Abstract
As a particular form of writer-reader interaction, metadiscourse is an umbrella term for a number of linguistic and rhetorical devicesthatserve to signal the author’s presence in the text, his idea of textual organization as well as his attitudes towards the propositional content and the readers. Using Hyland’s taxonomy we were able to examine all the major metadiscourse markers employed by Vasari in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Archi- tects. The results obtained were analysed and interpreted in terms of their somewhat archaic forms and functions within the genre- and language- specific text. The qualitative analysis was conducted on each of Hyland’s metadiscourse categories and illustrated by examples from various parts of Vasari’s Dedica, Proemio, technical chapters on artistic processes as well as biographies. The results show that metadiscourse had played a significant role in the written communication long before its categories and devices were described, although its linguistic manifestations and frequency may have been different than they are today.
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