ABSTRACT
The importance of metadiscursive nouns and the relatively less attention given to them in the literature calls for theoretical and pedagogical implications of this research: how this study contributes to our understanding of varied linguistic features and rhetorical means in the social construction of academic writing, how nouns play rhetorical roles in academic text and how these linguistic analyses can be translated into materials for the teaching of academic writing. Academic discourse studies are typically underpinned by either an interest in its language features or a quest for pedagogical effectiveness. The functional classification reveals how they can be understood as performing both interactive and interactional functions and hopefully encourages others to include metadiscursive nouns in their research of academic writing.
