between two police officers who talk about an investigation. While the second part of the initial utterance is phrased like a piece of advice (I think you should), which, by definition, would be in the interest of the addressee, it is prefaced by an appeal to higher interests (In the interests of the station). The illocutionary force literally displayed in this initial utterance is challenged by the second speaker, who employs the interrogative under inspection to show that he understands the first speaker’s utterance as a ‘camouflaged’, i.e. indirect, realization of an order, while at the same time expressing disbelief or annoyance about the fact that an order has been performed. So in this example, the con- Klaus P. Schneider 236 struction Is/ was this/ that an X? is employed to reject a face-threatening act, denying the interlocutor the right to perform such an act addressed to the speaker in the given situation. In his response to the question Is that an order? , the first speaker reframes the perceived order as a less face-threatening request by using the verb ask in the present progressive characteristic of the commenting function (cf. section 4.3 above). While all three meta-illocutionary terms occurring in example (14) can be employed to label directives, ask is much weaker than compel or order and is used between equals and not downwards in a hierarchical relationship. The construction Is/ was this/ that an X? and the meta-illocutionary nouns used in this construction are analysed in more detail in the following chapter. 5. Frequencies and distribution of the construction Is that an X? The qualitative analysis in Chapter 4 has shown that metapragmatic expressions may serve different communicative functions, and that these functions correlate with specific structural patterns. A salient pattern emerging from the data that correlates with the problematizing function (cf. section 4.4 above) is the interrogative construction Is/ was this/ that an X? , with a meta-illocutionary noun in the position of X. This interrogative can be used to request confirmation of an addressee’s illocutionary force attribution, but can also be used to explicate and reject an interlocutor’s face-threatening act, as in the following example (cf. also example 14 in section 4.4). (15) ‘I’m not the one going about poking my nose into places where it’s liable to get cut off.’ Quirke gave an incredulous laugh. ‘Is that a threat, Mal? ’ (Benjamin Black, Christine Falls, 2006: 131; original emphasis) That threat is stressed and Quirke’s question accompanied by incredulous laughter shows that Quirke has well understood his interlocutor’s intention, but cannot believe that Mal dares to threaten him, thus indicating that Mal, in Quirke’s view, is not in a position to do so. In this case, then, the interrogative is not aimed at eliciting confirmation of the illocution attributed, but at challenging the interlocutor and questioning, or denying, his right to perform a threat. One aim of the corpus-based quantitative analysis was to establish which meta-illocutionary nouns are used with what frequencies in the final position, X, of the interrogative construction. For this purpose, twelve nouns were chosen which name frequent and socially significant speech acts that have received much attention in research (cf., e.g., Al- Is that a threat? 237 fonzetti 2013, Ambroise 2013, Oishi 2013 and Walker 2013). These nouns are (in alphabetical order): apology, command, complaint, compliment, insult, invitation, offer, order, request, suggestion, threat, warning In a preliminary analysis, two further variables were identified, namely the copula in the initial position and the demonstrative in the second position of the construction, with the respective variants Is/ Was and this/ that, resulting in the four constructional variants Is this an X? , Is that an X? , Was this an X? , and Was that an X? These four constructional variants, each with the twelve meta-illocutionary nouns selected for the purpose, were searched for in the internet employing a Google search. Table 1 (below) summarizes the results of this internet search. Was that Is that Was this Is this TOTAL Request 6,120,000 3,660,000 1,520,000 454,000 11,754,000 Order 5,060,000 2,700,000 435,000 319,000 8,514,000 Warning 3,930,000 1,760,000 354,000 385,000 6,429,000 Suggestion 2,960,000 1,220,000 1,060,000 452,000 5,692,000 Threat 1,560,000 2,750,000 386,000 349,000 5,045,000 Command 1,800,000 636,000 737,000 394,000 3,567,000 Complaint 203,000 1,870,000 963,000 468,000 3,504,000 Compliment 322,000 341,000 213,000 404,000 1,280,000 Offer 363,000 511,000 157,000 167,000 1,198,000 Invitation 358,000 316,000 204,000 179,000 1,057,000 Insult 350,000 350,000 152,000 113,000 965,000 Apology 359,000 326,000 132,000 111,000 928,000 TOTAL 23,385,000 16,440,000 6,313,000 3,795,000 49,933,000 Rank I II III IV Share 46.8% 32.9% 12.6% 7.6% 100% Table 1: Frequencies of the constructional variants and the metaillocutionary nouns. Table 1 provides the following insights. First, the twelve metaillocutionary nouns selected for this part of the study occur with high frequencies, their occurrences amounting to an overall frequency of approximately 50 million altogether. Second, the respective frequencies of the individual meta-illocutionary nouns differ markedly, ranging from approximately 12 million occurrences in the case of request as the noun most frequently used in the interrogative construction to less than 1 million occurrences each in the case of insult and apology, with the latter appearing with the lowest frequency of all twelve nouns. Third, the frequencies of the four constructional variants also differ considerably. Was that…? alone accounts for almost half of all occurrences at 46.8%, and Is that…? accounts for approximately one third. The remaining two variants Klaus P. Schneider 238 Was this…? and Is this? , on the other hand, occur with frequencies of only 12.6% and 7.6%, respectively. While this is the overall trend, individual meta-illocutionary nouns diverge from this trend. For instance, Is that…? appears more often than Was that…? with compliment, offer, and especially threat. In the case of complaint, to give another example, otherwise dominant Was that…? occurs much less frequently (with just over 200,000 occurrences) than any of the remaining three constructional variants (at close to 2 million, 1 million and half a million occurrences, respectively). In general, however, all findings suggest two hierarchies, namely Was > Is, and that > this. It has been suggested (Stephan Gramley, pers. comm.) that Was and that are distancing devices used in confrontational discourse in which the construction under inspection is employed to challenge the interactional partner, and that such challenging occurs more often than the purely informative use of the construction by which speakers wish to clarify whether they have properly understood their interlocutor’s intention, and in which the non-distancing alternatives Is and this seem to be preferred. This would explain the relatively higher frequencies of Was and that vis-à-vis Is and this. These hypotheses have yet to be tested empirically, however. The comparatively low overall frequencies of the nouns apology and insult in the interrogative construction can perhaps be explained with reference to the nature of apologies and insults. Apologies are overwhelmingly realized by using the IFID sorry, at least in informal discourse, as has been shown in recent corpus-based speech act research (cf. Lutzky/ Kehoe 2017). Hence it should be clear in most situations that an apology was performed. Similarly, insults can be assumed to be realized predominantly in unambiguous terms and, thus, clarification is not required. Furthermore, the nouns invitation, offer, and compliment, which do not occur markedly more frequently than apology and insult, name cooperative speech acts to the benefit of the addressee that are often ritually performed by employing a small set of easily recognizable formulaic routines (cf., e.g., Manes and Wolfson’s (1981) groundbreaking analysis of American English compliments) and therefore requests for clarification appear unnecessary. By contrast, the nouns appearing in the upper half of Table 1 refer to speech acts which are often performed by using indirect realization strategies, most prominently requests (cf., e.g., Blum-Kulka et al. 1989a). More importantly, these acts are mostly to the speaker’s benefit and are all threats to the addressee’s negative face. Hence, they are likely to be challenged more frequently than, e.g., compliments, which attend to the addressee’s positive face wants. A close look at the contexts is, however, required to substantiate these assumptions. Is that a threat? 239 6. Conclusion The present paper presents an exploratory study of the meta-illocutionary lexicon, which includes mostly verbs and nouns such as request, compliment and insult which are employed by ordinary language users in everyday discourse to name and talk about speech acts and explicitly negotiate speaker intentions and hearer understandings. With a focus on functionto-form mappings, the basic tenet is that each communicative function in which meta-illocutionary expressions may occur correlates with specific grammatical forms and constructional patterns. The study comes in two parts. The first part is a qualitative analysis in which four communicative functions of meta-illocutionary expressions are identified as well as the constructions typically available for their realization. The second part includes a quantitative analysis exemplifying a corpus-based approach in which the relative frequencies of constructional variants can be established as well as the distribution of metaillocutionary expressions in these variants. In the qualitative analysis, four communicative functions are distinguished and correlated with typical constructional choices as follows: Function Interactional goal Typical construction Example Performative Performing a particular speech act 1 st ps. sg. present simple of metaillocutionary verb I apologize for any inconvenience. Reporting Communicating that a particular speech act was performed 3 rd ps. sg. past simple of metaillocutionary verb … he promised he wouldn’t leave them. Commenting Clarifying the illocution of one’s own speech act Juxtaposition of two meta-illocutionary verbs in 1 st ps. sg. present progressive: negating the first, affirming the second I'm not apologizing, I'm stating a fact. Problematizing Questioning (the legitimacy of) the interlocutor’s illocution Yes/ No question with metaillocutionary noun Is that a threat? Table 2: Communicative functions of meta-illocutionary expressions and correlating constructions The suggested quantitative approach is exemplified with a corpus search for the variants of the construction typically used to realize the problematizing function. From a Google search in the internet, involving twelve different meta-illocutionary nouns and yielding approximately fifty million occurrences, a clear preference hierarchy emerged: Klaus P. Schneider 240 Was that > Is that > Was this > Is this an X? Both parts of this exploratory study require elaboration. The communicative functions of meta-illocutionary expressions should be examined in more detail to gain a more differentiated picture. There is evidence that functional subtypes exist which are realized by employing structural variants of the constructions typically used to realize the respective function. Additionally, it may be not only possible, but necessary to identify further communicative functions. Systematic study of the occurrences of metaillocutionary expressions in large corpora will bring to light further frequent constructional patterns used for specific functions. Furthermore, each recurrent construction (e.g. Is/ was this/ that an X? ) should be searched with many more meta-illocutionary expressions than just the twelve nouns chosen for demonstrative purposes in Chapter 5. Also, a range of different corpora should be included in the analysis, especially corpora permitting the investigation of regional, social and historical variation in the use of meta-illocutionary verbs and nouns, for instance differences between Australian and Canadian English, old and young speakers, 21 st century and 19 th century English, and moreover differences between speech and writing, different domains and genres, and perhaps individual writers of prose fiction. 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Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Schneider, Klaus P. (2011). “Imagining conversation: How people think people do things with words.” Sociolinguistic Studies 5(1). 15-36. Schneider, Klaus P. (2017). “Pragmatic competence and pragmatic variation.” In: Giora/ Haugh (2017). 315-333. Schopf, Alfred (ed.) (1974). Der englische Aspekt. Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchgesellschaft. Short, Mick (1996). Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose. London: Longman. Smith, Sara W./ Xiaoping Liang (2007). “Metapragmatic expressions in physics lectures: Integrating representations, guiding processing, and assigning participant roles.” In: Bublitz/ Hübler (2007). 167-197. Taavitsainen, Irma/ Andreas H. Jucker/ Jukka Tuominen (eds.) (2014). Diachronic Corpus Pragmatics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Trosborg, Anna (1995). Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints, Apologies. Berlin: De Gruyter. 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Schneider Department of English, American and Celtic Studies University of Bonn Germany Power and status by definition Preliminary theoretical considerations on a study of defining as a metadiscursive strategy in lay-to-lay interaction Georg Marko This paper outlines the theoretical framework for a study of definitions as metadiscursive moves and their social functions and effects in discussion forums on health. Defining a lexical element is metadiscourse because a lexical element used elsewhere in the current speech event is defined, i.e. its meaning is provided. Definitions imply that the speaker or writer knows the lexical element’s meaning and at the same time that the other participants in the interaction do not (otherwise there would be no need for a definition). This creates a gap in knowledge (however real and however temporary) and thus a hierarchy and possible power imbalance between interlocutors. To contextualize the main issue, the article starts by discussing essential features of the phenomenon, also pointing to their relevance for definitions. The article then goes on to describe various features of definitions. These include questions such as whether the definiendum (= the term to be defined) occurs before the definiens (= the meaning), whether the definiens is elaborate or just an alternative term, whether the definiens defines the term exhaustively and unambiguously, generically or with reference to individual events or experiences, etc. I also evaluate these different features with respect to whether they could be argued to enhance or mitigate the social effects mentioned above. 1. Introduction (1) Meds like sertraline aka zoloft (a SSRI) can help with migraine. (2) With your vision problems, a VER / VEP (Visual Evoked Potentials) which is a painless test to test the optic nerves, would be routine too. AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 42 (2017) · Heft 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Georg Marko 244 (3) I have elevated CRP levels, which is C-Reactive Protein, another word for inflammation. These three examples, all taken from lay discussion forums on health, have something in common: they contain definitions, i.e. the posters use terms whose meanings they immediately spell out and explain (in all three sentences this is even done in two different ways, viz. by giving the meaning and an alternative expression). Definitions are metadiscursive (being about language used in the same discourse) and play a crucial role in interactively negotiating claims to knowledge and expertise and thus indirectly relations of power in an environment - a lay discussion forum - which does not predetermine these aspects. This article will examine the metadiscursiveness of definitions and their social interactive functionality with special emphasis on their role in Internet forums on health. The approach taken here is abstract in nature, outlining how the question of metadiscourse and social function more generally and defining technical terms and the negotiation of power more specifically can and should be researched. The paper, however, will not present a comprehensive study of the extent, the forms and roles of the definitions in the discourse under scrutiny. The emphasis here is on a theoretical discussion of metadiscourse and its essential features (laying the foundation) and a description of the main categorial variables of definitions as metadiscourse and their relevance for a socially-oriented study of the use of definitions. 2. Data As mentioned, this article outlines the background of and the approach to a potential study of the use of definitions in lay health forums rather than presenting the details and results of such a study. However, as this requires examples for illustrating the analytical categories to be introduced below, I nevertheless need data even at this stage. Since I am generally interested in the structural and functional patterns in which definitions are employed by participants in forum interactions and thus in recurrence across individual texts, I will take a corpus analytical approach. My data therefore needs to be a corpus, i.e. a large computer-held collection of texts. My main interest is metadiscourse in health forums, where the difference between lay vs. expert plays a particular important role. So the corpus consists of postings to such forums. I chose four conditions, viz. cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), multiple sclerosis (MS), headaches and migraines, and depressions, in order to cover a wide range of different topics on health. Then I selected three platforms for each of these four conditions (to preserve some anonymity Power and status by definition 245 to posters, I will not name these) and copied and pasted all postings from all threads till I reached a certain target number of words. Table 1 below contains the sizes of the whole corpus and its components. The four topics are not represented equally, quantitatively speaking, because the components have originally been produced for different projects (cf. Marko 2010, Kettemann/ Marko/ Triebl 2010, Marko 2012) (that is also the reason for different word number targets). Overall CVD MS Headaches Depression Number of words 2,309,812 530,968 396,343 830,289 552,212 Table 1: Size of the health forum corpus (and its components) (in number of word tokens). 3. Metadiscourse: conceptions, structures and functions Metadiscourse has received a lot of attention in linguistics in the past 30 years and has been studied from different angles. What becomes clear from this research - and readers can also find evidence of this in the present volume - is that metadiscourse is a concept difficult to define in a way that would make its identification in authentic data easy and straightforward. I will therefore spend a considerable time describing what I mean by it (section 3.1) and what its functions could be (3.2), also explaining what the aspects mentioned mean for definitions as metadiscursive moves. 3.1 Conceptions of metadiscourse The basic definition of metadiscourse - “discourse about the evolving [or current] discourse, or the writer’s [or speaker’s] explicit commentary on her own ongoing text” (cf. Ädel 2006: 2) - serves as a starting point. But we need to specify the necessary features of metadiscourse in order to really be able to use the concept and distinguish it from related ones. These features are concerned with: ‣ Explicit metalinguistics ‣ Relationship between metadiscourse and discourse ‣ Relationship between metadiscourse and propositional level ‣ Intratextuality ‣ Mode ‣ Fuzziness Georg Marko 246 3.1.1 The structure of metadiscourse According to Ädel (2006: 22-23), metadiscourse is a functional and not a formal category. This view is supported by the fact that while there are meaning elements that are defining and necessary features of metadiscourse, e.g. a reference to an aspect of the ongoing discourse, there is some variation in how metadiscourse is formally realized, i.e. which linguistic constructions can be used for this purpose. While this is certainly true, we need to bear in mind that functional is concerned with semantics and meaning here rather than with any social functions of metadiscourse - as will be pointed out below, metadiscourse is not coherent and consistent with respect to these functions. Besides, although there is some formal variation in the realization of the said functional categories, the fact that the latter need to be realized formally and are not completely unpredictable, i.e. there is a limited set of options, suggests that we may also speak of structural-functional categories. What are now these structural-functional categories required in metadiscourse? I stipulate that metadiscourse necessarily includes three essential components, viz. the discourse referent, the metadiscursive reference, and the metadiscursive comment. 1. Discourse referent The linguistic element or structure in the ongoing discourse that I refer to or comment on. So if a thread in a discussion forum starts with a question and someone refers to it (as question), then the question becomes the discourse referent. Anything linguistic can become a discourse referent, whether individual phonemes, grammatical structures, words, rhetorical strategies, or interactive behaviour. 2. Metadiscursive reference The metalinguistic expression 1 that creates an explicit link to the discursive referent. In the above example, using the word question, for instance, is the metadiscursive reference. To be precise, the metadiscursive reference covers two aspects, viz. a metalinguistic expression and a discourse deictic relation, i.e. the knowledge that the metalinguistic expression refers to the ongoing speech event. This may be explicated by using demonstrative pronouns, e.g. this question, possessive pronouns, e.g. your question, or spatial or temporal deictic expressions, e.g. the question that you asked above/ earlier, etc. In some cases, however, the metalinguistic dimension is implied, e.g. when referring, and thus somehow citing, elements - whether words or longer constructions - used in the current 1 As linguistic could mean ‘pertaining to language’ and ‘pertaining to the study of language’, metalinguistic and linguistic in many contexts are interchangeable. Power and status by definition 247 discourse, e.g. How are you does not really sound nice. People often use typographical devices (italics, underlined, inverted commas, quotation marks, etc. 2 ) to mark the element as metalinguistic and to make it clear that they refer to it, but do not use it. 3. Metadiscursive comment What I am saying about the discursive referent. If someone, for instance, says I don’t like your question, then the metadiscursive comment is that the writer does not like something occurring in the same discourse, viz. the question that the participant directly addressed has asked. Below, you find a coherent example of a short exchange in a health forum which illustrates the above categories. What poster A says in her post by itself is not metadiscursive because she is just describing her experience of certain neurological-psychological symptoms. However, the metadiscursive reference what you described (shaded) used by speaker B turns A’s posting into a discursive referent (underlined), i.e. something that (in this case) someone else chooses to talk about, saying that the symptoms A described sound like a panic attack, which then is the metadiscursive comment (in bold). (4) A: […] Last nite it felt like I was dying. I couldnt sleep and when I did close my eyes for a few minutes it felt like my right side was numb. when I got up it lasted for 2 minutes, then went away. […] B: […] I’ve had panic attacks all my life and what you described sounds EX- ACTLY like one. I will now discuss the six features mentioned above. 3.1.2 Explicit metalinguistics Discourse in ‘about discourse’ in the above definition is a linguistic unit. It is language in use or a particular instance of language in use (a speech event). Speaking about discourse thus means speaking about language, as used in the current speech event. Metadiscourse thus is necessarily metalinguistic, i.e. we are not talking about discourse as sets of emotions evoked, a systems of ideas standing behind a text, or the participants’ identities, but only as discourse qua language or language use. This metalinguistic dimension should be explicit. Emotions, systems of ideas, and identities are often associated with particular passages in texts and discourses without being the explicit topic. So if they are mentioned later in the same text, they could be argued to be implicitly metadiscur- 2 For ease of reference, I will subsume punctuation under typographical in this article even though the two are, of course, distinct aspects. Georg Marko 248 sive, e.g. if someone in an interaction asks us, in reaction to something we have just said (or an implication thereof): Why are you so angry? (→ emotion), Do you really subscribe to Marxism? (→ system of ideas), or Do you consider yourself an expert in the field? (→ identity). But as Ädel (2006: 27) puts it, “the reference to the world of discourse [must] be overtly stated,” which means there must be an explicit element that makes reference to the language or the language use of the current speech event, e.g. a verb of saying, e.g. as mentioned before, I’m not saying that…, or a noun denoting a linguistic unit, e.g. the last sentence in the last reply was exactly my point, etc. This is the metalinguistic component of the metadiscursive reference, i.e. the way we refer to a discourse referent. We have to take into account that referring to someone’s language or language use by quoting passages or elements is also a legitimate form of metadiscursive reference. Such references are usually marked by prosodic or typographical devices - italics, underlined, inverted commas, quotation marks, etc. - which all are supposed to indicate that a linguistic element is metalinguistically referred to rather than ordinarily used (e.g. metalinguistically referred to here means… - the italics in this example clearly mark the expression as metalinguistic). Oddly enough, Ädel (2006: 28) discards such formal marking as not being explicit, as the metalinguistic reference is not done in words. My view is that it is done in words, it is just the shift from the object to the meta-level that is marked. However, there is a greater problem involved here because the metalinguistic markers mentioned help us in our interpretation, but they are not a requirement, i.e. their absence does not mean that a passage is not metadiscursive. If I write I will not use absence again in this article without setting off absence from the rest of the sentence, the context (perhaps also the syntactic form, i.e. especially the lack of a determiner such as my absence) makes it clear that I am still referring to an element of my own discourse, viz. the word absence just used in the first sentence of the current paragraph. This means we are dealing with metadiscourse in the narrow sense here. This, however, entails that we either have to drop the criterion of explicit metalinguistics or we have to re-interpret it to include direct quotes, even if not metalinguistically marked. The second option appears to make sense and it is the one I opt for, even though it will have no serious implications for the current article. 3.1.3 Relationship between metadiscourse and discourse If we look more closely at the word metadiscourse itself, we will see that it is ambiguous or at least semantically odd. Firstly, the element discourse seems to fulfil two functions in the word: it denotes what something is about, viz. discourse, but also what this something is, viz. discourse. The word thus actually is metadiscourse discourse, i.e. literally ‘discourse about Power and status by definition 249 discourse’. 3 Secondly, as has been rightfully criticized by Sinclair (2005), the definition ‘discourse about discourse’ suggests that the former discourse is distinct from the latter one, so metadiscourse would then be a discourse A talking about a discourse B. However, metadiscourse is necessarily integrated into, or is part of, the other discourse as its function can only be seen in relation to the latter, e.g. it organizes or clarifies it. If someone, for instance, says: (5) Thanks for your reply. then they (no gender-specific user name found in the corpus) show their gratitude for a response to an initial question. This metadiscursive act (referring to a speech act performed by another participant in the same speech event), however, is embedded in an - in this case - lengthy exchange of objective and subjective information on a health condition. And thanking someone for what they have done in this exchange, of course, has a function for at least the social atmosphere of the very interaction. Being only a part of the ongoing discourse means that the main speech event is not exclusively - or even primarily - concerned with talking about itself, but mainly with some other object (= the object level of discourse). This implies that metadiscourse always marks a shift from the object level to the meta-level, with the discourse normally shifting back to the object level afterwards. I refer to such elements of a discourse that have a specific strategic function with respect to the ongoing discourse and mark a shift from the main strand of the discourse as moves (the term is often used for general elements in the rhetorical structure of a text, cf. Swales 1990). The shift becomes obvious in example (6) below, where a poster talks about a diagnosis he received, using the technical term for a particular pathological phenomenon (first occurrence of the term, the first shaded element in (6)). He then goes on to ask what the term means, thus moving from the ordinary use of the term to describe what happened to referring to the term qua linguistic expression (second occurrence of the term, the second shaded element in (6)). Mind that all examples - below and elsewhere - are SIC! , this means informal spellings and grammatical, lexical, and orthographic errors have not been changed or corrected. (6) Apparently, they’ve ignored the presence of the white matter lesions and have classified them as peri-ventricular non specific white matter lesions which are 3 The same argument could also be made for metalanguage, which is also ‘language about language’ or meta-level, which is also ‘the level above a specified level’. Georg Marko 250 not significant according to this consultant! Could some one please tell me what peri-ventricular non specific white matter lesions means? 4 In many other cases, though, the shift is hardly noticeable because it is so tightly integrated into the ongoing discourse, both formally and semantically. This applies to the following example (7), where metadiscourse is confined to the relative clause that the above poster said, referring to a statement made in the same thread (and thus within the same discourse). As this relative clause is just used to specify the noun things in a clause that presents the writer’s opinion (I will disagree with) and is thus not metadiscursive by itself, the metadiscursive shift is backgrounded. (7) I will disagree with some of the things that the above poster said. 3.1.4 Relationship between metadiscourse and propositional level In Systemic Functional Linguistics (= SFL), language structure is assumed to be informed by three metafunctions, the ideational one, concerned with representing, or providing information about, the world, the interpersonal one, concerned with evaluating this information according to likelihood and desirability and with integrating it into communicative interactions with other people, and the textual one, concerned with organizing the information according to features such as importance, newness, etc. (cf. Halliday 1994, Eggins 1994, Thompson 1996). Now there is a tradition in the study of metadiscourse that starts from the assumption that language use and thus discourse mainly means exchanging information about content. The ideational - or propositional - function is thus central since the other two functions are dependent on the former, adding to it or organizing it rather than presenting something completely unrelated. This has led to a conception of the interpersonal and the textual functions as being about what is essential to a speech event (i.e. information) and thus as being about discourse. As a consequence, such approaches conceive of metadiscourse as mainly covering the nonpropositional dimensions of language use (cf. Ädel 2006: 16-17, Mauranen 2010: 14-15). This becomes clear in the definitions of metadiscourse given by Crismore, Markkanen and Steffensen (1993: 40): Linguistic material in texts, written or spoken, which does not add anything to the propositional content but that is intended to help the listener or reader organize, interpret and evaluate the information given. 4 Note that even though the discourse referent is not metalinguistically marked here, the grammar of the last clause points to metalinguistics. The fact that the word lesions, which is plural, goes together with the singular verb means shows that the expression is meant - the word lesions is plural on the object language level, but singular on the meta-level, after all it is just a single word - and not the pathological condition. Power and status by definition 251 and Hyland (2005: 14): [Metadiscourse covers] aspects of a text which explicitly organize a discourse or the writer’s stance towards either its content or the reader. This conception of metadiscourse is relatively broad since it covers a wide range of phenomena, from the use of modality, discourse markers, hedging, theme/ rheme, topicalization, etc. (cf. Mauranen 2010: 14). In the alternative perspective, metadiscourse is limited to instances of explicitly referring to and commenting upon any aspect of the current discourse. Discourse here, however, covers all levels of what is happening in the current speech event. The range of phenomena nevertheless is not as wide and the definition of metadiscourse consequently is narrower. As metadiscourse here reflects upon the ongoing discourse, this conception is also called discourse reflexivity (cf. Mauranen 2010). This article will understand metadiscourse as discourse reflexivity. I will not look into phenomena typically covered by the broad, SFLinspired approach mentioned above. 3.1.5 Intratextuality The scope of metadiscourse was above defined as the ongoing discourse. Now while it is certainly debatable in certain instances what constitutes the beginning and the end of a speech event (e.g. in connection with online discussion forums, the boundary might be a single post or a thematic thread or the whole host site), it will be clear in most cases. Referring to linguistic aspects of other speech events thus means transgressing the boundaries of the current discourse and should therefore be treated as intertextuality, rather than intratextuality, the latter being a necessary criterion of metadiscourse. 5 The following two examples illustrate the distinction. In the first one, the writer mentions that his doctor presented a diagnosis (atrial fibrillation) in a consultation with him. This interaction happened before and outside of the health forum and participants therefore have no knowledge of what happened. The main piece of information consequently has to be mentioned. In the second example, the writer draws a conclusion from another participant’s posting, which is also part of the same thread in the forum. Participants can therefore rightfully be expected to know the content of the posting and the writer therefore does not need to repeat it, but only metadiscursively refers to it. 5 Traditionally, discourse (at least in one of its senses) is not only equated with speech event, but also with text. This is due to the fact that earlier research focused on written texts, where discourse and text were not so easy to distinguish. This is the reason why the terms used are based on textuality rather than on discursivity (as a matter of fact, interdiscursivity and intradiscursivity would be more precise, in my view). Georg Marko 252 (8) Dr said atrial fibrillation. (9) From what you’ve said, it doesn’t sound like your illness is something that will be easy to manage without professional help. The two examples also show why the distinction between intraand intertextual is not arbitrary, but rather is central to the nature of metadiscourse as discourse reflexivity. Metadiscourse is supposed to have an immediate impact on the speech event in which it is embedded, connecting aspects (as in the example above), organizing, clarifying, and securing comprehension of the current communication. Intertextuality, on the other hand, does not have this function. So asking What do you mean by a scan? (and the answer to the question) is pivotal for participants to understand each other in the situation in the health forum. Asking What does your doctor mean by that? (and the answer to the question) may be important to understand what happened in a consultation, but not for the processing of the current interaction. If we postulate that immediate relevance for the current interaction - as an implication of the condition of intratextuality - be a necessary feature of our conception of metadiscourse, there is a consequence that is never addressed in the literature, viz. the question of how we could classify metalinguistic references to aspects of the ongoing discourse that have no immediate relevance for the latter. This would be the case if such a move opened a new, albeit probably temporary, topic not functionally related to the rest of the discourse. I have not found any examples in my corpus (which is not to say that there aren’t any, they might just be difficult to track). But we could imagine a spoken interaction where someone suddenly says I love the way you pronounce the word ‘intricacies’ (if another participant in the conversation has just used the very word). As a matter of fact, as linguists we often feel tempted to act in exactly this manner, mentioning that a certain exchange is a nice example of a flouting of a Gricean maxim, that a certain word occurring in someone else’s turn is etymologically related to some other word, that a sentence used contains an aliteration, or - reacting to the last remark - that alliteration is, as a matter of fact, spelt with double ll. Are we ready to discard such examples as non-metadiscursive? I think that claiming apriori knowledge of whether such moves have an immediate impact on the current discourse is problematic. We could very well argue that such utterances are intended to change the topic, at least for a moment, which might in turn serve the less immediate purpose of providing relief, avoiding conflictual subjects, offending or comforting someone (as a matter of fact, Mauranen (2010) postulates a topicchanging springboard function for metadiscourse; and Fill (1993: 68-69) mentions that metadiscursive shifts, e.g. saying something like You’re constantly interrupting me? or Keep calm! (reacting to the anger and excitation in another participant’s utterance), often lead to, or have the purpose Power and status by definition 253 of, creating, aggression). I will therefore not treat this as a prerequisite for metadiscourse. 3.1.6 Mode Metadiscourse is not a phenomenon restricted to either the written or the spoken mode. As has been pointed out and shown in various studies (cf. Schiffrin 1980, Ädel 2006, Mauranen 2010, Penz 2016), the functions of metadiscourse in spoken and interactive - the interactive aspect might very well be the more important dimension here - language might be different, with the local co-construction of discourse comprehension taking a more central position as opposed to the structuring of one’s text. These, however, are tendencies rather than categorial differences. Although multimodality is hardly ever mentioned in connection with metadiscourse, the phenomenon also occurs in discourses combining different semiotic modes. Any online interaction, for instance, that includes photos could lead to verbal comments on the picture itself (e.g. This is an interesting camera angle or It is a bit blurry) rather than about what you can see in the picture. Multimodal metadiscourse has not been found in my health forum posts and I will therefore not have anything further to say about it. 3.1.7 Fuzziness For Ädel (2006), metadiscourse is inherently fuzzy as “it is difficult to make categorical distinctions between what is and what is not metadiscursive” (Ädel 2006: 22). The question here is whether this is just a methodological problem - if confronted with an example, it simply is not easy to distinguish different categories - or whether there are any inherent theoretical aspects that make distinctions difficult. There is, in my view, a theoretical source for the fuzziness of metadiscourse, viz. the fact that we cannot clearly distinguish between the meaning of a text, on the one hand, and the content and information that it conveys. As discourse is always concerned with content and information, we also relate and react to the latter. And of course, content and information are more or less directly linked to texts and elements in the texts as the latter ‘created’ them in the first place. However, in most cases this relation to text and language is irrelevant so that utterances such as I get that [referring to a pathological experience someone else has just described] too mate or I agree with you 100%, while obviously reacting to something that was said in the same thread of a forum, seem to focus on content and thus not really on the language used, i.e. on the linguistic forms and/ or linguistic meanings. The metalinguistic dimension of metadiscourse thus seems to be missing. However, whether or when something is no longer metalinguistic is a matter of degree and often also a matter of interpretation. For Schiffrin Georg Marko 254 (1980: 201, 219), for instance, operators like true, false, or agree are indicators of metadiscourse, while I would - and will - exclude them from consideration because they are only concerned with content. Definitions in the sense of providing a meaning of an expression used in the immediate co-text clearly are metadiscursive moves: they necessarily occur in a discourse where the expression also occurs, possibly more than once (defining an expression not used would not make any sense) and their metalinguistic dimension is usually explicitly marked (even though this is more complex than this simple statement might suggest, see below). 3.2 Functions of metadiscourse As indicated above, the overall function of metadiscourse is to direct addressees through a discourse and secure their comprehension (in monologic texts) or to co-operatively co-construct a comprehensible discourse (in interactive scenarios). Most theoretical accounts go on to propose sets of more specific functions. However, these often seem to be specific to the domain examined (e.g. Mauranen’s (2010) functions are particularly relevant to the use of English as a lingua franca as this is what she investigates). No more systematic taxonomy of functions has been developed so far, to the best of my knowledge. I will not be able to achieve this either, but in the following I will at least propose the very general structures for such a framework. On a first plane, we can distinguish between primary functions and secondary functions of metadiscourse. The former are concerned with achieving the superordinate objective mentioned above, the latter with social goals that are only indirectly connected to the primary functions. Primary functions can be categorized according to whether they provide information on an aspect of the ongoing discourse, whether they evaluate the latter, or whether they are concerned with organizing information. We may call them ideational function, evaluative function, and structuring function of metadiscourse. They clearly correspond to the three metafunctions of SFL introduced above (I do not use the same terms, though, because I do not believe they are ideal descriptors). The ideational function seems to be the most common one, as any information on something in the current text or interaction such as a particular lexical item or a whole utterance would be subsumed under this category. Writers and speakers provide such information if they think and/ or have evidence that there is or could be a problem with comprehension. Ideational metadiscourse thus often serves the purpose of clarification by adding, elaborating on, or modifying information. This may be done because the speaker/ writer foresees a problem, as in the following example, where the poster defines two technical terms, viz. cervicogenic Power and status by definition 255 and cervical, by providing the respective meanings between brackets (the discourse referent shaded, the information in bold). (10) Pain in the back of the head is often referred to as a cervicogenic (meaning: from the neck) headache because it often originates from an irritation in the upper cervical (neck) spine. Clarifications could, however, also be triggered by questions such as: (11) A: What do you mean by a scan? I hope you mean MRI. […] B: yes i did mean an MRI, In some cases, they are provided by other participants, who offer their own interpretations of what another speaker/ writer has said (the term formulations, adopted from Garfinkel/ Sacks (1986/ 1970), is often used for such moves where a speaker metadiscursively offers an understanding of what has previously/ so far happened in a conversation, cf. Childs 2015) (12) A: Prayer I have had the same problem, The lord Jesus saved me, i couldn't sleep and was scared all day long i couldn't take it no more and i thought i would die. […] B: You are saying this was cured with prayer? Ideational function does not always mean clarification, though. In some cases, a discourse referent is simply integrated into another piece of information, as in the following example, where the poster uses a metadiscursive move (what you said) just to connect what someone else said in the thread to some other information. (13) In regards to what you said about the neurologist - I have a letter, as well as a list of every medication I have taken, which ones have worked, which didn’t, what triggers my migraines, etc. While metadiscourse seems to be concerned with meanings in the widest sense, it can also refer to formal aspects such as pronunciation or spelling. In the first example below, for instance, a poster provides information on how to pronounce the word Sjögren’s, using an orthographic form of transcription (SHOW grins) (this, by the way, would be an example of a metadiscursive move without any immediate function for the ongoing speech event; see above). In the second example, the poster uses (sp) between brackets to indicate that she (rightly) doubts her own spelling of oesophagus and that she invites others to give the correct orthography (this is common practice in discussion forums). She thus could be argued to request information about spelling and thus about a metalinguistic aspect of an expression used in the current discourse. (14) With the dry eyes, your doctor may look at the possibility of Sjögren’s syndrom (pronounced “SHOW grins”) Georg Marko 256 (15) I would feel like something was caught in my asophogus (sp) almost like heart burn Metadiscursive moves may also have evaluative functions, which means that some aspect of the current discourse is assessed with respect to (grammatical/ linguistic/ other) correctness, aesthetic or ethical value, importance, etc. and/ or is integrated into an evaluative dimension of the interaction (e.g. thanking, praising or criticizing someone for something they have said) in the ongoing speech event. In the first example below, the poster metalinguistically refers to the word intelligence (putting it between quotation marks), used in a preceding contribution, and adds an evaluative comment, assigning the adjectives sticky, vague and broad, all meant in a negative way, to it. In the second example, the poster refers to nicknames of participants in the evolving discussion, whose meanings (structure-sensitive seems to mean ‘semantically transparent’) are so clearly negative and ambiguous - the names in question are no-one and no-hope - that the writer - evaluatively - suggests that such names should not be used (the discourse referent shaded, the evaluation in bold). (16) I think using “intelligence” is a sticky word. It is vague and broad in it’s different meanings. (17) And it’s true people should not use “structure-sentisive” (or whatever you could call it) nicknames. In many instances of evaluative metadiscourse, a metalinguistic reference to an element in the ongoing speech event is integrated into an emotional utterance or a speech act with an evaluative dimension. What is particularly common in the health forums is showing empathy with the help of metadiscourse by using words such as understand, relate to, or hear, all in the sense of ‘emotionally and empathetically relating to’. Here are two examples of this pattern. (18) I completely understand what you mean by “deserving” to shower. (19) i can so relate to what u are saying Equally often we find metadiscourse in evaluative speech acts such as thanking, praising, criticizing, correcting, etc. Showing gratitude and/ or appreciation for an answer is by far the most common subcategory here, as in the examples below. In all three cases, the discourse referent is a response to an initial question/ problem description, metalinguistically represented as your reply/ answer. This is then embedded in a positive act (thank you for) in (21), and descriptions of positive emotions (loved and made me feel so much better) in (21) and (22). Power and status by definition 257 (20) Thank you for your reply and sharing your insight about searching for a possible surgeon. (21) Loved your answer as I had just been prescribed Wellbutrin and found DF as I was researching it (via Google of course! ). (22) Now your reply has made me feel so much better. As far as the third class mentioned above is concerned, metadiscourse has a structuring function if it organizes discourse, dividing it into sequences of language-related components, most commonly speech acts. The structuring function may refer to what has been said or what will be said, the latter being more common. In the simplest form, metadiscursive moves with this function just name one act that is to be performed or has just been performed. In (23), for instance, a poster announces a speech act, i.e. an answer, thus preparing the addressee (and other readers) for what to expect (here also linking the speech act to another act, viz. the original question). In (24), the poster uses the metadiscursive reference my question to announce the nature of the following act. Back to also links this to a previous passage in his post where he already started to formulate this question. The metadiscursive move thus forms a connection between what happened in the speech event to what is going to happen. In the concrete example, this is very important because neither is there any indication that what the poster said before could be a question, nor does anything he says afterwards sound like a question until the very end of his post. Without the metadiscursive move, readers would not expect the poster’s description of his experience to finally end in a question. (23) Honestly, I will answer it this way … IF you have to ask this question then your previous drug use has definately done something to that noggin“ of yours (and it is NOT MS related) … (24) Anyway back to my question, yesterday i had a strange experiiance, i was sat down and all of a sudden, it felt like both my eyes were going from side to side really fast, also both my legs started to kind of “jump about” like they were beeing hit with electric shocks, i have vertigo on and off at different times, but this didnt feel the same, has anyone had this happen to them? In more complex cases, metadiscourse mentions several acts and also orders them by using ordinals (1./ 2. or firstly/ secondly/ thirdly), as in the example below, where the poster announces two questions and then uses an ordered list to present them. (25) I have two questions here: 1. How long does a clean/ normal Cardiac Catheterization and Echo Cardiogram last....(in other words, how long is the diagnosis good for? ) 2. Can anxiety really cause someone to have all those physical symptoms? Georg Marko 258 Structuring metadiscursive moves can refer to the future, but theoretically also to the past, e.g. by ending a post with These are my two replies. To a certain extent, the above example with back to my question does partly have a backward orientation. But apart from this post, I have only found forward-oriented instances of this function. Judging from my informal explorations of my corpus, the structuring function is mostly limited to announcing a series of two or more questions, but may not play as important a role as in written monologic texts, probably because the individual contributions to the interaction are relatively short. As definitions provide the meanings of lexical elements, they are clearly ideational in function and cannot really be claimed to do anything else besides this on the primary plane. By providing information, evaluation or organization, metadiscursive moves can indirectly also fulfil further, i.e. secondary, functions that go beyond what has been described above. These are mostly social functions concerned with the management of the participants’ social identities or social relationships. 6 Whether we can provide information about linguistic elements in the ongoing discourse, whether we criticize others for the linguistic elements they are using, or whether we give five answers to certain questions - all aspects that may be part of metadiscourse - will inform the ways others perceive us and our relationship with them. Definitions are very important in this respect. Obviously, speakers who define a term that they are using themselves indirectly signal two things to their addressees: firstly, the speakers know the meaning of the term; secondly, the addressees are not assumed to know - or are positioned in a way as if they did not know - the meaning of the said term; as a consequence, a difference in knowledge (often called competence gap, cf. Lupton 2003: 117) is constructed between speakers and addressees, which in turn will create an at least temporary hierarchical relationship between knowing and unknowing participants. This may be in line with the apriori perception of such a competence gap. In a university context, for instance, I as the linguistics teacher can be expected to know more about language than my students and I can therefore also be expected to provide most definitions in a course. However, in an interaction in a lay health forum - the discourse this article focuses on - the situation is different because it is a discourse in which normally only lay people participate and which therefore does not feature an apriori hierarchical relationship. Such hierarchical relationships may have further implications, enhancing some participants’ status and credibility, while undermining others’. As status and credibility are associated with power, what has been said may also lead to the unequal distribution of power in a presumably or theoretically egalitarian context, viz. a lay discussion forum. 6 There may also be other secondary functions. These, however, will not concern us here. Power and status by definition 259 However, definitions do not create a competence gap, hierarchies and power relations automatically and for all times. Participants using definitions may make claims, but in an interactive discourse such as a discussion forum these claims may be confirmed, reiterated, refuted, negotiated - in other words, these aspects are managed locally, i.e. by the very utterances that participants use in the concrete situations. Whether, and if so, to what extent and how this is done is the subject matter of the study the approach to which this article outlines. Suffice to say that such processes are not restricted to definitions, but could occur in connection with other forms of metadiscourse, too. 4. A structural-functional account of definitions As mentioned in the introduction, books and articles on metadiscourse often discuss many aspects relevant to the study of the phenomenon, but normally not in a systematic way, i.e. not as a framework of variables whose values may be central to the description and interpretation of the use of metadiscourse. In the previous chapter, I tried to at least point to areas relevant to a theorization and description of metadiscourse in general. This chapter will provide a more detailed framework of structuralfunctional - i.e. focusing on form and meaning - variables applicable to the analysis of definitions in interaction (with special emphasis on discussion forums on health). Many of the variables are also relevant to research into other forms of metadiscourse. I will, however, confine myself to definitions in my discussion and also in my selection of illustrative examples, which are all taken from my corpus. With the exception of an outline of the basic structure of definitions, all sections in this chapter introduce aspects in the form of variables. Variables can be represented as simple questions, e.g. in which order do the expression to be defined and its meaning occur. Variables have two or more values. These are the different answers that could be given to the initial question, e.g. the possible orders are [expression > meaning] or [meaning > expression]. The values might be equally important, but in some cases there is one that is more prototypically associated with definitions. We have to bear this in mind when assessing their functions. The variables described below are: ‣ Order of elements ‣ Formal elaboration ‣ Semantic exhaustiveness ‣ Genericness ‣ Interactiveness Georg Marko 260 ‣ Explicitness ‣ Metalinguistics All of these variables and their values will be assessed with respect to their relevance to a study of the secondary social functions of metadiscourse mentioned above, with special emphasis on the local management of the competence gap and concomitant social hierarchies and power relations. However, as mentioned, I will start with looking at the basic structure of definitions, naming and describing their essential components. 4.1 Basic structure of definitions The three elements introduced above in connection with metadiscourse in general are also part of definitions, even though the case of the third one, i.e. metadiscursive reference, is more complex than suggested in the general discussion. The discursive referent, i.e. the element from the ongoing discourse I want to talk about, is a simple (e.g. hemophilia) or complex (e.g. polycystic ovarian disease) lexical element. It is called the definiendum (Latin, ‘something to be defined’). The metadiscursive comment in definitions is the meaning of the above-mentioned lexical element, here called the definiens (Latin, ‘something that defines’). The metadiscursive reference, i.e. the element that marks a word as a lexical element, consists at least of one of the following two elements: a metalinguistic marker of the lexical element, which could be either lexical, e.g. using expressions such as word, term, expression, etc., or prosodic/ typographical, e.g. using italics, inverted commas, quotation marks or corresponding prosodic means for the word (as done in this very sentence) and/ or a semantic connector that indicates that the metadiscursive comment is concerned with the meaning of a lexical element, which again could be either lexical, e.g. using expressions such as define, mean, understand (something by X), or prosodic/ typographical, e.g. using inverted commas, quotation marks, brackets or corresponding prosodic means. The discourse deictic aspect could be represented by demonstrative pronouns, e.g. this word means, or other deictic elements, e.g. the paragraph above is saying. In some cases, the deictic relationship is simply established by the repetition of the lexical element to be defined. I will give a few examples from my corpus to illustrate these categories. As in all examples below, the definiendum will be shaded, the definiens will be in bold, semantic connectors and metalinguistic markers will be underlined (except for typography/ punctuation, as underlining brackets or inverted commas would be hardly visible). (26) Meds like sertraline aka zoloft (a SSRI) can help with migraine. Power and status by definition 261 In example (26), for instance, the definiendum is the term sertraline, the definiens zoloft and - here, we even have two meanings - a SSRI (‘selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors’, a common class of antidepressants). The definiendum is not marked, but we find a semantic connector in the acronym aka ‘also known as’ and the brackets, which indicate that what we find between them is the meaning of the preceding term. (27) A: Can someone define “nystagmus” for me? […] B: Yes, nystagmus is involuntary eye movement. In the exchange above, the definiendum is the term nystagmus, the definiens - requested by poster A, provided by poster B - is involuntary eye movement (poster B uses affirmative Yes because poster B already offers this as a possible meaning, when saying Is this what nystagmus means - a uncontrollable movement of the eyes? at the end of his/ her post (not included above)). Poster A uses quotation marks as metalinguistic markers of nystagmus, and there are also two semantic connectors, viz. define in the question and is in the response (copula be is probably sufficient because A has already used the verb define to indicate that we are concerned with a relation between a word and its meaning). (28) The term paradoxical septal motion (PSM) refers to movement of the interventricular septum towards the right ventricle rather than the left ventricle in systole (during the contraction phase), with normal thickening. In this example, the definiendum is paradoxical septal motion, the definiens is, on the one hand, the acronym PSM, and, on the other hand, the whole passage from movement of the interventricular septum to the end of the sentence. The definiendum is metalinguistically marked by the word term. There are also two semantic connectors, viz. the brackets around PSM and the verb refers to. There are no restrictions on what qualifies as definiendum. There is, however, a tendency to define (technical) terms, i.e. expressions with a very specific meaning within a particular domain which are not normally used in everyday language, have no evaluative connotations and are primarily known to experts in the domain (hence the need for the definition in contexts involving non-experts). In some cases, however, it makes perfect sense to use definitions also for non-technical expressions if the latter are pivotal for the understanding of an utterance. This becomes obvious in example (29), which demands a definition of the non-expert word ugly, which the poster deems central to someone else’s post (to be precise, it is, as mentioned, demanding rather than providing a definition, but it supports the point). (29) define the word “ugly” Georg Marko 262 There are of course also mock definitions, which treat ordinary terms or artificial terms for very mundane aspects as if they had some special status. In (30), for instance, totally ridiculous amounts of candy is given as the meaning of the invented technical-looking acronym t.R.A.C. (30) I took my children to church last night for a t.R.A.C. (totally ridiculous amounts of candy) party. As can be seen in the discussions below, there is also some variation in what appears as definiens in definitions. It is important to stress at this point that I will only be concerned with meaning as the socially-shared sense that an expression has, but not with any personal connotations that individuals associate with such an expression. So (31), while looking like a definition formally at the beginning, is a typical example of what will not be included in the theory below. (31) […] so to me the word Migraine means extreme pain! ! ! 4.2 Order of elements The fundamental question in connection with the order of elements is: In which order do definiendum and definiens occur? The variable has two values, viz. anaphoric and cataphoric. These will be explained and illustrated below. 4.2.1 Anaphoric In anaphoric definitions, the term to be defined, i.e. the definiendum, occurs before its meaning, i.e. the definiens. This is the traditional sense of what we understand by definition, i.e. have a term and then provide its meaning. The sentences below are just two of the many examples to be found in my corpus of health forums. As can be seen, (32) is a definition in a more straightforward sense as the discourse referent limbo is metalinguistically marked by the word word and quotation marks and we also have a clear semantic connector in is defined as. The second sentence is less clear since neither is the discourse referent, i.e. the word colostomy, metalinguistically marked, nor is the copula is a clear semantic connector. We may, however, still interpret the copula as a semantic connector of a definition because the neoclassical compound (a word composed of elements from Ancient Greek) colostomy looks like a technical term - and thus a term which a lay audience may not know - and the rest of the sentence with its generic character resembles the formulation we find in definitions. (32) The word “limbo” is defined in Wikipedia as this: Latin limbus, edge or boundary, referring to the “edge” of Hell Power and status by definition 263 (33) A colostomy is a surgical operation that creates an opening from the colon to the surface of the body. 4.2.2 Cataphoric In cataphoric definitions, the order is reversed, i.e. we first encounter the description of a phenomenon and are only then given the term for it. We may classify this as labelling (or naming), i.e. we provide a label for something, rather than as defining. Strictly speaking, however, this is a definition because we have all the required components. The only difference is whether the expression is the point of departure or the phenomenon. The sentences below are examples of cataphoric definitions. The definiendum is not metalinguistically marked, but we have semantic connectors - is known as and is called - in both examples, which indicate the status of the sentences as cataphoric definitions. (34) Stroke induced dementia is known as vascular dementia. (35) This condition, dehydration plus hyperthermia is called heat stroke. Why is the distinction between anaphoric and cataphoric definitions relevant for the study of social functions of definitions? Cataphoric definitions have a secondary function with respect to textual organization. Having a term for a phenomenon which may be clumsy to describe allows speakers and writers and other participants in the interaction to refer back to this phenomenon with a single lexical element. A term might also be provided if this very expression has already been used elsewhere in the current speech event, thus forming a cohesive tie. Unlike anaphoric definitions, which are crucial for comprehension - without them, we would not understand what a particular term means - cataphoric definitions, however, are redundant for comprehension as not having a term for a phenomenon does not mean that we do not understand the very phenomenon. Being a redundant move, cataphoric definitions may thus even more strongly than anaphoric definitions be motivated by the secondary goal of presenting oneself as a ‘know-it-all’ and of creating a competence gap between speakers/ writers and addressees. This probably must be taken with a grain of salt since this redundancy of cataphoric definitions may also mean that they and their implications are not interpreted as relevant by others. So a more thorough analysis of this variable is certainly necessary. (I tend to favour the former interpretation.) Georg Marko 264 4.3 Formal elaboration The fundamental question in connection with formal elaboration is: How elaborate is the linguistic structure of the definiens? In other words: if we provide meanings, how do we formulate these meanings linguistically? There are two values, viz. propositional and lexical, both with two subclasses. These will be explained and illustrated below. 4.3.1 Propositional A definition is propositional, if the definiens is represented by a structure that explicitly or implicitly describes a situation in the world and could theoretically be true or false. Propositional definitions may be:  Phrasal The definiens is a phrasal structure, normally a (complex, i.e. consisting of more than a single word) noun phrase. In the example below, the definiendum arrhythmia is defined by the noun phrase an irregular heartbeat, which implicitly expresses the proposition ‘if/ when one’s heartbeat is irregular’. (36) You also may need a stress test if, during exercise, you […] have other symptoms of an arrhythmia (an irregular heartbeat).  Clausal The definiens is a clausal structure, often a subordinate clause starting with when or if. In the sentence below, the definiens is represented by the when-clause. (37) Chiari Malformation is when your cerebellar tonsils protrude down into your spinal cord […] 4.3.2 Lexical A definition is lexical if the definiens is simply an alternative lexical element. This element may be a(n):  Synonym The definiens is an alternative term that has the same (or almost the same) meaning as the definiendum. In the example below, only the single word clot is given as the meaning of the word emboli (which is further metalinguistically characterized as stemming from Greek here). (38) emboli is from the Greek and means clot. Power and status by definition 265  Allonym The definiens can be regarded as an alternative realization of the same (or almost the same) lexeme (= allonym). This almost exclusively applies to abbreviations and the corresponding full forms. In (39) below, the definiendum AP, an acronym, is thus defined by the spelt-out allonym Advanced Placement. This also applies to (40), which does, however, not include a semantic connector, but is just metalinguistically marked by brackets. Interestingly enough, the term is further defined by the phrasal definiens a progressive neurological disorder and a form of dystonia. (39) AP means Advanced Placement […] (40) Benign essential blepharospasm (BEB) is a progressive neurological disorder and a form dystonia. As far as the social implications of the distinction introduced above are concerned, it seems plausible to assume that lexical definitions require less real expertise and may therefore be used by posters who are not really interested in providing their addressees with the meanings of terms. This could, in turn, mean that for them the social function may have more significance. However, we do not know how other participants react to different linguistic realizations of definitions. Perhaps more elaborate definitions, particularly those using whole clauses, might be perceived as more knowledgeable. This could then create a larger competence gap than the shorter forms of defining. (I tend to prefer the latter option.) 4.4 Genericness The fundamental question in connection with genericness is: How general is the definiens? The variable has two values, viz. generic and exemplary. These will be explained and illustrated below. 4.4.1 Generic Generic definitions describe the meaning of an expression as a set of general, timeless and non-individual features. As definitions are prototypically generic, almost all of the examples given above and below belong to this category and further ones are not required. Georg Marko 266 4.4.2 Exemplary In exemplary definitions, the definiens consists of the anecdotal description of a specific event, experience or phenomenon (or a series or group of these), usually with the implicit invitation to generalize this description (often with discourse markers indicating exemplification such as for example or e.g. - the very fact that something is labelled an example implies the superordinate generic category that this something is an instance of). Exemplary definitions are clearly the non-prototypical case with respect to genericness and they are therefore relatively rare (and difficult to track in a corpus). (41) could, however, be considered an instance of this category. The poster defines the expression big events by giving an example, viz. her grandmother’s death (to be frank, she seems to be wandering off-topic here so that the relation between the dream of her grandmother’s death and the concomitant hope that it is not a bad omen, on the one hand, and big events (and her failing memory), on the other, remains unclear). (41) One last problem is my memory, I can never remember both big events or simple little things that I see, or was told, or read. By big events I mean, for example, I had a dream that my grandmother passed away and the next day I was rethinking the dream and told my father about how I don’t like having dreams about family dying because what if it were to really happen. Providing an example as a definiens appears to be more common with cataphoric definitions. This does not really come as a surprise as describing something concrete and then adding a label for the general category under which this can be subsumed does not seem to be an unfamiliar pattern (albeit occurring not nearly as frequently as other forms of definitions). The exchange in (42) is an example of a cataphoric exemplary definition. Poster A describes the (recurrent) experience of a whooshing sound in her right ear. Poster B refers to her description and says that her experience (when you can hear it [the whooshing]) is called intracranial hypertension or pseudotumor cerebri. (42) A: […] I also occasionally and not necessarily concurrently hear a whooshing rhythmic (to my heartbeat) in my right ear. […] B: […] The whooshing is your blood. When you can hear it, it is called intracranial hypertension, or occasionally called pseudotumor cerebri. […] We do not need to discuss the difference between generic and exemplary definitions with respect to their social functions. The latter do not occur so often and if, they will probably not be perceived as proper definitions. This may, in turn, mean that associations with knowledge and expertise will be weaker. Power and status by definition 267 4.5 Semantic exhaustiveness The fundamental question in connection with semantic exhaustiveness is: How much semantic detail does the definiens provide? To put it differently, we are interested in whether a definition provides the full and unambiguous meaning of an expression or only a partial version of it. The variable has three values, viz. exhaustive, categorial (nonexhaustive), and allonymic. These will be explained and illustrated below. 4.5.1 Exhaustive In exhaustive definitions, the definiens provides the full distinctive meaning of an expression, i.e. the meaning that is specific to the latter and which it does not share with any other expression (with the exception of synonyms). The definitions in the following two examples are exhaustive as the two meanings exactly describe what sclerosis and palinopsia are, respectively, neither being more general, nor more specific. (43) The “sclerosis” [this part of the word multiple sclerosis] means scars […] (44) I have had visual snow and palinopsia (afterimages) for over a year now. 4.5.2 Categorial (non-exhaustive) In categorial definitions, the definiens only contains reference to a superordinate category without giving more specific details that would distinguish a concept (as the meaning of an expression) from other members of this category. They therefore are non-exhaustive and also ambiguous (there is more than one expression that would be defined by the given meaning). The following two examples feature categorial definitions as Naproxen is not the only non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAIDs are, as a matter of fact, the standard class of painkillers) and palinopsia is just one of many eye problems (note that in (44) palinopsia is defined exhaustively). (45) I have taken naproxen (a non steroidal antiinflammatory drug) for just over a month. (46) I also […] developed palinopsia (eye problem) Categorial definitions cannot only be anaphoric, but they may also be cataphoric, as in (47) below, where the definiendum metroprolol is added to a categorial definiens a beta blocker. (47) The last thing I’d recommend is a beta blocker called metoprolol […] Georg Marko 268 4.5.3 Allonymic As already mentioned in connection with formal elaborations above, allonymic definitions are restricted to expressions that could be argued to be realized in two different ways. This primarily applies to abbreviations and acronyms and their spelt-out forms. Providing an explicit version of such a term is, to a certain extent, an exhaustive definition, albeit a very special one. The two examples below show the difference between an ordinary definition and an allonymic definition. The acronym TIA is defined by the explicit three-word allonym transient ischaemic attack (spelt correctly) in (48), and in terms of its conceptual content - a minor stroke (i.e. a condition caused by a brief interruption of blood flow to certain brain regions, which causes stroke-like symptoms, which however disappear again without causing any permanent damage) - in (49). (48) If stroke was excluded other possibilities could be TIA (transitory ishemic attack), brain infection or some poisoning. (49) I had a tia (minor stroke). The three types of semantic exhaustiveness described above also differ with respect to the knowledge they (seem) to indicate. Categorial and allonymic definitions are certainly easier to provide - a quick WWW search on our smartphones will do the trick - than exhaustive ones, which might mean that the latter may be more effective in creating a competence gap. However, not giving a full definition could also be interpreted as a sign that the current speaker or writer does not think that her addressees and the other participants in a discussion forum are able to understand a more detailed account. This could then also lead to a widening of the perceived competence gap. (I tend to favour the former interpretation.) 