Cover not available

Article published In:
[Journal of Historical Pragmatics 16:1] 2015
► pp. 86–108

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

“The reader is desired to observe…”

Metacomments in the prefaces to English school grammars of the eighteenth century

 | Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
Published online: 3 April 2015
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.16.1.04dom
The prefaces to English school grammars of the eighteenth century may be conceptualised as a frame of reference for the authorial voice behind them. To promote and boost the sales of their works, grammarians generally wrote sound, meaningful prefaces that combined propositional content with metadiscursive comments. Therefore, this kind of prefatory material falls within the scope of what Genette (1997: 1–2) calls the “paratextual apparatus” of a work, which aims to provide the reader with essential information for the correct reception, understanding and perusal of the book. This paper focuses on grammarians’ textual and interpersonal metacomments as thoughtful strategies to guide the reader carefully through the text, as well as to shape the contents and message of the book at various levels (Hyland 2000; Lorés-Sanz 2006: 92). To this end, a study corpus of fifteen English school grammars has been retrieved from the ECEG Database (2010) by restricting two search parameters: target audience and authors’ place of birth.
References (63)
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO). 2007–2013. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Cengage Group. Accessed 23 May 2013, at: [URL]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Evans Early Imprint Collection. Text Creation Partnership. Available online at: [URL]
Oxford English Dictionary Online (OED). 2000–. 3rd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Accessed 21 May 2013, at: [URL]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eighteenth-Century English Grammars (ECEG). 2010. Compiled by Nuria Yáñez-Bouza and M. Esther Rodríguez-Gil. Manchester: Manchester University. Accessed 23 May 2013, at: [URL]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ädel, Annelie. 2010. “‘Just to Give you Kind of a Map of Where We Are Going’: A Taxonomy of Metadiscourse in Spoken and Written Academic English”. Nordic Journal of English Studies 9 (2): 69‒97. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aguilar, Marta. 2008. Metadiscourse in Academic Speech: A Relevance-Theoretic Approach. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Arrington, Philip and Shirley K. Rose. 1987. “Prologues to What is Possible: Introductions as Metadiscourse”. College Composition and Communication 38 (3): 306‒18. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Atkinson, Dwight. 1999. Scientific Discourse in Sociohistorical Context: The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1675–1975. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, Mona and Gabriela Saldanha (eds). 2009. Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, 2nd edn. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bamford, Julia and Marina Bondi (eds). 2005. Dialogue within Discourse Communities. Tübingen: De Gruyter Mouton Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beauvais, Paul Jude. 1989. “A Speech Act Theory of Metadiscourse”. Written Communication 6 (1): 11‒30. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bondi, Marina and Davide Mazzi. 2008. “‘In This Article, We Focus on…’: Metadiscourse across Disciplines”. In Aurelia Martelli and Virginia Pulcini (eds), Investigating English with Corpora: Studies in Honour of Maria Teresa Prat, 293‒310. Milan: Polimetrica.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boggel, Sandra. 2009. Metadiscourse in Middle English and Early Modern English Religious Texts: A Corpus-Based Study. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Borg, Erik. 2003. “Key Concepts in ELT: Discourse Community”. English Language Teaching Journal 57 (4): 398‒400. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cajka, Karen. 2003. The Forgotten Women Grammarians of Eighteenth-Century England. PhD Dissertation. University of Connecticut.
Camiociottoli, Belinda. 2005. “The Role of Metadiscourse in University-Level EAP Reading Instruction”. In Julia Bamford and Marina Bondi (eds), Dialogue within Discourse Communities: Metadiscursive Perspective on Academic Genres, 87‒101. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cheng, Xiaoguang and Margaret Steffensen. 1996. “Metadiscourse: A Technique for Improving Student Writing”. Research in the Teaching of English 30 (2): 149‒81.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Craig, Robert T. 2008. “The Rhetoric of ‘Dialogue’ in Metadiscourse: Possibility/Impossibility Arguments and Critical Events”. In Edda Weigand (ed.), Dialogue and Rhetoric, 55‒68. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crismore, Avon. 1983. Metadiscourse: What Is It and How Is It Used in School and Non-School Social Science Texts. Urbana-Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crismore, Avon and Rodney Farnsworth. 1990. “Metadiscourse in Popular and Professional Science Discourse”. In Walter Nash (ed.), The Writing Scholar: Studies in Academic Discourse, 118‒36. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dahl, Trine. 2004. “Textual Metadiscourse in Research Articles: A Marker of National Culture or of Academic Discipline?” Journal of Pragmatics 36 (10): 1807‒25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fisher, Ann. 1750 (1745). A New Grammar, with Exercises of Bad English: or, An Easy Guide to Speaking and Writing the English Language Properly and Correctly. Newcastle: Printed for Tho. Stack.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Genette, Gérard. 1991. “Introduction to the Paratext”. New Literary History 22 (2): 261‒72. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1997. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A.K. 1970. “Language Structure and Language Function”. In John Lyons (ed.), New Horizons in Linguistics, 140‒65. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hodson, Jane. 2008. “Joseph Priestley’s two Rudiments of English Grammar: 1761 and 1768”. In Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (ed.), Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar-Writing in Eighteenth-Century England, 177‒91. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hübler, Axel and Wolfram Bublitz. 2007. “Introducing Metapragmatics in Use”. In Wolfram Bublitz and Axel Hübler (eds), Metapragmatics in Use, 1‒26. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hübler, Axel and Ulrich Busse. 2012. “Introduction”. In Ulrich Busse and Axel Hübler (eds), Investigations into the Meta-Communicative Lexicon of English: A Contribution to Historical Pragmatics, 179‒206. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hyland, Ken. 1998. “Persuasion and Context: The Pragmatics of Academic Metadiscourse”. Journal of Pragmatics 30 (4): 437‒55. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2000. Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. Metadiscourse: Exploring Interaction in Writing. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. “Academic Discourse”. In Ken Hyland and Brian Paltridge (eds), Continuum Companion to Discourse Analysis, 171‒84. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hyland, Ken and Polly Tse. 2004. “Metadiscourse in Academic Writing: A Reappraisal”. Applied Linguistics 25 (2): 156‒77. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ifantidou, Elly. 2005. “The Semantics and Pragmatics of Metadiscourse”. Journal of Pragmatics 37 (9): 1325‒53. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ilie, Cornelia. 2003. “Discourse and Metadiscourse in Parliamentary Debate”. Journal of Language and Politics 2 (1): 71‒92. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johns, Ann M. 1997. Text, Role and Context: Developing Academic Literacies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lorés-Sanz, Rosa. 2006. “The Referential Function of Metadiscourse: ‘Thing(s)’ and ‘Idea(s)’ in Academic Lectures”. In Ana Maria Hornero, María José Luzón and Silvia Murillo (eds), Corpus Linguistics: Applications for the Study of English, 315‒33. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lowth, Robert. 1762. An Introduction to English Grammar. London: Printed for A. Millar and R. and J. Dodsley.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martínez-Guillem, Susana. 2009. “Argumentation, Metadiscourse and Social Cognition: Organizing Knowledge in Political Communication”. Discourse and Society 20 (6): 727‒46. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Michael, Ian. 1991. “More than Enough English Grammars”. In Gerhard Leitner (ed.), English Traditional Grammars: An International Perspective, 11‒26. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nash, Walter. 1992. “Introduction: The Stuff These People Write”. In Walter Nash (ed.), The Writing Scholar: Studies in Academic Discourse, 8‒30. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paltridge, Brian. 2006. Discourse Analysis: An Introduction. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Percy, Carol. 2008. “Mid-Century Grammars and their Reception in the Monthly Review and the Critical Review ”. In Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (ed.), Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar-writing in Eighteenth-century England, 125‒42. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rahman, Mujib. 2004. “Aiding the Reader: The Use of Metalinguistic Devices in Scientific Discourse”. Nottingham Linguistic Circular 18: 291‒48.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raven, James. 2001. “The Book Trades”. In Isabel Rivers (ed.), Book and Their Readers in Eighteenth-Century England: New Essays, 1‒34. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sanderson, Tamsin. 2008. Corpus, Culture, Discourse. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah. 1980. “Metatalk: Organizational and Evaluative Brackets in Discourse”. Social Inquiry: Language and Social Interaction 50: 1991‒236.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scollon Ron and Suzanne W. Scollon. 2001. Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Searle, John R. 1969. Speech Acts: An Essay on the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Swales, John M. 1990. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taavitsainen, Irma. 1999. “Dialogues in Late Medieval and Early Modern Medical Writings”. In Andreas H. Jucker, Gerd Fritz and Franz Lebsanft (eds), Historical Dialogue Analysis, 243‒68. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. “Audience Guidance and Learned Medical Writing in Late Medieval English”. In Maurizio Gotti and Françoise Salager-Meyer (eds), Advances in Medical Discourse Analysis: Oral and Written Context, 431‒56. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taavitsainen, Irma and Turo Hiltunen. 2012. “ Now as a Text Deictic Feature in Late Medieval and Early Modern English Medical Writing”. In Ulrich Busse and Axel Hübler (eds), Investigations into the Meta-Communicative Lexicon of English: A Contribution to Historical Pragmatics, 179‒206. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taavitsainen, Irma and Susan M. Fitzmaurice. 2007. “Historical Pragmatics: What It Is and How to Do It”. In Susan M. Fitzmaurice and Irma Taavitsainen (eds), Methods in Historical Pragmatics, 11‒36. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thompson, Susan. 2003. “Text-Structuring Metadiscourse, Intonation and the Signalling of Organisation in Academic Lectures”. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 2 (1): 5‒20. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid. 2008a. “Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar Writing: An Introduction”. In Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (ed.), Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar-Writing in Eighteenth-Century England, 1‒14. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tieken-Book van Ostade, Ingrid. 2008b. “The 1760s: Grammars, Grammarians and the Booksellers”. In Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (ed.), Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar-Writing in Eighteenth-Century England, 101‒24. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vande Kopple, William J. 1985. “Some Exploratory Discourse on Metadiscourse”. College Composition and Communication 36: 831‒4.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Watts, Richard J. 1995. “Justifying Grammars: A Socio-Pragmatic Foray into the Discourse Community of Early English Grammarians”. In Andreas H. Jucker (ed.), Historical Pragmatics, 145‒86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999. “The Social Construction of Standard English: Grammar Writers as a ‘Discourse Community’”. In Tony Bex and Richard J. Watts (eds), Standard English: The Widening Debate, 40‒68. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. “Grammar Writers in Eighteenth-Century Britain: A Community of Practice or a Discourse Community?” In Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (ed.), Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar-Writing in Eighteenth-Century England, 37‒56. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilson, Louise. 2011. “Playful Paratexts: The Front Matter of Anthony Munday’s Iberian Romance Translations”. In Helen Smith and Louise Wilson (eds), Renaissance Paratexts, 121‒31. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (7)

Cited by seven other publications

Peikola, Matti
2025. Text Editions and the Philological Tradition. In The New Cambridge History of the English Language, ► pp. 154 ff. DOI logo
Peikola, Matti & Mari-Liisa Varila
2025. Presenting manuscript tables and diagrams to the Middle English reader. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 26:1 ► pp. 69 ff. DOI logo
Bös, Birte & Matti Peikola
2020. Framing framing. In The Dynamics of Text and Framing Phenomena [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 317], ► pp. 3 ff. DOI logo
Varila, Mari-Liisa
2020. Book producers’ comments on text-organisation in early 16th-century English printed paratexts. In The Dynamics of Text and Framing Phenomena [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 317], ► pp. 209 ff. DOI logo
Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria
2017. Paratext, title-pages and grammar books. Studia Neophilologica 89:1 ► pp. 41 ff. DOI logo
Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria
2022. Methodological approaches to the study of codification, prescription, and prescriptivism. Studia Neophilologica 94:3 ► pp. 334 ff. DOI logo
Domínguez-Rodríguez, M. Victoria
2016. A Corpus-Based Study of Abbreviations in Eighteenth-Century English Grammars. English Studies 97:5 ► pp. 528 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue