"’In this article we focus on…’: metadiscourse across disciplines"

The paper moves from a broad notion of metadiscourse, focusing on ‘locational metatext’ comprising “linguistic elements that refer to the text itself or parts of it” (Dahl 2004: 1811), and “rhetorical metatext” (Dahl 2004: 1812), whereby the writer interacts with the reader by making explicit the rhetorical acts he performs in the argumentative process. The aim of the paper is to explore the frequency and use of metadiscursive patterns involving these elements in English research article openings, by comparing two soft-science disciplines, i.e. economics and history. More specifically, data are examined through corpus linguistics tools, in order to focus on disciplinary similarities and differences in terms of common metadiscourse functions. Furthermore, more distinctive aspects are investigated bearing on authorial presence in the organisation of discourse towards both its content and the readership right from the beginning of research articles. Finally, the overall epistemological configurations revealed by collocational and phraseological patterns are evaluated.