Re: A challenge to the definition of metadiscourse

[Caroline Small <caroline -at- WOLFRAM -dot- COM>]

Ben Kovitz wrote:
> Interesting, but of course this isn't what the rest of us are talking
> about.

Which is why I started my comment by saying:

> >Recognizing that "metatext" and "metadiscourse" are jargony terms that can
> >pretty much mean what the community who uses them wants them to mean,


Ben Kovitz also wrote:
>When people explain what they mean, even going to the trouble of
>inventing their own terminology, going to a dictionary is generally not
>an effective method of finding out what they're referring to or
>addressing what they've said.

You didn't invent the word "metatext."  You borrowed it from philosophy,
as did Mr. Williams (originally cited as using metadiscourse).  I haven't
read Mr. Williams's text, so I can't discuss the particulars of his usage
to know if he's consistent with the accepted philosophical meaning of the
term.  Regardless of what you were saying about the example you gave, you
described it as "metatext."  But it's not an example of metatext, except
in a very limited sense.

>The examples we've given count as what
>we're talking about, not in a limited sense but in the fullest possible
>sense, because they're what we've chosen to talk about.

You were talking both about the examples from the conversation and about
an abstraction called "metatext" which you claimed were the same things. I
didn't say anything about the conversation you were having regarding your
examples; I wrote just about the jargony term you used to describe them. I
thought this would be evident from the passages I quoted and from my
subject line. I'm sorry if it was not.

> If you can come up with a better word for what we're calling
> "metadiscourse" or "metatext", I'm certainly open to suggestions.  One very
> common meaning of "meta", though, particularly among computerites, is that
> "meta-X" means "X about X". "Metadata", for example, means computer data
> that describes computer data (i.e. data about formats, how different data
> sets map to each other, etc.)..  So when most people see "metadiscourse" or
> "metatext", especially when accompanied by both a definition and an
> example, the meaning clicks pretty fast.  It wouldn't surprise me if the
> people who wrote the American Heritage dictionary didn't know about this
> sense of "meta".

First of all, this "definition" of "meta" is simply a truncated version of
the full definition, hence the "limited sense" in which it applies.
Secondly, although I borrowed the etymological meaning from the American
Heritage Dictionary, the bulk of the definition I used for "metaX" came
from the online computer encyclopedia I referred you to in the first
paragraph of my original message.  Here's the text from that website:

"Meta is a prefix that in most information technology usages means "an
underlying definition or description." Thus, metadata is a definition or
description of data and metalanguage is a definition or description of
language. Meta (pronounced MEH-tah in the U.S. and MEE-tah in the U.K.)
derives from Greek, meaning "among, with, after, change."  Whereas in some
English words the prefix indicates "change" (for example, metamorphosis),
in others, including those related to data and information, the prefix
carries the meaning of "more comprehensive or fundamental." "

I choose to emphasize the adjective in this definition of "meta," the
"underlying" quality of metaX.  It is for this reason that I think the
terms metadiscursive, metalinguistic, metatextual (I prefer the adjectival
forms) refer to a mode of speaking or a functionality of language rather
than to a type of content.

I will say somthing about your example since you've accused me of being
off-topic. The example you gave was: "2.1 The Job View Window This section
describes the Job View window."  I don't need a piece of philosophical
jargon to describe THAT problem. I call it "redundant."

Caroline


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