4.6 Interactiveness The fundamental question in connection with interactiveness is: Is the definition the product of a single speaker or writer or is it accomplished interactively and collaboratively by several participants in a speech event across two or more turns? While we could differentiate between who first uses an expression, who initiates a definition, and who provides the definition, I do not want to overcomplicate the matter and therefore postulate just two values for this variable, viz. speaker-definitions and collaborative definitions (speaker encompassing writers here). These will be explained and illustrated below. Power and status by definition 269 4.6.1 Speaker-definitions If writers (more rarely, speakers) of monologic texts feel that their readers are not familiar with a lexical element being used, they will define it. They thus provide all elements of the definition, the definiendum, the definiens, the metalinguistic marking and/ or the semantic connector themselves. This might also be the case in interactive discourses if one participant introduces and uses a term that she then defines herself. It is not necessary to give further examples as most of those cited above are as a matter of fact speaker-definitions (with the exception of passages involving speakers A and B). 4.6.2 Collaborative definitions In interactive scenarios, there is also the possibility of collaboration, where we distinguish between using an expression, initiating a definition (e.g. by requesting one - What does X mean? or Could you define X? - or by evoking one - I’m not sure I understand this.), and providing the meaning of the expression, and where these acts are performed by at least two different participants. We might thus have one writer using a term, but at the same time asking for a definition. This may at first seem odd, but the situation is common if people talk - as they often do in health forums - about statements by third parties, e.g. a diagnosis by a doctor or even other people’s posts. In example (50) below, for instance, poster A speaks about what others talk about to then ask what they mean by the expression episode (in connection with multiple sclerosis) (interestingly, she also proposes a potential definition herself). Poster B, in the following turn, gives a sentencelength explanation in response to the request for a definition. (50) A: I always read about people having episodes. What is an episode exactly? I’m guessing that on May 5th when I experienced Vertigo for 24 hours, that was an episode? […] B: MS attack / episode is generally considered when it lasts for at least 24 hours and leaves when it decides to go. The request for a definition may also come from the second poster as in example (51) (already cited as (27) above, at least in a shorter version). A introduces the term nystagmus, B asks for a definition - the request is not directly addressed to A, but to anyone in the community - also, as in the example above, offering a plausible hypothesis concerning the meaning of the term (Does this have something to do with…). Finally, A provides the demanded definition. (51) A: I have mild nystagmus while tracking … like during reading. Mine does not get better no matter what I do but it is quite mild. Georg Marko 270 B: Can someone define “nystagmus” for me? Does this have something to do with eyes jumping around or not staying still? A: Yes, nystagmus is involuntary eye movement. Collaborative definitions may also be more complex than the two examples given, with more than two people involved and the whole process extending beyond two or three turns. The category described here is not restricted to anaphoric definitions, but also cataphoric definitions may be collaborative if writer or speaker A describes a phenomenon and speaker/ writer B then provides an expression for the latter (in the sense of What you are describing is called X.). Strictly speaking, A’s utterance is only turned into a definiens by B’s mentioning of the expression. Example (52) contains an interactively created cataphoric definition. Poster A describes an episode of severe headaches. Poster B refers back to this description and says that the term for this type of headaches is ice pick headaches (the expression is metalinguistically marked by quotation marks; this is relevant because sounds like is not normally a semantic connector pointing to a definition). Interestingly enough, B goes on to provide a definition of the very term herself (between brackets and introduced by i.e.), indicating that she feels that a personal anecdote - and it is this rather than a generic description of a phenomenon - is not sufficient as the meaning of a (medical) term. (52) A: [… description of an episode of headaches] B: Some of what you’re describing sounds like "ice pick headaches" (i.e. painful, stabbing headaches that only last for a few seconds at a time that are NOT accompanied by any other neurological symptoms). A comparison between speaker-definitions and collaborative definitions with respect to their effects on the creation of a competence gap and, as a consequence, of hierarchies and power relations in discussion forums - or elsewhere - suggests that the former category may play a bigger part in this. In collaborative definitions, the individual poster does not autonomously decide what to define and when and how to define it. She will thus not really be able to use definitions - consciously or not - to create the aforementioned competence gap. As a consequence, speakerdefinitions may be more interesting for a social investigation of definitions in discourse. 4.7 Attribution The fundamental question in connection with attribution is: Is a definition attributed to someone who is not a participant in the ongoing discourse? Power and status by definition 271 The two values of this variable are self-attribution and otherattribution. These will be explained and illustrated below. 4.7.1 Self-attribution In self-attributed definitions, the source of knowledge underlying the act of defining a lexical element is the speaker or writer herself. She may explicitly appear in the definition, e.g., if she uses a construction such as I define X as or as far as I remember, X means…. The fact that I have not found any examples of this in my corpus suggests that it is not very common for definitions to include direct references to the speaker herself. However, self-attribution is the default option, i.e. without any evidence that the definition given is actually someone else’s - and not the speaker’s - we assume that the speaker has the necessary knowledge for the definition. All examples cited above are actually self-attributed definitions. 4.7.2 Other-attribution In other attributed definitions, the source of knowledge underlying a definition is someone other than the speaker herself, generally someone with a high credibility, e.g. a scientist or more generally, any kind of expert. In some cases, it is not a person, but rather a source (text), e.g. the Oxford English Dictionary or Google, because the information obtained from there cannot easily be personalized and because the source might carry more authority than a concrete person (e.g. the OED is the authority, not the ‘unknown’ lexicographer). In the context of health forums, other-attribution usually involves general or specialist medical doctors. (53) and (54) below are examples of other-attributed definitions. In (53), the definition (MS means “multiple scars”) is embedded in a superordinate clause (doctors feel X) (which is itself embedded in another clause, but this is just an aside). This superordinate clause indicates that the definition in this case is assigned to doctors and there is therefore no selfattribution. In (54) (already quoted as (32)), the source to which the definition is explicitly (is defined in) attributed is Wikipedia. The definition itself is represented as a literal quote (the passage following the colon). (In both examples, the other source of knowledge is in recte, i.e. not in italics.) There is one important difference between (53) and (54), viz. that the way the attribution is formulated in the former suggests that multiple scars is not the real meaning of MS. The other-attribution thus serves to cast doubt on a definition and the whole sentence cannot be interpreted as the poster providing readers with the information that MS really means ‘multiple scars’. In (54), the reference to Wikipedia is supposed to add authority to the definition and the sentence can certainly be understood as the poster telling readers about the meaning of the term limbo. Georg Marko 272 (53) It seems that doctors feel that MS means "multiple scars". (54) The word „limbo“ is defined in Wikipedia as this: Latin limbus, edge or boundary, referring to the "edge" of Hell It might be objected that other-attributed definitions, especially those relativizing the meanings given, are cases of reporting a definition (from another text) rather than providing a definition and that they are therefore not metadiscursive, but rather intertextual. I agree that this type of definition certainly has different functions from self-attributed ones. This, however, does not change their fundamental metadiscursive nature - after all, speakers and writers always mention a meaning to a term that is being used elsewhere in the ongoing discourse, whether they at the same time undermine this definition or whether they actually corroborate it. Self-attributions are not only the prototypical form of definitions and the default option, any function with respect to the local management of the competence gap, hierarchies and power can only be fulfilled by selfattribution as other-attribution clearly denies any claim to special knowledge or expertise of the speaker. 4.8 Explicitness The fundamental question in connection with explicitness is: Is there a semantic connector, i.e. an element that explicitly signals that the current move is a definition? The two values of this variable are explicit and implicit. These will be explained and illustrated below. 4.8.1 Explicit Explicit definitions include semantic connectors, i.e. expressions overtly denoting the word-meaning relationship. These include, for instance, means, is defined as, is a (in anaphoric definitions, i.e. in defining in the narrow sense), and is called, is named, aka (‘also known as’) (in cataphoric definitions, i.e. in labelling). Here are a few examples (semantic connectors are underlined, as elsewhere in this chapter). In the anaphoric examples (55) and (56), the connectors are defined as and is another word for, in the cataphoric examples (57) and (58), the connectors are is called and aka. (55) […] men who exercised vigorously defined as breaking into a sweat more than five times a week - […] (56) He said I have thickening of the anterior leaflet of my Mitral valve with mild submitral chordal, which is another word for calcification build up. Power and status by definition 273 (57) […] blood pressure between 120/ 80 and 139/ 89 is called “prehypertension” […] (58) Yep, if you have migraine without headache with aura (aka painless or acephalgic migraine) 4.8.2 Implicit In implicit definitions, overt semantic connectors are missing. The meaning of a lexical items is usually marked by punctuation: it may occur in parentheses (separated by dashes or commas), between brackets or quotation marks/ inverted commas. In cataphoric definitions, where the lexical item follows its meaning, it is the item that is thus marked. Examples (59) and (60) are anaphoric definitions, in the former the meaning of diverticulitis occurs between brackets directly following the definiendum, in the latter the meaning of photophobia occurs after a comma also directly following the definiendum. In the two cataphoric cases (61) and (62), the definiens is put between brackets, bradycardia in the one case, LDN in the other. (59) We found out that she has diverticulitis (inflammation of the colon) (60) Have you been told that you have photophobia, sensitivity to fluorescent lighting? (61) In fact, low blood pressure can be a symptom of heart attack, as well as an abnormally low heart rate (bradycardia), problems with heart valves, and heart failure. (62) tried Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) for first time - - good so far! It is difficult to assess the effect that explicit and implicit definitions have with respect to the secondary social functions of definitions. I assume that attention plays a role here and that constructions that background the defining process have a greater impact. The speaker’s or writer’s claim to a special knowledge that allows her to provide meanings to what are often very technical expressions will be more difficult to reject or relativize, if it is made in passing. Implicit definitions would be the more effective tool for underlining a competence gap and creating an imbalance of power. We have to treat this conclusion with caution, though, because we could very well argue the opposite, too, viz. that an explicit definition foregrounds the fact that the writer or speaker has a special knowledge. (I favour the former interpretation.) Georg Marko 274 4.9 Metalinguistics This variable is different because it is not actually concerned with different types of definitions but with a feature that distinguishes definitions from cases where we simply provide information about a phenomenon. In a broad sense, we could also classify this as definition, after all these phenomena are also normally represented by particular expressions. This means there is a difference between metalinguistic definitions and nonmetalinguistics definitions. 4.9.1 Metalinguistic definitions As this article is mainly about definitions as forms of metadiscourse, I have only talked about metalinguistic definitions. The class therefore does not need to be described any further. 4.9.2 Non-metalinguistic definitions In non-metalinguistic definitions, neither the phenomenon which a speaker or writer is talking about nor the information being provided about it is metalinguistically marked as a linguistic element or as linguistic meaning, i.e. no italics, quotation marks, etc. Grammatically speaking, the definiendum is used like an ordinary word, taking, for instance, articles (e.g. a heart attack) or modifiers (e.g. a serious heart attack) and appearing in the plural (e.g. heart attacks). The definiens is not limited to, or may not even contain, essential information; so it can be more elaborate than ordinary semantic meanings and/ or be concerned with nonessential, accidental aspects. Any semantic connector is not metalinguistic, but as general as possible, most commonly as the copula in is a/ an. Here are two examples of non-metalinguistic definitions. In both, the phenomenon is used in a generic noun phrase with the indefinite article, viz. a stent and a fever. While the information given in (63) on a stent resembles an ordinary formulation used in connection with the linguistic meaning of an item, the information provided in (64) mentions nonessential aspects of a fever, saying what one function could be - to be an indexical sign of a problem in the immune system - rather than mentioning what it really is. (63) A stent is a stainless steel coil inserted into a coronary artery to help hold it open. (64) A fever is a sign that the immune system is “working”. What I have said so far on non-metalinguistic definitions might suggest that there is a clear boundary to metalinguistic ones. To be honest, I do not believe that this is the case. I think that the distinction is scalar, i.e. a matter of more or less, rather than categorial, i.e. a matter of either-or. Power and status by definition 275 (64) thus is clearly a non-metalinguistic definition (if we can really use the concept of definition here at all). In (63), this is much less obvious and we could very well interpret it as a definition of the word stent. This section is just supposed to highlight the fact that it is sometimes very difficult to study definitions exhaustively, especially because of this fuzziness. Apart from this, there is nothing important to say about the opposition between metalinguistic and non-metalinguistic definitions. This fuzziness certainly poses a methodological problem, but the distinction is irrelevant for a discussion of the social effects of definitions. 5. The (hypothetical) study: outlook and conclusion Instead of a proper “Conclusion” chapter, I will here present the condensed outline of the study of the use of definitions in health forums to and for which this article was supposed to lay the foundation and set the agenda. All these consideration should form the foundation of, should feed into, and should be considered in, a study of the social functions and effects of definitions in the lay-to-lay interaction in health forums on the worldwide web. The research questions of this study could be: How, to what extent and by which linguistic means do posters to lay health forums use definitions and which sociocultural implications does their use of definitions have, with a particular emphasis on the construction of social hierarchies and power relations related to a competence gap? As patterns cannot be established by looking at individual texts, these questions require the analysis of a corpus of health forum postings (such as the one used as a source of examples in this article). Methodologically speaking, the questions require that we find, identify, classify, and quantify definitions in such a corpus. Based on the discussions of social effects of different types of definitions in the previous chapter, we could postulate the following principles. ‣ The use of definitions helps to create a competence gap between the person defining a term and other participants in the interaction. Implication:  Definitions >no definitions 7 7 Using the greater-than-sign means that the more definitions I find in the corpus, the more participants in the generally egalitarian scenario of the health forum appear to be interested in creating a competence gap and in creating hierarchies and Georg Marko 276 ‣ The less central a definition is for the understanding of the ongoing discourse, the greater its social effects (with respect to the aspects mentioned). Implication:  Cataphoric definitions (labelling) > anaphoric definitions (definitions in the narrow sense) 8 ‣ The more detailed a definition is, the more it indicates that a writer or speaker has expert knowledge in the field, which in turn means a greater impact on its social effects. Implication:  Exhaustive definitions > categorial definitions  Propositional definitions > lexical definitions  Generic definitions> exemplary definitions ‣ The less attention a definition attracts, the less participants in an interaction will see its possible social implications, which in turn means a greater impact on its social effects. Implications:  Lexical definitions > propositional definitions 9 ‣ The more speaker-centred a definition is, the more the speaker is in control and the more aspects of knowledge or power are associated with her directly, the greater the impact on its social effects. Implication  Speaker-definitions > collaborative definitions  Self-attributed definitions > other attributed definitions Taking these into consideration should help in answering the research questions. power relations. In this case, this is particularly relevant if I compare the data from my corpus to data from other corpora. I will also use this form of representation in the following. It always means that I have to look at the quantitative relations between different types of definitions and that the category (or the feature) on the left has a greater impact on the competence gap, hierarchies and power than the one on the right and that therefore the quantitative relation between the categories is relevant. 8 Alternatively, we may also argue that the exact opposite holds, i.e. the more central a definition is and thus the more important the speaker’s knowledge becomes in the given situation, the greater its role in achieving a secondary social function 9 The last two principles may form an opposition and it is difficult to judge which one is more important and whether we should claim that propositional definitions are more effective with respect to the competence gap and power (because of the detail they provide) or lexical definitions (because they can be given in passing and do not normally attract a lot of attention). Power and status by definition 277 Studying the local management of the competence gap, social hierarchies and power relations means that we should not stop at the definitions themselves, but should also take a closer look at the interactive cotext to see whether the implied claims to knowledge and power are accepted (e.g. by thanking a participant for a definition), enhanced (e.g. by praising a participant for a definition - You really know a lot about this stuff. or Wow, that’s so interesting), mitigated (e.g. by reclaiming knowledge for oneself and thus rejecting the unknowing role - I know (in reaction to a definition)), or rejected (e.g. by saying that a definition is wrong). These would have to be taken into account for a full appraisal of the social effects of definitions. 5.1 A methodological aside Let me end with describing some ideas concerning the main methodological challenge in a corpus-based study of definitions - or of metadiscourse, more generally, for that matter - viz. how to track them in a corpus. Considering that a definition consists of four components, the definiendum, the definiens, the semantic connector, and the metalinguistic marker, we could focus on any of these in our search for definitions. I will very briefly discuss the pros and cons of approaches based on these components. ‣ Definiens-oriented As an obligatory element of a definition, the definiens appears to be a good starting point for a search. However, there are no formal restrictions on how to formulate the meaning of a term so that there are no common formal features of this component. A definiens-oriented search thus seems infeasible. ‣ Definiendum-oriented Like the definiens, the definiendum is an obligatory element. Unlike the definiens, however, it is a short element normally consisting of a single word or a relatively short sequence of words, from a relatively limited set of candidates, e.g. loan words from Latin or Greek (e.g. vena cava), neoclassical compounds/ forms (e.g. allopathy, nephritis), and acronyms (e.g. TIA ‘transient ischaemic attack’, CABG ‘coronary artery bypass graft’) are typical examples. Definienda are, however, not fully predictable, i.e. focusing on these three types of word formation would still mean that we miss out on many expressions that are defined in the corpus. What is more, not all tokens of the above classes appear inside a definition. As a matter of fact, we would expect most words to be defined only once in a text, but to occur several times elsewhere. This means that a corpus search would yield many false positives, examples that fulfil Georg Marko 278 the search criteria without belonging to the target set (i.e. definitions in this case). ‣ Semantic connector-oriented The major argument in favour of starting our search at the semantic connectors of definitions is that this is a limited set. So searching for defined, define, definition, means, has the meaning/ with the meaning, called, named, aka, etc. should produce an output including a large group of definitions in a corpus. However, the results will still represent only a sample of the definitions actually used in a corpus because firstly, many definitions are implicit and therefore lack an explicit semantic connector and secondly, words such as especially means are too general. They are thus not only used in definitions, but also in a lot of other contexts. A search would thus again yield many false positives. ‣ Metalinguistic marker-oriented The arguments for and against looking at metalinguistic markers - e.g. italics, brackets, inverted commas, quotation marks - are similar to those used in connection with semantic connectors. These markers are often part of definitions so focusing on any of the devices mentioned will produce a large number of definitions. However, any of the above, whether italics, brackets, or quotation marks, are also commonly used for other purposes. Besides, not all definitions necessarily contain a metalinguistic marker. Possibly only a combination of these approaches could prove successful and would yield at least the vast majority of instances of definitions in a corpus. But whatever methodological focus we choose, the efforts appear to be worth our while as only a systematic search for definitions and their categories will allow deeper insights into the social implications of these acts. References Ädel, Annelie (2006). Metadiscourse in L1 and L2 English. Amsterdam & Philadelphia. PA: John Benjamins. Childs, Carrie (2015). “Formulations.” In: Todd Sandel/ Cornelia Ilie/ Karen Tracy (eds.) (2015). The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction. 634-638. Crismore, Avon/ Raija Markkanen/ Margaret Steffensen (1993). “Metadiscourse in persuasive writing: a study of texts written by American and Finnish university students.” Written Communication 10(1). 39-71. Eggins, Suzanne (1994). Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics. London: Pinter. Fairclough. Norman (1992). Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge [etc.]: Polity Press. Power and status by definition 279 Fill, Alwin (1993). Ökolinguistik. Eine Einführung. Tübingen: Narr. Garfinkel, Harold/ Harvey Sacks (1986, originally 1970). “On formal structures of practical actions.” In: Harold Garfinkel (ed.) (1986). Ethnomethodological Studies of Work. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 157-189. Halliday, Michael A.K. (1994). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 2 nd edition. London [etc.]: Edward Arnold. Hyland, Ken (2005). Metadiscourse. Exploring Interaction in Writing. London & New York: continuum. Kettemann, Bernhard / Georg Marko/ Eva Triebl (2010). “‘I have MS. MS doesn’t have me.’ Social identity construction in the discourse of multiple sclerosis forums.” In: Rudolf de Cillia/ Helmut Gruber/ Michał Krzyżanowski / Florian Menz (eds.) (2010). Diskurs - Politik - Identität/ Discourse - Politics - Identity. Festschrift für Ruth Wodak zum 60. Geburtstag. 355-367. Lupton, Deborah (2003). Medicine as Culture. 2 nd edition. Los Angeles [etc.]: Sage. Marko, Georg (2010). “‘Your story has made me feel angry on your behalf.’ The roles of empathy and equality in the construction of health identities in lay-tolay interaction on chronic diseases.” Paper presented at CADAAD 2010 (Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines). University von Łódź (Polen) (13.-15. September 2010). Marko, Georg (2012). “My painful self. Health Identity Construction in Discussion Forums on Headaches and Migraines.” AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 37/ 2. 245-272. Mauranen, Anna (2010). “Discourse Reflexivity - A Discourse Universal? The Case of ELF.” Nordic Journal of English Studies 9(2). 13-40. Penz, Hermine (2016). “The uses and functions of metadiscourse in intercultural project discussions on language education.” In: Nikola Dobrić/ Eva-Maria Graf/ Alexander Onysko (eds.) (2016). Corpora in Applied Linguistics Current Approaches. Newcastle upon Tyne. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 95-120. Schiffrin, Deborah (1980). “Meta-Talk. Organizational and Evaluative Brackets in Discourse.” Sociolinguistic Inquiry: Language and Social Interaction 50. 199-236. Sinclair, John (2005). “Language as a string of beads: Discourse and the M-word.” In: Elena Tognini- Bonelli/ Gabriella Dell Lungo Camiciotti (eds.) (2005). Strategies in Academic Discourse. Amsterdam & Philadelphia. PA: John Benjamins. 163-168. Swales, John M. (1990). Genre Analysis. English in academic and research settings. Cambridge. CUP Thompson, Geoff (1996). Introducing Functional Grammar. London [etc.]: Edward Arnold. Georg Marko Department of English Studies Karl-Franzens-University Graz Austria Pragmatics of power On the intricacies of metadiscourse in the Labour leadership debates 2015 and 2016 Johannes Scherling Metadiscourse, the use of language to refer to any aspect of discourse, such as by clarifying one’s own stance or by criticizing other participant’s discourse conduct, is a common feature in debates in the political domain. By pointing to perceived inadequacies of discourse tone and conduct as well as by - more or less explicitly - stating agreement or disagreement or by explicating one’s arguments, metadiscourse here functions as a means to position politicians in relation to other politicians, but also to deflect from questions of content by diverting to the nature of the discourse. Arguably, heavy use of metadiscourse suggests that the person employing it feels the need to distance themselves from others, so as not to be seen as being too similar, as well as to justify their own positions, while a more moderate use of metadiscursive devices may indicate a higher degree of confidence. In this paper, I intend to show how this is relevant by analyzing metadiscourse in several instances of the UK Labour leadership debates of 2015 and 2016 between Jeremy Corbyn and his respective contenders, thereby also shedding light on the power struggles between Corbyn - who was largely identified as ‘anti-establishment’ - and the party establishment. 1. Introduction Metadiscourse can be a signifier of power. The fact that participants in a conversation feel it is necessary to revisit previous parts of discourse instead of progressing linearly, to clarify or justify their positions instead of asserting them, to criticize their opponents instead of proving them wrong, may on occasion be revelatory of a certain self-perception. It suggests that the participants in question feel the need for clarification or AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 42 (2017) · Heft 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Johannes Scherling 282 justification, feel a need for criticism which merely delegitimizes the other rather than providing alternatives, and thus arguably feel insecure and lacking the power to define the narrative of the discourse. On the other hand, metadiscursive elements can also be indicative of the wielding of power in that they may imply a certain hierarchy, projecting somebody as being in control of the narrative by employing such elements to criticize the opponents’ conduct or weak points, or to entangle them in contradictions. This is highly relevant in political debates, as such impressions of power - or its projection - based on the use, non-use, or type of metadiscourse may well affect the image a candidate is trying to bring across. It affects whether they will be perceived as a self-confident person who can assert their views and avoid becoming defensive following criticism, or an insecure one with the constant desire to emphasize and justify their standpoints. A leadership debate is a prime example where this unseen metadiscursive conflict takes place, as various candidates compete to be seen as the most confident, the most professional and the most decisive person in the room. The way that these candidates employ metadiscourse to organize, explicate and interpret their own discourse as well as that of their competitors can therefore be seen as an important factor in both how they perceive themselves as well as how the audience will perceive them. The Labour leadership debates in the UK in 2015 and again in 2016 are a good case in point and allow for an interesting juxtaposition of how (or whether) a candidate - Jeremy Corbyn in this case - acts differently when he is an outsider or when he is an incumbent, on the level of metadiscourse. In this paper, debates from the two time frames will be analyzed with regard to what kind of metadiscourse is employed, to what effect, and what this can tell the audience about the relative power a candidate wields. In Chapter 2, a few theoretical concepts will be clarified before Chapter 3 provides some background information about the leadership debates of 2015/ 6. Chapter 4 briefly outlines research methodology and corpus data, while Chapter 5 is dedicated to the analysis and juxtaposition of the respective candidates’ use of metadiscursive devices, which will then be discussed in Chapter 6. The purpose of this analysis lies not in a quantitative account of the use of metadiscourse (although some quantitative terminology is inevitable), but rather in a qualitative analysis of certain strategies employed by the candidates, their differences, and their impact. Pragmatics of power 283 2. The intricacies of metadiscourse 2.1. Metalanguage When people use language, they do so not only to refer to their mindinternal and -external worlds, but to a considerable extent also to discuss, clarify or object to the language code itself, a function that is known as ‘metalanguage’. As such, it stands in contrast to what is called object language with its focus on language-external entities. It is an important feature of human communication, and one of Charles Hockett’s (1963) design features of language, referred to as reflexivity, meaning that human language can be used to draw attention to the code itself. As such, metalanguage is a broader concept, and differs from metadiscourse in that the latter should be concerned only with the current, rather than any other text (cf. Mauranen 1993). The purpose of metadiscourse is not to add propositional content to a text (and is hence also not part of its truth conditions), but to signal the author’s presence and interaction with the text (cf. Vande Kopple 1985). This means that the two sentences X is the case and Let me be very clear that X is the case would have the same proposition (namely “X IS THE CASE”), but the latter would be employing metadiscursive elements to comment on the proposition. Such metadiscourse, i.e. the act of referring to the language code self or to language use, may be called reflexive as “it reflects on what is being, or has been said” (Mey 2001: 174). Schiffrin (1980: 231, cited in Hyland/ Tse 2004: 157) more broadly defines metadiscourse as the author’s linguistic and rhetorical manifestation in a text in order to “bracket the discourse organisation and the expressive implications of what is being said.” 2.2. Approaches to metadiscourse A very famous approach to the metafunctions of language was put forth by Halliday (cf. 1996), who distinguished between ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings. The first, ideational meaning, is concerned with the representation of the world; the second, interpersonal meaning, denotes the additional meaning that may be explicit or implied and can be infered about the speaker’s attitudes and feelings about an issue; the third one, textual meaning, is concerned with the organization of information (both on a macroand micro-level), its relation to other texts or text passages. Among scholars specializing on metadiscourse, there is disagreement on whether metadiscourse encompasses both the interpersonal and textual function, or only the latter, i.e. whether metadiscourse also includes notions such as attitude or perspective. According to Hyland and Tse (2004: 158), metadiscourse is an “open category” where “the same items can function as metadiscourse in some parts and not in others.” This means that the same words or phrases can function as meta- Johannes Scherling 284 discourse in some cases, but have no such function in others. Thus not their form, but their function in a text is important. Approaches to metadiscourse can roughly be categorized along the lines of the aforementioned disagreement, and consequently into what has been called the broad approach and the narrow approach, respectively. The broad approach, as adopted by linguists such as Markkanen et al. (1993) or Hyland (1998), incorporates both the interpersonal and textual functions of language; it also takes into account related categories such as stance, which express “personal feelings, attitudes, value judgements, or assessments” (Biber et al. 1999: 966). Within this approach, metadiscourse is seen as modifying and/ or highlighting certain aspects of the text and providing the writer’s attitude to it. For proponents of the narrow approach, on the other hand, interpersonal meaning is mostly considered to be outside of metadiscourse proper, as it conveys information about the participants rather than the text itself. This approach, represented by, among others, Mauranen (1993) or Dahl (2004), particularly explores all aspects of text organization (textual meaning), and thus focuses on the notion of reflexivity on text, addresser and addressee (socalled textual metadiscourse), where “reflexivity excludes modal expressions and stance from metadiscourse, because they reflect the writer’s attitude and perform the truth value of the proposition, they are textexternal states of affairs of the writer, and they do not show awareness of the text” (Tuomi 2009: 67). Based on this notion and drawing on Jakobson’s (1960) functional model, Ädel (2006) distinguishes between metadiscourse that is directed at the addresser (expressive), at the addressee (directive) and at the text itself (metalinguistic). Even within the narrow approach, however, there is no clear agreement on the exact extent of metadiscourse. Mauranen (1993), for example, has a strong focus on reflexivity, proposing only a distinction between highly explicit reflexivity (as in, e.g., In the following section, I will…) and reflexivity of low explicitness (particularly internal connectors such as moreover, firstly or it follows). Dahl (2004), on the other hand, maintains that rhetorical metatext - “meta-elements which assist the reader in the processing of the text by making explicit the rhetorical acts performed by the writer in the argumentation process” (1812), such as argue, believe or claim - should also be included. Schiffrin (1980), by contrast, makes a distinction between metalinguistic referents (so-called discourse deixis), metalinguistic operators (including evaluative words such as true, false, right, wrong) and metalinguistic verbs (such as say, tell, assert). This helps to illustrate that there is no single definition of metadiscourse and that the borders between what should be considered textual versus interpersonal meaning are blurred at best. For the present paper, I have adopted a hybrid approach in which I include rhetorical metatext to some extent, but mainly focus on textual metadiscourse, i.e. on linguistic items that are used to refer to the nature Pragmatics of power 285 of the conversation or back to previous parts of discourse, or that are used to structure the current discourse. I have, however, also chosen to include here references to past discourses in cases where the purpose was to show consistency (e.g., I have always said that) or, conversely, to delegitimize the opponent by illustrating supposed contradictions or antagonisms in a candidate’s discourse history. I consider these to be metadiscursive rather than intertextual (i.e. referencing to any other than the current text) as the purpose is not to borrow authority, not even primarily to point toward the existence of other texts, but to indicate that the current discourse is either in line with previous discourses or antagonistic to them, and hence they can be seen as a metadiscursive commentary, a strategy for validating or devalidating a text. 3. The Labour leadership debates 2015/ 2016 3.1. Nature of discourse and functions of metadiscourse in leadership debates According to Ilie (2003), public political debates fundamentally presuppose two somewhat contradictory conditions - a spirit of adversariality and a spirit of cooperativeness: adversariality because candidates must distinguish themselves and thus provide a clear choice to eligible voters and because they must establish preferability through acclaiming, attacking and defending (cf. Dudek/ Partacz 2009), i.e. by discursively constructing themselves in contrast to the other(s); cooperativeness because, as future party leaders, they need to present themselves as individuals who can also embrace and work with their opponents at the end of the day. Additionally, challengers to the leadership have a general need to be more aggressive than incumbent leaders, as they first need to establish their credibility and potentially undermine the incumbent’s as they cannot draw on previous experience (cf. Dudek/ Partacz 2009). Metadiscourse in such debates is both of a high value as well as highly frequent. As arguably the main concern in political debates lies in reinforcing one’s own credibility - often at the expense of one’s opponent(s) - candidates need to show professional competence, political stamina and consistency between statements (cf. Ilie 2003). For this purpose, metadiscursive elements are used to underline and emphasize each of those points: by employing explanatory metalanguage, professional competence can be highlighted; by using metadiscourse indicating strong opinions in the face of opposition, a candidate can show political stamina; and by referring back to previous texts and statements, a candidate can illustrate how s/ he remained consistent in their statements. Metadiscourse, hence, tends to be used frequently to highlight and promote the speaker’s image rather than to further expand on their ideas. Johannes Scherling 286 3.2 The Labour leadership debates After a devastating defeat in the British general elections, Labour leader Ed Miliband resigned in May 2015, resulting in a debate over the next Labour leader over the following summer months. The candidates running for leadership were three members of the party establishment - Liz Kendall, Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham - and one backbencher - Jeremy Corbyn. Against all expectations, the vote led to a landslide victory of Corbyn (59.48%). This caused an uproar in the party and led to infighting between Corbyn supporters and the party establishment, which climaxed in a vote of no confidence by Labour’s parliamentary club in May 2016. Corbyn refused to step down, assured that he had the majority of party members behind him. The vote of no confidence did, however, result in a new leadership vote in September 2016, this time between the now incumbent Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith, which Corbyn won by an even greater margin (61.8%) (cf. Mason 2015, Eaton 2016). 4. Research question, methodology and data In light of the theory that challengers to leadership generally need to be more aggressive, this begs the question as to whether this also applies in the case of Jeremy Corbyn, who - within a year - moved from challenger to incumbent leader. Since metadiscourse is an important tool in establishing power and credibility in such debates, the aim is to establish whether and how the use of metadiscourse is different and whether and how metadiscourse is an instrument in establishing and emphasizing a position of power in the Labour leadership debates of 2015/ 6. The analysis of metadiscourse is conducted according to Ädel’s (2006) reflexivity triangle and thus distinguishes between text-oriented, addresser-oriented and addressee-oriented metadiscourse while making further distinctions on the level of function adapted from Hyland and Tse (2004) as outlined in Table 1. LEVEL OF ORIENTATION text-oriented addresser-oriented addressee-oriented LEVEL OF FUNCTION antagonizing/ criticizing antagonizing/ criticizing antagonizing/ criticizing taking/ holding the floor taking/ holding the floor taking/ holdingthe floor agreeing/ claiming common ground agreeing/ claiming common ground agreeing/ claiming common ground clarifying/ emphasizing/ justifying message clarifying/ emphasizing/ justifying message clarifying/ emphasizing/ justifying message Table 1: Analytical categories. Pragmatics of power 287 The individual functional categories were obtained through an inductive analysis of several leadership debates, in which metadiscursive elements were marked and then categorized for their function. Table 1 includes only the major categories that were identified. The boundaries are obviously not clear-cut, as for example metadiscourse functioning as clarification may also imply criticism of the opponent for misinterpreting an utterance. For this reason, the classification was done based on the dominant function. The label antagonizing/ criticizing applies to metadiscourse whose function it is emphasize differences between the candidates by pointing out contradictions or disagreements. The label taking/ holding the floor refers to metadiscursive acts that aim at giving a candidate the opportunity to speak or to retain the right to speak. Agreeing/ claiming common ground is concerned with metadiscursive attempts at showing that the candidates are on the same page, while clarifying/ emphasizing/ justifying message denotes any use of metadiscourse to return to a previous utterance in order to elaborate, repeat or justify its content. The data for the 2015 debates were taken from the Labour hustings hosted by Sky News (length: 1: 22: 42), Channel 4 (length: 47: 33), The Guardian (length: 1: 25: 22) and the BBC (length: 58: 24); those for the 2016 debates were obtained from the hustings hosted by Sky News (length: 56: 03) and the BBC (length: 59: 20), as well as the hustings in Birmingham (length: 1: 32: 31) and Glasgow (length: 1: 30: 55). As there were no scripts available for any of these, they were then broadly transcribed by the author for linguistic content. 5. Analysis The analysis that follows has a clear qualitative focus, though some quantitative information will also be provided. The reason for giving greater weight to a qualitative analysis is that the same metadiscursive element may have different functions which only reveal themselves through an analysis of context. Additionally some of the categories do not feature that often across the various texts. Moreover, the main purpose of the paper is to identify certain strategies and explore whether or not they were successful in projecting and/ or gaining power. 5.1 2015 Debates In the 2015 debates, four candidates competed for leadership: Liz Kendall (LK), Yvette Cooper (YC), Andy Burnham (AB) and Jeremy Corbyn (JC), with an interviewer (Int) asking the questions. At that time, a victory by Corbyn was not anticipated and hence he was debating from an underdog position. Johannes Scherling 288 Clearly, the genre being a debate for primacy, criticism and antagonism may be expected to feature largely, not merely with regard to content, but also with regard to the function of metadiscursive elements. Most metadiscourse identified with this function was textand/ or addressee-oriented, as engaging in extensive self-criticism is certainly not the aim of such debates. ADDRESSER-ORIENTED (1) YC: So we set out that alternative, oppose the 40% cuts, but don’t think we can do it just by printing money… and that’s my disagreement with Jeremy [Corbyn] on that because I think you have to do this in a way that is actually credible. TEXT-/ ADDRESSEE-ORIENTED (2) LK: You actually said that it was NATO that had, you know, provoked Russia... JC: No, I didn’t. I said that one thing provokes another. LK: You said they had not been unprovoked. JC: I said that NATO’s excessive and obsessive expansion during the 1990s has been a problem. ADDRESSEE-ORIENTED (3) LK: You don’t have to tell me about people who are suffering. Table 2: Metadiscourse functioning as criticism/ antagonism. In example (1) in Table 2, Yvette Cooper mentions that’s my disagreement with Jeremy, thereby explaining the nature of her previous comment, which is why the metadiscourse here is addresser-oriented. In pragmatic terms, however, it is implied that she is criticizing Corbyn’s position. In this sense, the metadiscourse may be argued to be directed towards the text as well as towards Corbyn, too. In example (2), which is part of a longer dispute between Jeremy Corbyn and Liz Kendall, both Kendall and Corbyn are using metadiscursive elements to refer back to a previous utterance regarding NATO by Corbyn. It is metadiscursive in that it qualifies the following utterance as an utterance that was (or was not) made in the past, and hence is meant to associate Corbyn with a particular ideology. The purpose of this, however, is not merely text-related, in that they want to revisit and discuss Corbyn’s standpoint, but rather criticism by Kendall and thus an attempt to discredit Corbyn with her interpretative reproduction of his utterance (i.e. addressee-oriented). Corbyn’s use of metadiscourse in his reply, conversely, is meant to clarify what he actually said, and in turn to criticize/ discredit Kendall. Example (3), on the other hand, is addressee-oriented and functions as antagonism to Corbyn’s implicit claim that Kendall does not care about the troubles of ordinary people. Pragmatics of power 289 TEXT-/ ADDRESSEE-ORIENTED (4) LK: For some people like Jeremy and others, the Iraq War does wipe out for them all the good that we did as a government. But for me... but for ME… JC: I just said a whole lot of other things. LK: You said you so profoundly disagreed with him including on economic policy ADDRESSER-ORIENTED (5) JC: I don’t say it’s all the fault of NATO. (6) YC: Let’s be clear, I am not criticizing Jeremy’s values in any way or anything that Jeremy thinks. Table 3: Metadiscourse functioning as clarification/ justification. Example (4) in Table 3 is taken from a stretch of discussion in which Liz Kendall attacks Jeremy Corbyn for what is perceived as damning criticism of the Blair era, right after Corbyn points out what he perceives to have been negative as well as positive aspects. Again, the exchange employs references to previous parts of discourse (using a representative speech act), whose purpose is not to quote and reiterate the issues, but to clarify what is seen as a purposeful misrepresentation by the other. In this sense, it is - similar to (2) - directed at the text, but also implicitly addressee-oriented, as it is employed as a means to criticize. Examples (5) and (6) are both worth mentioning in that they involve a negation rather than an assertion, i.e. explaining the nature of an utterance in terms of what it is not. In both cases, the metadiscourse is addresser-oriented, as its function is to justify and clarify the purpose of a previous utterance. However, in each of these examples, arguably, the inference that is invited - drawing on Lakoff’s (2004) notion of frame-negation in which by negating a proposition, it is exactly this proposition that is being evoked 1 - is exactly the opposite, namely that Corbyn is entirely blaming NATO and that Cooper is criticizing Corbyn’s values. ADDRESSEE-ORIENTED (7) YC: Can I just finish? (8) JC: If I can finish, Andy... No, but I wanna finish if I may (9) AB: I’ve said I... Well, let me answer your question, Liz. Let me answer your question. It’d be nice if you’d let me answer your question 1 An example by Lakoff (2004) is US-President Richard Nixon, who famously stated, I am not a crook, arguably therefore associating himself with the ‘crook’-frame in the audience’s mind. Johannes Scherling 290 (10) LK: I don’t think Jeremy’s and my politics is anything, like, the same. I think there’s a challenge for centre-left parties across Europe, on the one hand, avoiding the kind of austerity that sees people left behind, though I have to say the kind of fantasy politics of Syriza, which would see us out of government for a generation... JC: Liz, can I help you on this? Table 4: Metadiscourse functioning as an attempt to hold/ take the floor. Taking and holding the floor are undoubtedly standard practices in any discussion, but even more so in a leadership debate where participants are competing in impressions of self-representation. Consequently, all of the participants employ metadiscourse to this effect. From its very nature, such metadiscourse is addressee-oriented, as the purpose is to either get the opponent to yield the floor or make it clear to them that one does not intend a speaker change. In examples (7) and (8) in Table 4, Yvette Cooper and Jeremy Corbyn, respectively, are struggling to hold the floor, and by using the metadiscursive phrase can I finish (thereby commenting on the ongoing discourse), not only imply that they still have something to say, but also implicitly criticize their opponent(s) because they were interrupted, which hence portrays their opponents as ignoring basic rules of politeness. Conversely, examples (9) and (10) show attempts by Andy Burnham and Jeremy Corbyn to take the floor from the current speaker - Liz Kendall in both cases. In (9), Burnham uses let me answer your question to imply that he considers the speech act of asking the question as completed and hence that it is his turn now. His repetition of the same metadiscourse serves to emphasize this. In (10), Corbyn is employing linguistic politeness (can I help you on this) to frame his attempt at taking the floor as a friendly act of assistance, when in fact he means to correct what Kendall just outlined. This also has a certain patronizing quality as both are knowledgeable professionals, but serves to position him above her in the hierarchy of power. It can be seen as metadiscursive because it is an implicit evaluation of her previous utterance and thus a comment on the text. ADDRESSEE-ORIENTED (11) JC: …and Yvette’s right on the exploitation of foreign workers. (12) YC: I think we have agreement that this is a serious issue, I just think that these policy proposals are the same that we had at the time of the general election... (13) JC: I don’t see how it could make it any better because you end up with destruction, of course, you end up with civilian deaths, of course, what’s that message across the region? Does this make to some people ISIL a more attractive operation or do we try to contain them and cut them off, as I think is what Liz was saying a moment ago. Pragmatics of power 291 (14) JC: The crash of 2008/ 9 was brought about by deregulated banks by subprime mortgage crisis, and it was brought about by the ineffectiveness of control of what the financial markets did. I think about that everyone would be agreed. Bringing the banks back into public ownership, again we’d probably all be agreed that was the right thing to do. Table 5: Metadiscourse functioning as agreement/ establishing of common ground. Table 5 illustrates metadiscourse used to express agreement, an important aspect in leadership debates as outlined above. The potential new leader must show that s/ he will be able to embrace his/ her competitors and cooperate with them in the future. In the data analyzed, this type of metadiscourse was predominantly used by Jeremy Corbyn, whose attempts to claim common ground may be revealing of either a character trait or his increased need as an underdog to show he can lead, or both. Alternatively, and seeing that he was largely perceived as being on the extreme fringes of the party, it might be an attempt to show he is not an outsider entirely. In examples (11) and (13), we can see that Corbyn - rather than merely explicating his standpoint - is referring to previous utterances by his opponents in order to indicate commonalities between their points of view, by evaluating Cooper’s utterance as right (11), while framing his opinion as, essentially, a paraphrase of Kendall’s statement before (13). Example (12) shows Cooper establishing a tentative common ground (metadiscursively stating that the evaluation of the issue under discussion as serious is an evaluation they both share) only to contrast this (I just think) with an utterance attempting to construct her opinion as different from the rest. Example (14) can be seen as a prime example of the ‘leadership posture’ that Corbyn is attempting to present himself as having. By presupposing everybody’s agreement on the issue discussed, by categorizing what was said in terms of a representative speech act (agree), he aims to preclude any disagreement by inviting the others to join his argument, a strategy similar to that employed in (11) and (13). The 2015 debates are, in short, characterized by fights for the floor, by criticism of opponents and by justifications of the participants’ own views. What stands out somewhat are Corbyn’s attempts to create common ground and using metadiscourse for conciliatory purposes, which the others struggle to reject or at least not openly embrace. The quite frequent references to previous discourse - both current and past - show attempts to deconstruct opponents’ views, while their counterattempts to disclaim the individual interpretations of such discourse by merely negating the previous assertion creates the odd impression that they are actually confirming its content. The overall impression of the debate as capitalizing on conflict and demarcation is expected; the only surprising aspect Johannes Scherling 292 is represented by Corbyn’s repeated attempts to create common ground, in order to highlight commonalities, rather than differences. 