Metadiscourse in Digital Communication: A Short Introduction

This introduction provides an overview of past and current research on metadiscourse and highlights new research discourses emerging from the field. It starts by explaining how metadiscourse has evolved in the past 20 years and the reasons why it continues to fascinate researchers in professional and academic fields in a variety of disciplines and domains. It then focuses on the fact that as communication moves online and a variety of genres become digitalised, researchers active in metadiscourse are increasingly concerned with digital communication and are questioning or adapting well-established methodologies but also proposing new and much-needed perspectives on reflexivity. The field is undoubtedly in a flux, and new and interesting approaches and eclectic frameworks are emerging, some of which are contained in this very volume.