Lex imperfecta, governance and persuasion: the case of quality assurance in Roman Catholic ecclesiastical higher education

Figures & data

Table 1. An Interpersonal model of metadiscourse (Hyland, 2018, p. 58)

Category	Function	Examples
Interactive	Help to guide the reader through the text	Resources
Transitions	Express relations between main clauses	In addition; but; thus; and
Frame markers	Refer to discourse acts, sequences or stages	Finally; to conclude; my purpose is
Endophoric markers	Refer to information in other parts of the text	Noted above; see Fig; in section ‘Setting the stage: the Holy See’s higher education system’
Evidentials	Refer to information from other texts	According to X; Z states
Code glosses	Elaborate proposition meanings	Namely; e.g.; such as; in other words
Interactional	Involve the reader in the text	Resources
Hedges	Withhold commitment and open dialogue	Might; perhaps; possible; about
Boosters	Emphasise certainty or close dialogue	In fact; definitely; it is clear that
Attitude markers	Express writer's attitude to proposition	Unfortunately; I agree; surprisingly
Self mentions	Explicit reference to author(s)	I; we; my: me; our
Engagement markers	Explicitly build relationship with reader	Consider; note; you can see that

Figure 1. Adapted from Dafouz-Milne (2003, p. 33).

Figure 2. Screenshot of a metadiscourse labelling with AntConc (Image by author).

Table 2. Metadiscourse analysis of AVEPRO guidelines A-B-D-E

		AVEPRO Guidelines A-B-D-E
	Metadiscourse marker	Before manual review	After manual review
Interactional Metadiscourse	Engagement markers	1326	298
	Hedges	229	67
	Boosters	116	18
	Attitude markers	63	27
	Self-mention	56	28
	Total	1790	438
Interactive Metadiscourse	Transition markers	1401	151
	Endophoric markers	131	87
	Shift topic	85	0
	Announce goals	66	3
	Sequencing	60	14
	Code glosses	44	29
	Evidentials	12	2
	Label stages	11	5
	Total	1810	291
	Metadiscourse total	3600	729
	Total number of words	26,030	26,030
	% Metadiscourse	13.83%	2.80%
	Frequency of occurrence per 1000 words	138.3	28

Hyland, K., 2018, Metadiscourse: Exploring interaction in writing (London, Bloomsbury Publishing).

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Dafouz-Milne, E., 2003, ‘Metadiscourse revisited: a contrastive study of persuasive writing in professional discourse’, Estudios Ingleses De La Universidad Complutense, 11, pp. 29–52.

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