I begin with some brief remarks concerning the term metadiscourse. Two meanings have in general surfaced in connection with the term. On the one hand, metadiscourse is often used broadly to refer to discourse about discourse, to any kind of critical interpretation or theoretical exposition of a given (or "target") discourse or theory. Such a meaning entails an abstract connotation and resonates with a postmodern stance to deconstruct, to historicize theory; it is analogous to the meaning evident in other such terms as metacognition and metahistory fre- quently adopted in the respective fields of cognitive science and history. On the other hand, metadiscourse also has a more concrete meaning; it refers to various kinds of linguistic tokens that an author employs in her text to guide or direct her reader as to how to understand her, her text, and her stance toward it. 4 This concrete meaning, which is identified as "metalanguage" by sociolinguists,