Analyzing Teachers’ Use of Metadiscourse: The Missing Element in Classroom Discourse Analysis

Abstract

Metadiscourse, or metatalk, is a discursive resource used in virtually any text or conversation to organize its content or signal the author's stance toward the content. Despite its prevalence in classroom talk, few have examined the role of metadiscourse and how it assists teachers and students to manage classroom communication of scientific knowledge. Thus, the purpose of this study is to analyze how science teachers use metadiscourse to construct scientific knowledge with their students. Based on a corpus of classroom video data, I developed a typology of metadiscourse commonly found in science classroom discourse. The typology comprises six major categories of metadiscourse, namely text connective, knowledge connective, activity connective, attitude marker, epistemology marker, and interpretive marker. In addition, I showed how the analysis on metadiscourse was necessary to complement the gaps from classroom analysis focusing on the interaction and content development aspects of classroom talk, particularly during the opening and reviewing stages of constructing a scientific explanation. With a better understanding of metadiscourse, its potential use as a pedagogical intervention to promote science learning is then discussed.

Quantum talk: How small‐group discussions may enhance students’ understanding in quantum physics

“…() and confirmed in empirical research investigating the role of the teacher in students’ collaborative knowledge building (Hmelo‐Silver & Barrows, ; Ødegaard, Haug, Mork, & Sørvik, ; Wang & Buck, ). Also teachers’ metadiscourse as described by Tang () may assist students in making connections between different parts of a conversation and model what it means to think as a scientist. In particular, the teacher's authoritative voice is crucial for dealing with faulty novice conceptions that students may consider during their small‐group discussions, such as the conception of the wave–particle duality as a particle in a wave‐shaped movement, which we saw signs of in the small‐group discussions in this paper.…”

“…Scott, Mortimer, and Aguiar () have pointed to a tension between these and emphasized that science teaching should have a sound balance between authoritative/dialogic and interactive/noninteractive approaches. More recently, Tang () has analyzed the role of metadiscourse in science teaching. Building on Lemke () and others, he developed a framework of ways in which science teachers use metadiscourse to construct scientific knowledge with their students.…”

“Talking Science” to “Discourse Strategies”: Perspective Shifting from “Knowing” to “Doing” the Language of ScienceTang, K. S. (2021). Discourse strategies for science teaching and learning: Research and practice. New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN 9780367344245. 212 Pages, 34 B/W illustrations

“…Rarely do teachers view students' ideas, language, and discourse as resources to help students to make sense of discussed concepts. Students struggle to recognize and adapt a peer's critique to improve their ideas, arguments, and models (Resendes et al, 2015;Tang, 2017). Both teachers and students need to understand and acknowledge language as a resource to construct knowledge, that students' ideas are stepping-stones to construct mutual understanding, and that discourse is a pathway to develop knowledge from fuzzy to the more concrete and scientific (Fulmer et al, 2020).…”

Integrating disciplinary-specific genre structure in discourse strategies to support disciplinary literacy

“…These two bracketing strategies are called organizational and evaluative metadiscourse. Organizational metadiscourse includes text connectives like "let's go back to the experiment just now" and "we need to start from", while evaluative metadiscourse includes attitude markers like "this is an important link" and "I know this is a difficult part" (Tang, 2017).…”