5.2 2016 Debates By the time the 2016 leadership vote took place, Jeremy Corbyn had been Labour leader for almost a year, so his position had changed from challenger to incumbent. As such, he faced resistance from Labour’s parliamentary club which forced him to call for a new leadership election in the autumn of 2016. His challenger, this time, was Owen Smith, previously a member of his shadow cabinet who had - in May 2016 - resigned and co-triggered the new debate. The 2016 debate was characterized by a high degree of emotional involvement (both by the competitors and the audience), as the internal quarrels had created a considerable amount of turmoil, which is also reflected in the more aggressive tone and adhominem accusations that dominated them. Against this background, it is perhaps not entirely surprising that by far the most frequent type of metadiscourse was related to criticizing and antagonizing the opponent. This function is realized in various ways, such as by referring to perceived inconsistencies in past and present discourse to discredit the other, by criticizing claims and the demeanor of the other or, by far the most striking case, by criticizing the nature of the debate itself. TEXT-/ ADDRESSEE-ORIENTED (15) OS: He used to say he wanted a contest for the Labour leadership every year. He gave an interview a couple of years ago in which he said that he didn’t want to be Labour leader because he wanted to be able to disagree with his party. (16) Int: Just in terms of the conduct of this leadership campaign: when people say they hate the former leader and prime minister, when there’s booing and hissing, do you... You said you wanted a kinder politics. JC: I don’t do booing and I don’t do hissing. Int: But some of your supporters clearly do. JC: Well, I ask people to be kind. In some cases it takes longer than others. OS: You see, Jeremy laughs it off again and he said earlier in the debate... JC: You’ve done plenty of it. OS: He said he laughs it off... and I haven’t, Jeremy, I haven’t. That’s not true. (17) OS: We shouldn’t have booing here tonight, because it’s just true. TEXT-/ ADDRESSER-/ ADDRESSEE-ORIENTED (18) JC: I think some of the language used by some of my colleagues in parliament has been more than unfortunate. I think we should treat each other Pragmatics of power 293 with respect. Where there is a political difference, say so, it doesn’t have to be personal; it never should be abusive. (19) OS: The reason I resigned is because I do not think you are serious [...] someone who says, frankly, a lot of platitudes [...] (20) OS: I agree with you that there is no room for personal abuse in politics, but you know, you’re not the only socialist in the village... [laughter] I don’t know why you’re laughing! [to audience] Jeremy’s been pretty [undecipherable] with his language on occasion. JC: Owen, I’ve never used bad language on people, you never find me using bad language on individuals. OS: I got attacked a bit this week for using the word ‘lunatic’, for which I have apologized JC: Good, thank you. OS: For which I have apologized. Jeremy Corbyn called a Tory MP a lunatic in 1992 and used the word again in parliament in 1993, so... [laughter] Interviewer: I’ll give you a few moments to respond to that and then we move on... JC: I’d rather we go on with discussing politics. Table 6: Metadiscourse functioning as criticism/ antagonism. As example (15) in Table 6 illustrates, Owen Smith is referring to past statements by Jeremy Corbyn (thus making this text-oriented), in which he called for yearly leadership elections and maintained he would never want to be leader. The purpose, clearly, is to delegitimize his current conduct (addressee-oriented) as he disapproved of the call for an early election after only one year. Though the reference undoubtedly has an intertextual function, it is also metadiscursive in that in makes clear that what follows is a past statement of Corbyn’s and thus attempts to position it in contrast to Corbyn’s recent statements. Examples (16), (17), (18) and (20) are vivid illustrations of metadiscourse related to the heated nature of the debate (text-oriented), in which the audience, in particular, intervened with paralinguistic signals of disapproval such as laughter, hissing and booing - specifically directed against Smith. In (16), Smith is attacking what he perceives to be Corbyn’s dismissive attitude regarding audience responses (addressee-oriented), by saying Jeremy laughs it off again, which also implies that Corbyn not only does not mind the behavior of some of his supporters, but that he is actually complicit in it by belittling Smith’s concerns. The metadiscursive nature of the phrase concerns the fact that in saying so, Smith is attempting to reframe and classify Corbyn’s preceding statement as ridiculing rather than asserting. The rising insecurity of Smith can be seen in that he also accuses the audience directly of not taking what he says seriously, as in (20), rather than implic- Johannes Scherling 294 itly, as in (17). The ad-personam nature of the debate is most apparent in (20), where Smith first asserts that he apologized (addresser-oriented) for using the word lunatic to describe Corbyn (without performing an apology there and then), only to then attempt to turn the tables by accusing Corbyn of the same language use. However, as the incident lies more than 20 years in the past, his metadiscursive - as well as intertextual - comment is ridiculed by the audience, thus defeating the purpose of his previous criticism directed at the audience. Corbyn, picking up on the audience’s mood, responds to this comment by metadiscursively disqualifying the content of Smith’s criticism and asserting that he would rather go on with discussing politics, i.e. that he would like to shift from the level of metadiscourse to that of content, which is both textand addresseeoriented as it is a statement that he considers the discussion tedious, but at the same time a criticism of Smith, who is bringing up the topic. In (18), Corbyn also shows a different approach to Smith in dealing with such ad-hominem metadiscourse by saying that such criticism never should be abusive, which directly relates to Smith’s rather open and personal attacks on Corbyn, as in (19), in which he delegitimizes Corbyn’s political ideas as platitudes (addressee-oriented). Overall, Corbyn gives the impression of being more in control of the argument, as he resists getting involved in Smith’s direct attacks on the behavior of the audience, which in turn earn Smith only more negative reactions. TEXT-/ ADDRESSEE-ORIENTED (21) JC: I’m sure we can agree on two things: firstly, all of us together are going to make sure we defeat any aspects of antisemitism in our party and within our society. That I’m sure we’re absolutely agreed. OS: We ARE agreed, but I’m not sure you’re entirely committed to it, Jeremy. (22) JC: Owen, why don’t we try and discuss how we can make sure that the party policies are effective and that we win the next election by after this election unifying and coming together around the issues, which we DO agree on. (23) JC: As you know I received reports, I was concerned and asked Shami Chakrabarti to undertake an inquiry into this, which she did. She’s proposed a series of rule changes as well as an information and education program in the party, which will help. [...] We’ll review the process next year, to make sure that we are getting rid of any vestige of antisemitism whatsoever within our party and I’m sure you will agree with me on that. Table 7: Metadiscourse functioning as agreement/ claim to common ground. By contrast, metadiscursive elements delineating agreement or attempts to establish common ground are much rarer, and if they occur, they are almost exclusively used by Corbyn. Table 7 shows some of the few in- Pragmatics of power 295 stances where such metadiscourse is employed. In (21), (22) and (23), we see Corbyn attempting to force Smith’s hand, by almost presupposing agreement as in I’m sure you will agree with me on that (23), thus using rhetorical metalanguage with a clear orientation towards the addressee, while also being text-oriented as it refers to and qualifies the previous discourse. As (21) illustrates, this strategy is occasionally successful, as Smith is required to take a stand. It is interesting to note how Smith struggles between agreeing to an assertion that he cannot reject and not giving his opponent the privilege of embracing his claim. He does this by commenting that they are agreed, but by immediately attempting to question Corbyn’s commitment, hence not denying the accuracy of the propositional content, but Corbyn’s actual intentions. In this sense, they both are in line with their respective roles as challenger and incumbent, as it is Smith’s only chance to establish himself in contrast to Corbyn rather than being ‘suffocated’ by too much common ground. This is similarly the case in examples (24) and (25) (see Table 8), in which Smith overtly agrees, but implicitly criticizes Corbyn, as indicated by the use of but immediately following the explicit agreement, which is achieved through rhetorical metalanguage. AGREEMENT (explicit) - CRITICISM (implicit) (24) OS: I’m pleased of course that Jeremy condemns anti-Semitism [...], but it is very worrying that [...] many in the Jewish community do not feel welcomed in the Labour movement right now. (25) OS: I agree we need to come back together whoever wins this. But you talk about trying to unite the party. I find that quite hard to reconcile with something your campaign did just this evening, which was to publish a list - a deselection list if you like Table 8: Metadiscourse functioning as explicit agreement and implicit criticism. The second largest area in which metadiscourse is employed is for the purpose of clarifying or justifying one’s own position. A great part of this is realized by references to the text, in the sense that the competitors attempt to explicate their intentions or to cast doubt on the other’s intentions. In some cases, and particularly with Jeremy Corbyn, this is also done by directly addressing the audience and/ or Owen Smith (i.e. addressee-oriented). In example (26) in Table 9, Corbyn is defending himself against criticism regarding low ratings. By responding with a metadiscursive element (we are putting the message out) relating to the manner in which Labour tries to communicate with the public (addresserand text-oriented, as it both serves as a statement on the discourse, i.e. that they are doing enough, and a justification, i.e. that there’s nothing more to improve), he attempts to shift the focus from the messenger to the Johannes Scherling 296 medium and the audience, i.e. to render it a problem not of the message and its creator, but of its transmission and interpretation. He immediately follows this up by directly addressing the audience (likewise in (30) and (31)) using rhetorical metalanguage (I tell you this) and asking them for patience until they have won the elections and implemented their policies. In (27), Smith is asked to provide justification for why he feels he is more electable than Corbyn. His reply features a metadiscursive tactic of indicating a longer list of characteristics to follow (for starters), when in fact only one aspect is mentioned, but the implication that there is actually more remains, creating friction in the argument. In (28) and (29), respectively, Smith uses two different tactics to deal with criticism/ clarification request directed at him. While in (28), he negates a claim by clarifying what he did not say (thus arguably reinforcing what he is attempting to deny, see reference to frame negation above), in (29) he merely states that everything has been said already, i.e. that he does not feel it is necessary to clarify his position. One of the effects of Corbyn’s addressee-oriented metadiscourse is to show he is in a higher position from which he can explain his ideas and ‘educate’ the audience, especially by indicating the kind of speech act to follow (e.g. the use of tell as a representative speech act, but implicitly also a directive as it seems to express a command to listen). The reason this announcement may be seen as metadiscursive is that it qualifies what follows as something of import, as something that needs emphasis, and that it instructs the audience to pay increased attention to what is to follow. The impression of his clarifications is therefore not so much defensive as it is offensive, in that such metadiscourse seems to imply the issue of comprehension lies with the addressee(s), rather than in his own explanations. TEXT-/ ADDRESSER-/ ADDRESSEE-ORIENTED (26) Int: Why are your poll ratings the worst of any opposition Labour leader a year on, that we’ve seen in history? JC: We’re putting the message out in the best way that we can. We’re putting it out through the media as best as we can. We’re putting it out through the social media as best as we can. And I tell you this: when the leadership debate is over, and the party comes together, to defeat the Tories [...] people will see what the alternative is. (27) Int: Your case seems to be that you’re more electable than JC. What’s your evidence? OS: Well, for starters... ADDRESSER-ORIENTED (28) OS: I didn’t say we should be having talks with Islamic State, I absolutely didn’t. What I said was that chances are we would never be able to negotiate with Islamic State. Pragmatics of power 297 (29) OS: I think I’ve made my position clear on that. ADDRESSEE-ORIENTED (30) JC: I tell you this now: there has been a re-energization of politics over the past year. (31) JC: We can all learn from what we do, but I tell you this: parliament has to understand that we’re there on the sufferance of the people who’ve put us there. The questions we should put, should be the questions that come from the people. (32) OS: Well, let me be clear that I will never play any part in splitting the Labour party. Table 9: Metadiscourse functioning as clarification/ justification. It becomes quite clear that the 2016 debate was led in a much more direct and pugnacious way, seeing that by far the most frequently identified categories revolved around criticizing the other and justifying oneself. The very fact that so much of the discourse involved references to the purportedly aggressive tone of contributions helps to illustrate that the debate took place in an emotionally (over)charged atmosphere, unlike the 2015 debates. 6. Discussion and conclusion Direct comparison of the findings in the usage of metadiscourse in the Labour leadership debates of 2015 and 2016 show that, while both include an extensive amount of metadiscursive language, their functions vary quite noticeably between the two sets of events. The 2015 debates were characterized by a great effort to hold or take the floor as well as by attempts at clarification/ justification and the establishment of common ground, whereas the 2016 debates showed a foregrounding of direct criticism, often inviting dismissive reactions from the audience, expressed through paralinguistic elements such as booing or hissing. This can be explained, at least in part, due to the difference in the setting (debate between four people vs between two people) and in the preconditions (heated atmosphere and deep ideological trenches between the parliamentary club and party members). In 2015, there were four candidates, who were all challengers to the party leadership; by 2016, the situation had changed. There was an incumbent leader (Corbyn) who was challenged by an establishment candidate (Smith). This necessitates a different style in the debates, as the challenger needs to act more aggressively in order to overcome the general advantage of the incumbent candidate (cf. Dudek/ Partacz 2009), while the latter needs to show that s/ he can balance out the various opinions in Johannes Scherling 298 a party and bring people together. In this respect, however, it is quite striking that Corbyn stands out as the person with by far the highest usage of metadiscourse functioning to claim common ground, even though in the first debate, he, too, was a challenger. While his opponents, in both 2015 and 2016, demonstrably use metadiscourse to this effect as well, they virtually never do it for the sake of agreement, but merely use it as a stepping stone to distance themselves from the stances of the other candidates. Another difference is that Corbyn uses such claims for common ground proactively and for topics that are of a very general nature and difficult to disagree with, such as fighting anti-Semitism, and thus forces his competitors to put their cards on the table; however, at the same time he in part appropriates their purpose as competitors by getting them to agree with his positions and then creating the impression that these are all originally his ideas. In the 2016 debates, Smith shows a general tendency to try and discredit Corbyn by referring to past statements or by highlighting what he sees as contradictions in Corbyn’s persona; through the use of such metalanguage, Smith attempts to avoid having to agree with his opponent, not on the basis of content, but on the basis of sincerity. But in doing so, he also occasionally discredits himself, such as when he calls Corbyn out for the use of a derogatory reference to an MP from 20 years ago, which evokes outward derision from the audience. Looking at the data in its totality, it becomes clear that Corbyn makes effective use of metadiscourse, while his opponents, especially Owen Smith, more frequently misfire regarding the underlying intention of their utterances, such as when Smith is attempting to criticize Corbyn, but creates a comical effect or when he criticizes the audience only to be taken less seriously. This may, in part, be attributable also to an antiestablishment mood that was prevalent during the debates. Overall, the data shows a greater amount of metadiscourse functioning as clarification or justification by Corbyn in the 2015 debates, which has a defensive purpose (e.g. what I meant was or what I said was). On the other hand, in 2016, a decrease of defensive metadiscourse becomes apparent, while offensive clarification metadiscourse increases (e.g. I am very clear that, I simply say to them or I tell you this now). This suggests a difference in interpersonal power relations between the debate participants in 2015 and 2016, which can clearly also be traced to the different roles they have with Corbyn taking on the role of the incumbent leader in the 2016 debates, thus requiring and allowing him to speak from a position of power. Smith, on the other hand, occasionally uses metadiscourse to refer to the nature of the discourse, by e.g. addressing what he perceives to be an aggressive and personal tone. Such discourse, which at times evolves into extended sequences, represents a shift from the level of content to the level of code, and thus marks a change in tactics to criticize and thus discredit Corbyn on the basis of the discourse conduct of his supporters Pragmatics of power 299 rather than on content issues; a tactic which clearly backfires, as the audience reactions show. Analyzing the metadiscursive devices, especially with regard to the 2016 debates, paints a certain picture: metadiscourse is employed to the effect of revealing particular self-perceptions of the competitors. While in 2015, there seem to have been rather balanced power relations, by 2016 this had changed. A lot more space was dedicated to criticism, in particular by Owen Smith, while Jeremy Corbyn attempted to create common ground, not so much to convince Smith, but rather to preemptively corner him and force his hand. It is clear that Corbyn makes different use of metadiscourse in the second set of debates and that this is one of the factors that help to establish his power to dominate the discussion, not only through the specific use of discourse, but also by its absence. Not using metadiscourse here functions as a signifier of certainty, of conviction, as it helps frame an utterance not in terms of overt explication and subjective interpretation, but in terms of an assertion, which suggests both conviction and professionalism. The same applies to his rhetoric of addressee-oriented metadiscourse when clarifying his position, which suggests a knowledgeable - if at times slightly patronizing - position. It would be rather bold to claim that metadiscourse decided the outcome of the Labour leadership debates; it is, however, reasonable to suggest that it can serve at least as a revealing indication of how the participants position themselves in the debate and what they perceive their power status to be. In this sense, as was put forth at the beginning of this paper, metadiscourse can indeed be argued to serve as a signifier for power - or at the very least as a signifier for the perception of that power. References Ädel, Annelie (2006). Metadiscourse in L1 and L2 English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Biber, Douglas/ Stig Johansson/ Geoffrey Leech/ Susan Conrad/ Edward Finegan (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Essex: Longman. Dahl, Trine (2004). “Textual metadiscourse in research articles: a marker of national culture or of academic discipline? ” Journal of Pragmatics 36. 1807- 1825. Dudek, Patrycja/ Slawomir Partacz (2009). “Functional theory of political discourse. Televised debates during the parliamentary campaign in 2007 in Poland.” Central European Journal of Communication 2. 367-379. Eaton, George (2016, September 24). “How Jeremy Corbyn won the Labour leadership election.” New Statesman. http: / / www.newstatesman.com/ politics/ uk/ 2016/ 09/ how-jeremy-corbyn-won-labour-leadership-election [accessed 29 May 2017]. Johannes Scherling 300 Halliday, M.A.K. (1996). “Systemic Functional Grammar.” In: Keith Brown/ Jim Miller (eds.) (1996). Concise Encyclopedia of Syntactic Theories. Oxford: Pergamon. 321-325. Hockett, Charles (1963). “The problems of universals in language.” In: Joseph Greenberg (ed.) (1963). Universals in Language. Cambridge: MIT Press. 1-29. Hyland, Ken (1998). “Persuasion and context: The pragmatics of academic metadiscourse.” Journal of Pragmatics 30. 437-455. Hyland, Ken/ Polly Tse (2004). “Metadiscourse in Academic Writing: A Reappraisal.” Applied Linguistics 25(2). 156-177. Ilie, Cornelia (2003). “Discourse and metadiscourse in parliamentary debates.” Journal of Language and Politics 2(1). 71-92. Jakobson, Roman (1960). “Linguistics and Poetics.” In: Thomas Sebeok (ed.) (1960). Style in Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 350-377. Lakoff, George (2004). Don’t think of an elephant! - Know your values and frame the debate. White River Junction: Chelsea Green. Markannen, Raija/ Margaret S. Steffensen/ Avon Crismore (1993). “Quantitative contrastive study of metadiscourse problems in design and analysis of data.” Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics 28. 137-151. Mason, Rowina (2015, September 12). “Labour leadership: Jeremy Corbyn elected with huge mandate.” The Guardian. https: / / www.theguardian.com/ politics/ 2015/ sep/ 12/ jeremy-corbyn-wins-labour-party-leadership-election [accessed 29 May 2017]. Mauranen, Anna (1993). Cultural Differences in Academic Rhetoric: A Text-Linguistic Study. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang. Mey, Jacob (2001). Pragmatics: An Introduction. 2 nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Schiffrin, Deborah (1980). “Metatalk: Organisational and evaluative brackets in discourse.” Socio-logical Inquiry: Language and social interaction 50. 199-236. Toumi, Naouel (2009). “A Model for the Investigation of Reflexive Metadiscourse in Research Articles.” Language Studies Working Papers 1. 64-73. Vande Kopple, William J. (1985). “Some Exploratory Discourse on Metadiscourse.” College Composition and Communication 36(1). 82-93. Corpus data Labour debate 2015 hosted by Sky News: https: / / youtu.be/ FdT1Mz1cYqA Labour debate 2015 hosted by Channel 4: https: / / youtu.be/ 996Lnep7Hfk Labour debate 2015 hosted by The Guardian: https: / / youtu.be/ UuCRIuHrKAo Labour debate 2015 hosted by the BBC: https: / / youtu.be/ jrNfhEfowlM Labour debate 2016 hosted by Sky News: https: / / youtu.be/ h-kpFHSxvJI Labour debate 2016 hosted by the BBC: https: / / youtu.be/ 1KVrN9F6F6U Labour debate 2016 in Birmingham: https: / / youtu.be/ J7W1NA0rMJE Labour debate 2016 in Glasgow: https: / / youtu.be/ 8qJb75V90p8 Johannes Scherling Department of English Studies Karl-Franzens-University Graz Austria Metadiscourse in multi-party conflict talk Hermine Penz Metadiscourse has been recognized as a pervasive feature of discourse which allows us to reflect and comment on discourse, explicitise intended meanings, yet also redefine and reformulate or structure it. Many studies have pointed out that it can be used to guide our interpretations and that it plays an important role in achieving understanding. Very few studies, however, have focused on the role of metadiscourse in conflict talk. This study aims to contribute to filling this gap by investigating the uses and functions of metadiscourse in small group discussion in the context of higher education. The results show that metadiscourse plays an important role in all phases of conflict, i.e. its initiation, development and resolution. In the speech activity of small group discussions communicative activities of all types (verbal, non-verbal, written) are labelled and thus explicitised. In addition, metadiscourse plays an important role in commenting on the discourse structure. 1. Introduction Our everyday interactions are characterised by both conflict and cooperation as they constitute an inherent feature of social life. Both are achieved interactively and are dependent on the use of metadiscourse as this allows people to guide others with respect to how their talk is to be interpreted and how it is structured. While conflict has been researched intensively in other disciplines, the study of conflict in discourse has not attracted the attention of scholars as much, which however, might partly be due to the difficulty of obtaining data. The concept of metadiscourse has recently attracted more interest from researchers, in particular as a feature of discourse. This article, however, sets out to study metadiscourse in interactive conflict talk among a small group of students who are engaged in solving a task for a course in linguistics, which is a type of academic discourse. After providing a brief overview of the concept of metadiscourse, the paper discusses conflict talk before moving on to the AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 42 (2017) · Heft 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Hermine Penz 302 analysis of the data. The data consist of four conflict episodes which occurred within a thirty minute segment of talk. In this segment the conflict builds up and becomes more serious in the course of the interaction, yet is resolved at the end. The study investigates the role of metadiscourse in the initiation, development and termination of the conflict in the small group interaction. 2. Metadiscourse Metadiscourse is a unique feature of human language as it allows us to talk about language itself. This ability has been termed reflexivity by Hockett (1960), who views it as one of the design features which distinguish human communication from animal communication. Caffi (1984: 449) states that “reflexivity can [also] be found in the speakers’ ability to communicate on the communication they are involved in, and precisely in the fact that they not only can define it, but also confirm, refute, or modify their own definitions or the definitions given by their partners.” A similar view is expressed by Jones (2016: 185), who argues that “[r]eflexivity is the quality of discourse that allows us to turn back at […] what we have said and done and talk about it, to reflect upon it, to reformulate it, and to reframe it through […] metadiscourse.” This phenomenon has been discussed since antiquity and linguists have used various constructions with the prefix meta, such as metalanguage (Jakobson 1990/ 1976), metadiscourse (Vande Kopple 1985, Crismore 1989, Hyland 2005), meta-talk (Schiffrin 1980), meta-text (Mauranan 1993), and metacommunication in this connection. A distinction has frequently been made between metalanguage and object language as the former denotes a language which is about language and is at a different level than object language (cf. Mey 2001: 173). However, this concept is blurry as it is difficult to distinguish metalinguistic features from other functions of language. Broadly speaking, two traditions can be identified in the study of metadiscourse. The broad approach, mainly represented by researchers who study written discourse, includes comments about the ongoing text/ discourse and any instances where the presence of the writer or the reader is made explicit. The writer’s presence is displayed by metalinguistic elements that signal his/ her attitude towards the text or by indications of how the text is organised. The reader’s perspective relates to metadiscourse which guides the addressee in structuring interpreting and evaluating the text. In essence, the broad approach is discourse about the textual and interpersonal functions of language in Halliday’s (1994) terms. Most scholars who study written metadiscourse take the broader view. The narrow approach mainly restricts itself to the textual function (e.g. Mauranen 1993, Schiffrin 1980). Since the focus of this article lies Metadiscourse in multi-party conflict talk 303 on spoken interaction I will primarily discuss research on spoken metadiscourse in this brief overview of the research literature. Schwitalla’s (1979: 141) research represents one of the earliest studies of metadiscourse in general and of spoken language, in particular. He uses the term metacommunication and describes this as a verbalization of events which are communicatively relevant in the ongoing discourse. According to him this applies to the following areas: (a.) defining, describing and making illocutions and perlocutions explicit; (b.) defining and evaluating linguistic interactions, their rules and (temporal) conditions; and (c.) defining topics and requesting that particular topics should be dealt with (or should be excluded). Interestingly, he also includes nonverbal behaviour and activities (e.g. why are you looking at me like that? ) in his definition of metacommunication. Schiffrin’s (1980) classification of metadiscourse is based on studying everyday conversation with regard to where metadiscourse occurs and why it occurs at particular points in the interaction. She concludes that it is used for both referential and expressive purposes. Schiffrin chooses the term meta-talk and establishes three categories: (a.) metalinguistic referents (linguistic entities referred to such as words, phrases, sentences; discourse deixis, such as the former, the latter, the next point; demonstrative pronouns such as this and that when they point to items in the text (whereby they also become discourse deixis), e.g. let me say this; (b.) operators (true, false, right, wrong, verbs like mean and discourse connectives such as like or for example); (c.) verbs (verbs of saying, such as say, tell, ask, assert; verbs indicating that something will be done by a piece of talk such as clarify, define; metalinguistic verbs which refer to a speech event, e.g. argue, joke). The most researched context for studying metadiscourse is academic discourse, both in school and university settings. Lee and Subtirelu (2015) did a comparative analysis of metadiscourse in EAP classroom interaction and university lectures. Studies of spoken academic language in a variety of activity types were carried out by Mauranen (2007), (2010). Academic conference talks were analysed by Luuka (1994). The volume on the use of metapragmatics edited by Bublitz and Hübner (2007) includes studies of a wide range of different contexts such as everyday language, educational discourse and professional discourse, among these studies are those by Ciliberti and Anderson (2007), who compare the functions of different types of institutional discourse. Penz (2007 and 2011) investigated intercultural project discussions in education and Graf (2015) researched metadiscourse in coaching interactions. Bublitz (2001: 1332) states that metadiscourse may refer to any level and any aspect of discourse. These include the channel (e.g. acoustic problems in understanding), the roles of speaker and listener, speaking rights and turn-taking, word meaning, sentence and utterance meaning, topic of talk, frames and text types, conversational maxims, textual ele- Hermine Penz 304 ments, discourse organisation, etc. In addition to addressing the ongoing discourse, it can be applied prospectively and retrospectively in organizing and structuring the discourse and negotiating meaning. The functions of metadiscourse can generally be seen in describing, organising and commenting on the ongoing discourse, often serving the purpose of achieving understanding and supporting acceptance. These functions have, for example, been identified in cooperative intercultural group discussions in which participants lacked common linguistic and cultural backgrounds (cf. Penz 2007, 2011). Watzlawick et al (1967: 52) have emphasized the relationship aspect of metacommunication as it “refers to what sort of message it is to be taken as, and, therefore, ultimately to the relationship between the communicants.” However, they take a broader view of metadiscourse than most scholars. Most researchers stress the positive role that metadiscourse plays in communication as a means to achieve understanding. However, speakers frequently employ metadiscourse about the illocutionary or perlocutionary force of other speakers’ talk for the purpose of expressing aggression or tension in interactions, while metadiscursive labelling of their own talk tends to enhance (the relationship aspect in) communication by reducing tensions/ conflict (cf. Schwitalla 1979: 2, see also Watzlawick et al. 1967). Jones (2016: 185) has pointed out that metadiscourse goes beyond commenting on what they themselves or what other people have been talking about, yet applies to other discursive processes which essentially organize, comment on, take a stance on, and communicate intentions, among them, framing, contextualizing, identity construction and positioning, signaling relationships (by means of politeness strategies), etc. What is more, he argues that metadiscourse also connects our everyday interactions (‘small c’ conversation) with larger social discourses, i.e. the discourse that has been going on in a particular social group/ society about a particular topic or debate (‘Big C’ Conversations). 1 Metadiscourse is also a potential means of holding people accountable for their utterances and actions, yet in situations where power is distributed asymmetrically, it can also be used for the opposite, i.e. “to make us less answerable, to silence debate, harden stereotypes, increase inequality”, and so forth (Jones 2016: 186). This is illustrated by examples of police abuse of African-American citizens in the US, where the more powerful police (and their legal representatives) have frequently been able to re-interpret their excessive use of force. Even in cases where police violence was videoand/ or audio-recorded, the former was justified as officers’ attempts to protect themselves by decontextualizing and fragmenting the events and recontextualizing them within the framework 1 See Gee (2011) for the distinction between ‘small c’ conversations and ‘Big C’ Conversations. Metadiscourse in multi-party conflict talk 305 of the language of police work, terming the different phases escalation, deescalation and assessment periods, which is a type of metadiscursive reinterpretation of the language and actions of the events within the cultural storyline of American blacks as violence and fear associated with this group (cf. Jones 2016: 193-194). In her study of parliamentary debates in the UK, Ilie (2003) demonstrates that politicians use metadiscourse on various levels (often simultaneously) to control, evaluate and to negotiate the effects of their own and of the other participants’ ongoing talk. It is used by speakers to roleshift, to redefine terms and concepts, to challenge facts/ statistics and to target multiple audiences and to maximize or minimize merits and accountability. Metadiscourse can emphasize, minimize and maximize but also cancel or even reverse ongoing discourse. Martínez Guillem (2009) proposes a broader notion of meta-discourse which includes commenting on the ongoing discursive situation, but is extended to the incorporation of external, interdiscursive and/ or sociocognitive aspects of discourse as she is interested in connecting the ongoing discourse in a plenary session of the European Parliament with its wider socio-cultural context. The use of metadiscourse has been found to vary substantially across different genres and different cultures (cf. Mauranen 1993, 2010, Hyland 2005, Ädel 2006, Penz 2011, Graf 2015). These differences are not surprising in view of findings that indicate that metadiscourse may provide some insights into underlying interactional and pragmatic norms of the language use of a community. In this paper, metadiscourse is defined as ‘discourse about the ongoing discourse’ (cf. Mauranen 1993). However, this definition is extended to include non-verbal elements of communication and pieces of written language used in generally oral small group discussions, as discourse here is viewed from a more multi-modal perspective of meaning making which includes more than the spoken channel. 3. The concept of conflict talk Conflict appears in all spheres of social life and each of us has experienced it on many different occasions and in varying contexts. Conflict is not to be considered an individual’s behaviour, but social conflict always requires two or more individuals who oppose one another (cf. Uhlinger Shantz 1987). In this sense conflict is similar to cooperation, as this is just as crucially dependent on interaction. However, unlike cooperation, conflict has been studied much less in the field of linguistics, even though it can be considered a ‘normal’ part of social interactions. Uhlinger Shantz (1987) further argues that conflicts are social episodes distributed in time, meaning that they have a beginning and an end. Hermine Penz 306 Kakavá (2001: 33) defines conflict as “any type of verbal or nonverbal opposition ranging from disagreement to disputes.” Eisenberg/ Garvey (1981: 150) employ the term adversative episode, which they describe as the “the interaction which grows out of an opposition to a request for action, an assertion, or an action.” In other words, conflict is seen as a sequence that starts with an opposition, develops and ends with its resolution. In his study of conflict among children, Maynard (1985) distinguishes between three phases of conflict, i.e. the antecedent or arguable (the event/ move which causes the conflict), the opposition, and the reaction towards this event. However, he argues that the opposition to a move need not necessarily lead to a dispute or a conflict episode as this only occurs when there is a counter to the opposition. Several other studies have also proposed a tripartite structure of conflicts, which consists of a statement produced by A, a counterstatement (or disagreement with A) by B and a counterstatement (disagreement with) by B (which could possibly be an insistence on the original statement (cf. Gruber 1996, Muntigl/ Turnbull 1998, Nguyen 2011). Hosida and Aline (2015: 231) use the following terminology for this three step structure: “(1) an initial assertion that contains an arguable, (2) an opposition turn, and (3) a counter-opposition turn.” Once the conflictive sequence has been initiated, it may be continued, but also terminated, the latter of which may be accomplished in various ways, which have been described by different scholars. Conflicts may be closed by compromise, submission, concession, withdrawal, stand-off, dominant third party intervention, or humour (Nguyen 2011; Norrick / Spitz 2008; Sharma 2012; Vuchinich 1990) (see Hosida / Aline 2015: 232).” In their analysis of children’s conflicts Eisenberg and Garvey (1981) found that the form of the initial opposition in an adversative episode affects the subsequent strategies of the participants in the interaction, i.e. conflict (resolution) is highly interactive. When looking at oppositions that were responses to a verbal act, Eisenberg and Garvey (1981) found that speakers used one of the five following ways of negating: (1.) using a simple negative, e.g. No, (2.) supplying a reason or justification for disagreement, (3.) making a countering move, e.g. an alternative proposal, (4.) postpone agreement, or (5.) evade or hedge (p. 158). In their analysis, a striking 91.7 % of the adversative episodes were continued when the opposition was a simple No. Research on conflict has mainly focused on two main aspects, i.e. (1.) the origin/ development of conflicts with respect to the situations, reasons, motivations and aims, and (2.) actual and potential ways of solving these conflicts (cf. Gruber 1996: 17). With respect to the origin of conflict, various categorisations and typologies have been proposed. For example, distinctions have been made between conflicts of interests and conflicts of values (cf. Aubert 1973, discussed in Gruber 1996: 19). The former are based on a situation of shortage in which two or more actors Metadiscourse in multi-party conflict talk 307 want the same thing of which there is not sufficient for all. The latter originate in disagreement in relation to the normative status of a social object. In contrast to conflicts of interest, these can rarely be solved by compromise as the involved parties frequently believe that compromise regarding values can never be achieved (cf. Gruber 1996: 19). Although scholars do not always agree on which point to consider as the starting point of an episode of conflict, they all treat conflict as a phenomenon growing out of the interaction of two or more people. Yet, they concentrate their analysis on individual conflict episodes within an interaction, each of them independent from the others. It should be pointed out, however, that interactions in which several conflict episodes have occurred (or when participants have a communicative history of previous conflicts) these previous conflicts may have an influence on the new conflicts arising in the interaction. Conflicts are not necessarily negotiated directly by the immediately involved parties, yet may be dealt with in terms of meta-conflicts: in this case third parties are drawn into the conflict in varying capacities - either as (outside) intermediaries or as co-participants (cf. Gruber 1996: 19, drawing on Bühl 1973). In addition, it has been demonstrated that the situational and institutional context of (group) interactions plays a role in the way conflict sequences develop and which resources are used in the process: in the small group interactions in higher education students resorted to the resources available to them to support their decisions and to challenge other speakers, e.g. discussion task guidelines (cf. Sharma 2012, in Hosoda/ Aline 2015: 234). 3.1 Disagreement and conflict The opposition which follows a statement/ arguable and the counteropposition, which have been viewed as the main structural constituents of conflict, frequently occur in the form of disagreement or correction (cf. Goodwin 1983). Pomerantz (1984: 70) considers disagreement as “dispreferred actions,” which are realised with some delays, repair features, repetitions, etc. However, other researchers have found that in certain contexts, e.g. courtroom situations (cf. Atkinson/ Drew 1979), in casual conversations among Greeks (cf. Kakavá 1993), or in conversations among Chinese and German interactants (cf. Kotthoff 1993) non-delayed disagreements were common. Disagreements are viewed in the research literature as unwanted actions on the one hand but also as a reflection of intimacy (cf. Schiffrin 1984; for an overview see Angouri 2012). Angouri (2012) distinguishes between marked and unmarked disagreement, the latter of which frequently occurs in task-based interactions. In problem solving activities, disagreement is considered to be an inherent component and thus does not carry negative meaning. Hermine Penz 308 In multi-party conflict participants align with other participants in the interaction in the course of conflict talk (Goffmann 1981, Goodwin 1981, 2007, Nguyen 2011). In his study of conflict in a pharmacy patient consultation Nguyen (2011: 1769) demonstrated that alignment in multiparty conflict may be done indirectly without distancing oneself from another party. Participants may also invoke the authority of a non-present outsider. This strategy has been found to serve two functions: it may aid a participant in avoiding directly opposing another and can also be used to place the responsibility for solving the conflict on a person who is not directly involved. Although linguists have studied conflict in detail with respect to their origins, development and resolution, the role of metadiscourse in the process of conflict talk has rarely been studied. Exceptions are Schwitalla (1979), who discussed metadiscourse in political interviews, and Jones (2016), who points towards the crucial role of metadiscourse in accepting or rejecting accountability in connection with racial incidents in the US. Schwitalla’s study of conflictual political interviews found that interactants pursued the conflict mainly by means of metacommunication. Metadiscourse was frequently employed to refer to utterances of the interview partners, yet hardly ever in relation to speakers’ own talk. Disagreement and conflict among speakers almost always affects their relationship, as the content and relationship levels frequently interact with each other (cf. Gruber 1996). This paper endeavours to highlight the role of metadiscourse in various phases of conflict talk in small group discussion in higher education. 4. Data and method The analysis of conflict talk is based on a thirty minute segment of a twohour tape that was recorded during a small group discussion among students in an academic setting in higher education at a US university. The purpose of the group meeting was to do an assignment for a class in linguistics, to be more specific, in lexical semantics, which I participated in and taped as a graduate student in 1989. The conversation was transcribed and then analyzed. In addition, two participants were interviewed regarding their intuitions about the group discussion to avoid the danger of presenting the analyst’s viewpoint as the only viable interpretation, which would represent deceptive objectivity (cf. Tannen 1984). The task of the group and the topic of the discussion was to decompose verbs that are given in the context of a sentence into their semantic primitives (their basic meaning elements) and record the results as well as the problems encountered and the main points of the discussion. In the 30 minutes segment selected for analysis, the decomposition of the verb want in the context of the sentence Sam wants a new bicycle for his birthday was dis- Metadiscourse in multi-party conflict talk 309 cussed. The following two versions of the decomposition were eventually produced on the board: 1. BE EXPERIENCER ORIENT DESIRE TOWARDS THEME State Ind. State Thing Path Thing or: BE SAM ORIENT DESIRE TOWARDS bike State Ind. State Thing Path Thing The fact that the discussion centres on a very specific topic, i.e. the semantic decomposition of verbs, requires the use of a highly specialized vocabulary and could therefore be seen as a discussion employing language for specific purposes. In addition, the linguistic terminology employed represents a type of metalanguage “a specialized form of language or set of symbols used when discussing or describing the structure of a language” (Cambridge Dictionary online). Yet, this particular type of ‘language about language’ will not be attended to as the focus of the analysis at hand is ‘discourse about discourse’. The group interaction is also characterised by a substantial amount of non-verbal and non-oral communication, which are both essential parts of the discussion (the latter includes things such as people writing on the board or people comparing their notes, etc.). Unfortunately, most of this non-verbal and non-oral communication is not captured by the tape. The five participants were graduate students of sociolinguistics at the time of the discussion. Three of them were native speakers (2 NS of American English, 1 NS of British English), two participants used English as a lingua franca (ELF); their native languages were Greek and German, respectively. According to Seidlhofer’s (2011) definition of ELF, though, the conversation cannot be defined as an ELF interaction as the native speakers clearly dominate. However, intercultural issues, such as expectations about how group work should be carried out, might have played a role implicitly, although they are not verbalized at all. Pseudonyms are used for all names, except for mine, which is represented as H. The students’ ages range from mid-twenties to early thirties. John and Pam are American, Jane is British. Anna is Greek and I am Austrian. John and Anna had known each other for two years and were very close friends. John, Anna, Jane and I had known each other as classmates. We also worked together in the first group project for the class in lexical semantics. Pam joined the group as a new member, yet had been friends with Anna for some time. The conflict during this group work severely affected the relationship of some participants: as a result of this group discussion Jane and Pam did not talk to each other for two weeks although they became friends afterwards; Anna had some arguments with John on the same evening as a result of this discussion while Jane reported that she had the impression that she had somehow offended Anna. Hermine Penz 310 The analysis of the data is purely qualitative and takes a broadly Conversation Analytic approach combined with interactional pragmatics 5. Metadiscourse in extended conflicts: Analysis In the identification of metadiscourse ‘discourse about discourse’ is taken to refer to all communicative activities in the group discussion and the connected context of discourse of the classroom. In the data at hand this includes the spoken interaction during group work, the (process of) writing up the results and the (spoken) instructions of the teacher even though these were uttered in the classroom context a few days before. However, these comments are crucially relevant for the task at hand, and the group discussion can be seen as an extension of the classroom discourse, even though in the strict sense the teacher’s words would be considered intertextual as they occur outside of the immediate textual world of the interaction. The extracts selected for the analysis are discussed in sequence as the conflict unfolds. In extended conflict episodes, the question of how a conflict develops and is finally terminated is clearly relevant. What is more, in this process the role of metadiscourse in conflict should become clearer than it would by singling out individual oppositional sequences. Metadiscourse in extract 1 is mostly used to express the participants’ perceptions of how the group work should proceed, relating to communicative activities which include the non-verbal, spoken and written modes. In the conversation preceding the following extract, John has just volunteered to write the decomposition of the sentence as it is being discussed on the board. Extract 1 : 232 Pam: (moves as if to get up to the board) 233 John: What are you doing? 234 Jane: Just thought that would make you happy. 235 Pam: I was just looking 236 I was thinking we could put-like maybe your thing down 237 and then put my thing down. 238 John: Oh I-I was just gonna talk 239 and we can write as we go. 240 Jane: Sure. 241 Pam: I was just kind of saying put maybe 242 Jane: [No, that’s gonna take too long]. 243 Pam: [/ xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ ] 244 Jane: let’s just discuss it..at one time. 245 Pam: I was just thinking, 246 if we had something written down, 247 then we could say, Metadiscourse in multi-party conflict talk 311 248 now we don’t think..[that we think ] 249 Jane: [John is doing that] 250 just to have something that’s written down, 251 you know what I mean? 252 Jane: Well, we are doing that. 253 John: I think, we sh-it’s better that [we just..] 254 Jane: [just put it on] 255 Pam: [O.k.] 256 John: I mean, I am, you know, 257 you could make, let’s see 258 Jane: Uhm, you can make [all comments] you want 259 John: [Is this be? ] 260 Pam: [Yeah When John starts writing and commenting on what he is doing Pam makes a non-verbal move (which can be interpreted as a move to start going to the board). John metadiscursively reacts to her non-verbal action. His question can be interpreted as an opposition/ arguable. Pam clarifies, also using metadiscourse, that she had thought each participant would write their version of the verb decomposition on the board, one after the other (lines 235-237), a response which is a clear indication that she had actually intended to write her version on the board next. In this utterance Pam uses metadiscourse to explain how she understood the group to work. In his subsequent turn John presents his view of the procedure and further clarifies it, i.e. start with the discussion and writing (the results) on the board in the process. Jane agrees with this suggestion, while Pam continues with what is understood as her insistence on proceeding differently (a counter-opposition). Jane immediately rejects this proposition by arguing with lack of time (while overlapping with Pam, lines 242-243), asserting in her next turn that they should discuss one example at a time. When Pam provides a lengthy argument for her view in her next utterance (lines 245-251), Jane comments that they are doing what Pam wants anyway and asks John to continue by saying Just put it on, finishing with an invitation to Pam to provide comments (line 258). In this conflict episode the main antagonists are John and Pam, yet Jane also opposes Pam. She aligns with John as she supports him explicitly by agreeing with him (lines 240) and, implicitly, by opposing Pam (in line 242) (cf. Goffman 1981). It could even be argued that in the course of the interaction the conflict between Pam and Jane becomes equally strong, yet is deflected in the end. In extract 1, the conflict starts with an opposition, the reactions towards which from all the participants are at a moderate level as they all employ mitigating features (mostly included in the metadiscursive utterances) to keep the conflict at a low level in this early stage of the discussion. The opposition is expressed in the form of a question. Although questions are used to express disagreement, they can be considered on Hermine Penz 312 the lower end of the scale when considering other forms of disagreement, such as negative statement plus negative particle no (cf. Pomerantz 1984). In addition, a number of mitigating devices are applied by all speakers, such as maybe, just, conditional, etc. The reaction to John’s opposition and the following interaction are at about the same level in terms of seriousness of conflict, i.e. opposition and reaction directly seem to influence each other. All the participants employ what Garvey and Eisenberg (1981) call “moves to avoid creating offense,” i.e. they employ linguistic forms that can serve this function. Later in the discussion another dispute arises, mainly between Jane and Pam. Anna is taking Pam’s side because she also disagrees with Jane. Strong opposition causes a strong reaction. In this conflict episode (see Extract 2), the disagreement components employed are very strong. According to Pomerantz (1984), delayed disagreement, i.e. disagreement prefaced by silence, hesitating devices, or weak agreement, is often the preferred type, yet this is hardly ever used by any of the participants. The extract also illustrates that the dispute occurring mainly between Jane and Pam is more serious than the previous one. Another phenomenon that surfaces again is that in a multi-party conversation, people immediately take their stance. By agreeing with one of the initial opponents they at the same time disagree with the other. Thus it is possible to disagree with somebody without doing so directly. Metadiscourse in Extract 2 first relates to finding the right term for an element in the decomposition process (which is a type of code gloss) and then changes to applying metadiscourse to oppose the way the written representation of the task is continued and the ensuing counteropposition, followed by a reference to the notetaking skills of the participant who expressed the initial opposition in this passage. Metadiscourse here is used to negotiate a term, which however does not play a role in the conflict. The other instances of metadiscourse surface as a strong opposition (here used to refer to others’ actions/ utterances) and to refer to the teacher. The ensuing conversation centres mainly on the issue of how the notation of the decomposition should be done, that is, the question of whether and where to put brackets or parentheses. The teacher has used brackets in class in order to indicate the relationships between various elements of the decomposition. John, who is still writing on the board, asks whether he needs to close the bracket after what he has just written. Extract 2 : 354 Jane: But because you’re changing the whole kind of statement 355 you need to have another of those 356 half..circle things. 357 What do you call them? 358 Anna: Where? Metadiscourse in multi-party conflict talk 313 359 John: Parenthesis. 360 Anna: Parentheses you mean? 361 Jane: Parenthesis, yeah. 362 O.k., this is the way it needs to be done. 363 This is a parenthesis. 364 Pam: You don’t put that there. 365 I’m sorry. 366 Jane: Yes you do. 367 Pam: Uhuh [I take= 368 Anna: [No, she didn’t 369 Pam: = I take great notes, you have to [understand that] 370 Jane: [Yeah, she did.] 371 Jane: Because we’re getting outside of be state into 372 orient [state.] 373 Anna: [No, no,] no, no 374 Pam: No, she doesn’t= 375 John: Orient state has two arguments = 376 Jane: [O.k. 377 Pam: = Uh look at how she did= 378 John = thing and cause. 379 John: [Yeah 380 Pam: = she did cause. 381 Anna: [No, I don’t, no. 382 Pam: You don’t 383 John: So we get a thing which is an individual. 384 Anna: Afterwards, afterwards. 385 Pam: We can talk to her about [this. 386 Anna: [No, no afterwards, 387 no, she didn’t uh..uh 388 Jane: O.k. under orient goes state, 389 whether or not we use the parenthesis. After using metadiscourse to find the right term for the notational element (lines 356-361), Pam (in line 364) opposes Jane’s assertion in the previous line by using a negative statement without hedging or prefacing. The metadiscourse she uses in her opposition refers to the writing that John produces on the board. Jane opposes Pam in return, restating her position and emphasizing it in line 366. Pam then starts to justify her view and Anna overlaps with her disagreeing with Jane and by doing so, supports Pam’s position. Pam continues to justify her view by referring to her note-taking skills, emphasizing her statement by adding the metadiscursive label you have to understand that (line 369), thus appealing to a higher authority (the teacher’s) to support her view. This is jokingly acknowledged by Jane in line 370. Jane, in line 371, also gives a reason for her opinion, which is met by very strong opposition from Anna, who disagrees by saying no four times, overlapping with Jane. Pam in the following turn again makes a negative statement, starting with no and disagrees with Jane. She again refers to the authority of the teacher continuing to explain how the teacher did the decomposition according to Hermine Penz 314 her notes (in lines 377 and 380). In line 381, Anna latches on to Pam’s utterance, again disagreeing with Jane in line 382, but then mitigates her opposition by suggesting consulting the teacher about this. While Pam’s opposition becomes weaker here, Anna’s disagreement with Jane becomes stronger. She emphasizes her position in line 386 by repeating afterwards and prefacing it with a double negative, continuing with her disagreement in the following line. Jane then drops the issue in question by talking about how to proceed further in the decomposition (lines 388-389). The above discussion demonstrated that strong opposition causes a strong reaction. It appears that the interaction of the initial opponents is influenced by each other. However, it is interesting to note that Anna’s very strong opposition, which is directed toward Jane, is not met by a strong reaction on her part. It seems that Jane is focusing on her interaction with Pam much more than with Anna, who joins as a second opponent to Jane, i.e. after Pam. However, it is very obvious that apart from the discussion of the term parenthesis, metadiscourse is mainly employed by Pam in this extract, in one instance to express her opposition You don’t put that there, in the other cases to appeal to the authority of the teacher, which is a way to strengthen her position (lines 369, 385). After some more discussion and argumentation about how to proceed further with the decomposition, another serious dispute arises between Pam and Jane. It reaches its peak in Jane’s refusal to continue contributing verbally, yet ends a few turns later with Jane conceding. Metadiscourse here is largely connected with words of saying and the process of writing up the example on the board. Extract 3: 475 John: All right, you tell me what next. 476 Jane: O.k. close bracket after orient. 477 John: Big parenthesis? 478 Pam: You do NOT close the bracket. 479 Jane: / xxxxxx/ keep it open 480 Pam: = you have an open parenthesis. 481 Jane: keep it open, o.k. after orient just comma. 482 John: So we got two things here? 483 Jane: I am not [saying any more,] 484 John: [/ xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ ] 485 YOU tell him. 486 John: Orient, that’s got a thing. 487 Pam: Yeah. 488 John: Like that? 489 Jane: No. 490 Pam: No. 491 Jane: Why don’t you go up there and do [it then? ] 492 John: [Fine.] 493 Anna: You have to open parenthesis. Metadiscourse in multi-party conflict talk 315 494 Jane: [Yeah I mean 495 I can’t do [it right either], so... 496 Anna: [you have to ] 497 open the parenthesis and then 498 Jane: Can you show it on the board? 499 Pam: [Yeah. In Extract 3, John is still writing on the board and asks how he is to continue. His utterance is clearly metadiscursive as it includes tell as a word of saying. Jane instructs him to close the bracket after the word orient. Her utterance is directly opposed by Pam in line 478. In the following line Jane concedes and adopts Pam’s view. They both continue in their respective subsequent utterances to instruct John to not include parentheses. In other words, Jane and Pam agree on the content level. However, when John asks another question in line 482, Jane produces metadiscourse to address a clear opposition to Pam: she states her refusal to continue giving advice to John and tells Pam to proceed. In the subsequent turns Jane actually continues to contribute, as does Pam. Yet when Pam disagrees again with John (as does Jane), Jane asks Pam to go to the board and proceed with the decomposition in the form of the whquestion Why don’t you go up there and do it then? (line 491), to which Pam consents when Jane utters her request a second time (line 498). What is interesting in this extract is that Jane’s opposition to Pam appears to be caused by antagonism which is based on the ‘how’ or the fact that Pam takes a fairly dominant role rather than on the ‘what’, i.e. the contents. At the same time, Jane’s opposition could be read as a way of voicing her frustration about the difficulty of the task, which also surfaces in the subsequent turns, where she finally invites Pam to continue writing the decomposition on the board, by which the conflict seems to be terminated. Metadiscourse is heavily deployed in the development of conflict and its resolution in the following extract involving John and Anna as the main antagonists. A variety of functions appear in this interaction, as it is used to structure the discourse, e.g. that’s the first one, the second one, to label speech actions (preceding, ongoing, subsequent), most of which play an important role in initiating and terminating the conflict. A combination of bringing up a proposal that was rejected on several occasions throughout the group work and therefore caused disagreement, and the fact that this also seemed to bring the discussion back to the example that Anna repeatedly refused to discuss before, culminate in a violent verbal dispute which occurs at the end of the discussion analysed. Prior to the conversation in the following transcript, Anna has written her version of the decomposed sentence under Jane’s. They have found that there were only two differences and seemed to be happy with their accomplishment. Hermine Penz 316 Extract 4: 1390 Anna: O.k., that’s the first one 1391 The second one. 1392 The economy [frightens ] 1393 John: [Can we maybe] I don’t know, 1394 go about this in a slightly different way? 1395 Jane: Yes. 1396 John: Because to me we got caught up in orientation, 1397 I mean in notation. 1398 Yeah 1399 Anna: John, please. 1400 John: What? 1401 Anna: Let’s drop that. 1402 John: What? 1403 Anna: Please. 1404 Jane: No, no, no, no = 1405 John: I really= 1406 let him say what he wants to say. 1407 John: = think that uhwe should try to capture 1408 some of the hierarchical relations. 1409 Jane: [Right. 1410 We don’t have to do it like a tree thing, 1411 like this. 1412 Jane: [Uhm 1413 But just..forget all the bullshit 1414 about little parentheses 1415 Jane: [Right 1416 and let’s capture the major relations. 1417 [Uhm 1418 and we can write it out, 1419 Jane: / xxxxxxxxx parentheses/ 1420 John: just to capture it. 1421 Jane: [That’s great. 1422 so that we agree on the semantics, 1423 Jane: [Yeah 1424 and then we can go back 1425 and then Pam is our expert on notation, 1426 and then maybe you can convert that, 1427 Pam: [Uhm 1428 but I would feel 1429 we would benefit from talking 1430 Pam: [Uhm 1431 from the most abstract semantic function, 1432 Pam: [Uhm 1433 down to one of these things and then so on. 1434 Anna: We have spent half an hour= 1435 Jane: Ve[ry good] 1436 Anna: = [talking] about this and disagreeing, 1437 and we haven’t come to a conclusion. 1438 And [I don’t think] 1439 Jane: [That’s not true.] Metadiscourse in multi-party conflict talk 317 1440 it- I want, I don’t think 1441 we’re gonna reach any conclusion... 1442 A: nd we might go out tomorrow to class on 1443 Tuesday in class, 1444 and she will present a whole different framework 1445 Jane: [Yep 1446 and then we will say, 1447 o.k., we spent one hour talking about this, 1448 while we can go on with the rest, 1449 because I don’t know 1450 what we are going to find with the rest. 1451 So please, let’slet’s look at the others.= 1452 John: (sighs) 1453 Anna: =And if we have time, let’s go back. 1454 How about that? 1455 John: How [does that] disagree 1456 Jane: [I agree] 1457 from what we are doing? 1458 Anna: No, because we’re going back to the same thing, 1459 and we have found-found all these arguments, o.k. 1460 Let’s move to the second one. 1461 Pam: [Uhm 1462 because 1463 John: [That’s what I am proposing. 1464 Jane: What the hell are you.. 1465 we are going to the second. 1466 H: Do the second one, [but in a different way.] 1467 Anna: [I thought you said it ] 1468 for the first one. 1469 John: No, no. 1470 Jane: Anna, there is nothing wrong with disagreeing 1471 on how this is meant to be mapped out. 1472 John: No, I agree, 1473 that we were beating the first one on a dead horse. 1474 Jane: What’s wrong with that? 1475 John: = and that’s why I was trying for the second one. 1476 Anna: O.k., o.k. 1477 John: I was suggesting that we take= 1478 Anna: O.k. 1479 John: = a step back approach. 1480 Anna: Sorry, I thought you meant the [first one,] that’s why 1481 John: [No, no, no.] 1482 Jane: I want EVERYBODY to calm down, 1483 Anna: [O.k. 1484 this is supposed to be fun. 1485 Anna: No, I thought youhe meant for the first one 1486 John: Yeah. 1487 No, I mean, we’d [started in a sense] 1488 Jane: [the first one’s dead] 1489 number one. Hermine Penz 318 1490 I was trying the....thing, 1491 and I got messed up and stuff. The extract above starts with metadiscourse relating to the structuring of discourse: in line 1390 Anna utters a closing statement with respect to the first example of the task. She considers it being dropped and is ready to go on to the second one, which she starts to read aloud. John interrupts her and suggests (in lines 1393-94) slightly changing the approach to the given task. Again, he uses metadiscourse to refer to the process of how they should go about their task, to which Jane agrees. He continues arguing that everyone had become too confused by the bracket notation. Anna pleads with him to drop this (lines 1399, 1401), thus expressing her opposition. Metadiscourse is employed by her to label the speech activity Let’s drop that. John is not sure what she means and asks for clarification. Jane takes a turn, opposing Anna by saying no four times and insisting that she should let him say what he wants to say, which is again an instance of metadiscourse. In lines 1407-1433, John suggests in great elaboration that the hierarchical relationships between the various elements of the decomposition should not be indicated with brackets, but with an alternative, and provides a number of reasons for his suggestion. In his elaboration he employs a high amount of metadiscourse to refer to the structure of the discourse. John receives positive verbal feedback from both Jane and Pam. Anna reacts with an outburst of anger, when he finishes his lengthy turn overlapping partly with Jane, who positively acknowledges John’s proposal with an evaluative very good (lines 1434-1435). Emphatic expression and pitch of voice clearly indicate that Anna is extremely upset. In her subsequent argument (containing her opposition to John’s suggestion), she complains that half an hour had been spent on one example without coming to any conclusion (lines 1434, 1436-1437). Jane strongly disagrees with her in line 1439. Anna continues her enraged argument saying she does not think they would reach any conclusion and eventually find that the teacher would present a totally different solution. She pleads that they proceed with the other examples. Her extended argument can be viewed as an accumulation of metadiscourse, a large part of which is made up by discourse labelling of preceding and subsequent actions, such as we have spent half an hour talking about this and disagreeing and we have not come to a conclusion, followed by metadiscourse labelling subsequent speech activities, e.g. I don’t think we’re gonna reach any conclusion, etc., finally pleading that they should discuss other examples. John reacts to Anna’s opposition by questioning how her proposal disagrees with his, supported by Jane. Both employ discourse labelling in their requests. After John, Jane and H confirm (lines 1463-1466) that they were proposing the same procedure, Anna concedes that she had interpreted this to apply to the first example, which can be interpreted as Metadiscourse in multi-party conflict talk 319 an explanation and a justification for her outburst. From this point onwards, conflict resolution progresses. Again, a great amount of discourse labelling is employed by all participants to name communicative actions and intentions in this process. Metadiscourse is particularly salient in this last extract, where the participants’ steps, activities and intentions in discourse are made explicit both in the initiation, development and resolution of the conflict. Raising the level of explicitness appears to be an important component of conflict episodes of the type discussed. It also seems to be the case that this level of explicitness is not just maintained by the parties who are directly involved in the conflict but by all the participants who contribute their views in the process. 6. Discussion and conclusion As has been mentioned in Section 2 already, the use of metadiscourse is also dependent on the genre. The data analysed in this article can be defined as task-oriented academic discourse as the main purpose of the group discussion is to accomplish a task set by their course teacher. Metadiscourse in this setting is concerned with all the relevant communicative aspects such as spoken and written discourse, as well as nonverbal interactions which occur throughout this speech activity (cf. Levinson 1992 for the concept of speech activity). Similar to other studies of task-based group discussions, metadiscourse is frequently applied to clarify procedural aspects relating to the ‘how’ in discourse. In this respect similarities can be found with intercultural project discussions (see Penz 2007, 2011). It has been demonstrated that metadiscourse plays an important role in all phases of conflict (initiation, development and termination) and is employed by all participants. In many cases, metadiscourse is resorted to for expressing opposition, which is the starting point of the conflict. Similarly, this also applies to counter-opposition. In the course of the group discussion questions of discourse structuring also play an important role. These are also frequently dealt with metadiscursively. The dynamics of conflict episodes in the group also turn out to be interesting: in this multi-party interaction other participants may align with the initial opponent, or a conflict may shift to other parties. Since high explicitness has been found to be a characteristic feature of task-based and work-related interactions in cooperative interactions, it is not surprising that conflict resolution is also largely accomplished through metadiscourse. An interesting finding, which applies mainly to the most extended conflict episode (Extract 4), is that in multi-party interactions where one or two participants employ metadiscourse extensively, the other members of the group will join, thus resulting in accumulated metadiscursivity. Hermine Penz 320 With respect to the outcome of the group discussion it is interesting to note that the conflicts affected the relationships of the people involved. This became apparent in the interviews after the first analysis and has already been discussed in Section 4. 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Appendix Transcription conventions, adapted from Tannen (1984: xix): .. noticeable pause or break in rhythm (less than 0.5 pause) ... half second pause (an extra dot is added for each half second pause) underline marks emphatic stress CAPS marks higher intensity . marks sentence final intonation ? marks yes/ no question rising intonation marks a glottal stop, or abrupt cutting off of sound, as in “uh-uh” / xxx/ indicates transcription impossible / words between slashes/ within slashes indicate uncertain transcription = continuation of utterance [ lines in brackets ] overlapping speech [ ] two people talking at the same time (italicised words in brackets) comment on quality of speech, context and non-verbal communication Hermine Penz Department of English Studies Karl-Franzens-University Graz Austria