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Metadiscourse is defined as discourse about the ongoing discourse. Metadiscourse is widely seen as the linguistic manifestations of writers and speakers taking the audience and their perceived needs into consideration when creating discourse and designing messages. Since applied linguistics research into metadiscourse took off in the 1980s, at least two different strands have developed: the interactive approach and the reflexive approach. The key distinction lies in whether what is seen as central for metadiscourse is the interaction between the writer and the reader, as in the interactive approach, or the reflexivity involved in the awareness of discourse as discourse, as in the reflexive approach. The distinction has effects on the definition, which is considerably more inclusive in the interactive approach, where phenomena such as stance and hedging are seen as inherently part of the category of metadiscourse. This entry will offer a description of the two main research strands, along with a brief overview of the historical development of metadiscourse research. An overview of methodologies used will also be given, including selected variables that have been found to affect the use of metadiscourse. The entry will close with a few remarks on new developments in the area.

“Risk” is typically thought of as something negative, and as something that should be avoided at all cost: risk characteristically has to do with the probability of an unwanted event occurring. However, risk may also be seen as something positive, even energizing, as in the context of financial markets or gambling. Voluntary risk taking has previously been approached through the concepts “action” and “edgework”. In this study, both negative and positive aspects of risk are explored in the context of adventure tourism. The focus is on how risk is discursively constructed in adventure tourism websites for Sápmi, centring on destinations in Sweden (Kiruna), Finland (Rovaniemi) and Norway (Tromsø). Our primary material from the booking platform Adrenaline Hunter amounts to 12,000 words. The findings show an ambivalence between negative and positive aspects of risk, but in a scalar sense, ranging from “soft” to “hard” types, with a negotiable awareness of how relative what counts as “extreme” may be. The theoretical suggestion is that positive aspects of risk need to be taken seriously for a fuller understanding of the very concept of “risk” and of the workings of risk discourse.

Persuasion is especially prominent in genres with a strong aim to affect others’ behaviour. Contemporary persuasion studies often centre on domains such as advertising, politics and media, and the present study targets tourism. Previous work on persuasion in tourism discourse has focused on word choice and collocations, while this study addresses how persuasion is performed through broader rhetorical functions. The English version of the official tourism website for Sweden was compiled into a 53,296-word corpus. Word frequency data showed that you was highly frequent. All examples involving you (N=450) were analysed inductively to identify persuasive rhetorical functions. Seven functions emerged: Specifying tourist identities; Constructing helpful/expert guide; Building rapport; Anticipating reader reactions (focusing on the visitor and/or guide); and Personifying the destination; Presenting options; Imagining scenarios (focusing on the destination). The most frequent function was found to be Constructing helpful/expert guide, whose frequency contrasts sharply to Anticipating reader reactions and Personifying the destination, with the remaining functions falling in between. The frequency analysis details how the seven functions co-occur; it revealed a common pattern of overlapping functions. © 2024 The Authors

In metadiscourse work, what may be called a ‘marker’ approach vastly outnumbers a ‘move’ approach. This has led to a research focus on small units of analysis, typically word based, classifying for example the pronoun I as Self-mention. This paper argues that we also need to develop a ‘move’ approach in metadiscourse studies, involving a more contextualised analysis of the discourse functions that speakers/writers use metadiscourse to perform. To support such a development, an overview is given of existing functional taxonomies for academic discourse and a specific taxonomy is presented of metadiscursive functions. The taxonomy was originally developed based on academic lectures and student essays, but is further developed as applied to spoken student presentations. The second main contribution of the article is the analysis of student presentations. The material is culled from an MA-level English-language online teaching context and compiled into a corpus of 13 presentations (20,000 words and 169 min of presentation time). The qualitative focus of the study is on the taxonomy for how metadiscourse is performed. Quantitative findings regarding the distribution of different types of metadiscourse functions are also included. Despite the widespread practice of student presentations, they have received very little research attention, but the present study maps their key discourse functions.

Contemporary workplaces are characterized by diversity, involving participants from multiple linguistic and cultural traditions. In such settings, translanguaging is considered a common practice in which multilinguals “create an apparently seamless flow between languages and language varieties and to transcend the boundaries between named languages and/or language varieties as well as the boundaries between language and other semiotic systems” (Hua et al., 2022, p. 315). Little research, however, exists on such practices in multilingual workplaces (Du & Zhou, 2022), and even less on the linguistically diverse Swedish workplace. To gain greater insight into the seamlessness, transcendence, and boundaries such language users create and perceive, we explore the communication practices of employees in different Swedish workplaces. As an initial departure point, five employees in managerial positions were interviewed in the pilot study. We adopt a critical intercultural communication approach, seeing “culture” as a dynamic concept, which employees may attribute to self and others, and (dis-)align with in different ways. Findings show that categorisations of languages are prevalent, with participants applying a scale of linguistic sophistication or complexity and ranking formality conventions on a strong-to-weak scale. When categorising people and groups, participants foreground identity and face, and group dynamics is a recurring theme, with distinctions made between groups and orientations. This presentation focuses on participants’ descriptions of L1 and L2 identities and their perceived effects on workplace communication. Findings suggest that translanguaging has yet to be commonplace in the workplaces we investigated and shed light on lay perspectives on (trans)languaging in the workplace.

References

Du, J., & Zhou, X. (2022). Translanguaging practices in Chinese/English bilingual engineers’ communications in the workplace. Applied Linguistics Review, 13(3), 389-402.

Hua, Z., Jones, R.H. & Jaworska, S. (2022). Acts of distinction at times of crisis: An epistemological challenge to intercultural communication research. Language and Intercultural Communication, 22(3), 312-323.

In this talk, we present a research project that we plan to launch in late 2023. The aim of the project is to investigate professional communication in video meetings, which is justified given their growing importance in the modern and post-pandemic workplace. The setting is workplaces in Sweden where English is used as a lingua franca, due to the increasing societal impact of multilingual workplaces. In the specific context of study, communication is embedded in several layers of complexity: It takes place in an institutional setting; it is digital and takes place in video mode; it is done across cultures and marked by diversity; and it is done partly in English as a lingua franca. The project focuses on internal communication within the workplace and does not consider external communication, for example involving customers. The overarching research question is: What factors contribute to (un)successful digital intercultural interactions in multilingual workplaces, specifically in video meetings? To map the characteristics of video meetings, we compare them to in-person meetings. We thus ask: (a) What (perceived and actual) differences and similarities are there between digital and in-person workplace meetings? To map the video meeting as a genre, we ask: (b) What are the key structural, linguistic, and interactional patterns of the video meeting? Given the central role of English as a lingua franca in these workplaces, we ask: (c) To what extent and how does English language proficiency—including participants’ beliefs about and attitudes to English language proficiency—affect workplace communication in digital intercultural interactions? Finally, we adopt a critical intercultural communication approach, seeing ‘culture’ as a dynamic concept (e.g., Hua et al., 2022), which employees may attribute to self and others, and (dis-)align with in different ways. We ask: (d) To what extent and how is culture seen as relevant in multilingual workplaces? Participants will be interviewed about communication practices in the workplace both individually and in focus groups. We will also record and analyze samples of (i) video and (ii) in-person meetings, to enable triangulation of different types of data. We conclude by discussing how the project's findings can be used as a basis for best practices and for developing workplace communication training materials.

Risk communication is widely researched in the social sciences, but in linguistics the study of how risk is communicated has not yet formed a coherent field of its own. In this chapter, we approach risk from a discourse perspective, aiming to promote the establishment of risk discourse as a field of study with its own characteristics. We approach the question “What is “risk”?” through a discourse-linguistic analysis that crucially involves the concept of responsibility. We show that there is a body of previous research in linguistics that has dealt with some aspect of risk, but typically without foregrounding risk or using risk as an analytical tool. We show how this state of affairs also applies to responsibility. We argue that an understanding of discourse about risk and risk scenarios needs to be informed by an understanding of the concept of responsibility. The theoretical point of this chapter is therefore to conceive of and establish this type of responsibility-embedded Risk Discourse. Throughout the chapter, we discuss ways in which risk and responsibility can serve as analytical tools in risk discourse studies. This is illustrated by reference not only to previous research, but also to the chapters included in the current volume.

Contemporary workplaces are often characterized by diversity, involving participants from multiple linguistic and cultural traditions (e.g., Angouri, 2014). In such settings, participants draw on their rich cultural assumptions and values to co-construct meaning (e.g., Takamiya & Aida Niendorf, 2019), as language use and communication patterns have been found to be inextricably linked to different group belongings. While diversity enriches workplace interaction linguistically and culturally, it also presents “communicative challenges to many employers and co-workers” (Holmes, 2018, p. 335). These communicative challenges include increased likelihood of miscommunication, social exclusion (Lønsmann, 2014), and limited interpersonal communication (Tange & Lauring, 2009). While considerable research has been devoted to understanding intercultural workplaces communication, little research exists on the linguistically and culturally diverse Swedish workplace. To gain greater insights into how diversity may enrich workplace interaction and the communicative challenges employees may experience, this pilot study explores employees’ attitudes to and beliefs about intercultural communication in the Swedish workplace. The pilot study is part of a larger project on digital professional communication in multilingual workplaces in Sweden. Five employees in managerial positions in Swedish higher education and corporations were interviewed. We adopt a critical intercultural communication approach, seeing “culture” as a dynamic concept, which employees may attribute to self and others, and (dis-)align with in different ways. Findings show that: (a) language competence in English is seen as indexing general competence; (b) categorisations of cultures are prevalent: Participants often view culture as synonymous with nation and point at differences between groups as a challenge to achieve effective communication; (c) identity and face are foregrounded: Some participants feel like a different person when using a different language, while others see a specific language as a way to adopt a different persona or professional role; and (d) culture and language are used to explain group dynamics (e.g., feeling as an outsider or as part of the group), and as tools to actively integrate or exclude others. The material has raised our awareness about not seeing the workplace as a monolith, but workplaces may be marked by internal variation when it comes to intercultural communication. 

References   Angouri, J. (2014). Multilingualism in the workplace: Language practices in multicultural contexts. Multilingua 33, 1-9.     

Holmes, J. (2018). Intercultural communication in the workplace. In B. Vine (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of language in the workplace (pp. 335-347). Routledge.    

Lønsmann, D. (2014). Linguistic diversity in the international workplace: Language ideologies and processes of exclusion. Multilingua 33, 89–116.    

Takamiya, Y. & Aida Niendorf, M. (2019). Identity (re)construction and improvement in intercultural competence through synchronous and asynchronous telecollaboration: Connecting Japanese language learners in the United States and Sweden. In Zimmerman, E. & McMeekin, A. (Eds.), Technology-supported learning in and out of the Japanese language classroom: Theoretical, empirical, and pedagogical developments (pp. 111-145). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.    

Tange, H., & Lauring, J. (2009). Language management and social interaction within the multilingual workplace. Journal of Communication Management 13(3), 218–232.