Reflexively Speaking: Metadiscourse in English as a Lingua Franca

by Anna Mauranen

Reflexive language - the capacity of language to speak about itself - is unique to human languages; yet little is known of its use in actual dialogue. Fundamental features of language are manifest in dialogic speech and in lingua francas. Both are taken on board in this book, which radically widens our conception of reflexivity in discourse. Reflexivity, or metadiscourse, is central to successful communication. It is also vital in understanding academic argumentation, essential to academic self-understanding, and at the same time it has wide applications.

238 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 6, 2023

About the author

Anna Mauranen is Professor of English at the University of Helsinki. Her main research focuses on English as a lingua franca, modelling spoken language, corpus linguistics, and academic discourses. She is co-editor of Applied Linguistics and founding co-editor of the Journal of English as a Lingua Franca. She is currently director of a collaborative language and brain research project <"Chunking in language: units of meaning and processing (CLUMP)>", corpus-based research projects on spoken and written academic English as a lingua franca (ELFA & WrELFA, www.helsinki.fi/elfa ), and the director of a research consortium on Global English.