Author: Jim Martin

Title: Metadiscourse: meaning, consciousness and literacy learning


One of the distinctive features of Australia's genre-based literacy
programs has been the role play by knowledge about language (KAL) in
curricula. This raises questions about which levels of language are
brought to consciousness, and what kind of terminology is deployed. In
addition there are related pedagogic issues having to do with how and
when metadiscourse is managed in a teaching/learning cycle. In this
paper I will review selected Australian initiatives in this area,
focussing in particular on recent work by David Rose on English
literacy for Indigenous Australians. Rose's innovations focus
attention on micro-sequencing in the joint construction of meaning by
teacher and students, and draw attention to the possibility of varying
degrees of consciousness as far as metadiscursive awareness is
concerned.