Interpersonal Metadiscourse in Wordsworth’s “Preface” to Lyrical Ballads

This article analyses the linguistic practices utilised by W. Wordsworth in “Preface” to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800) in order to construct his own identity as an innovative writer and his interaction with his reader. Within the aims and scope of the new discipline of historical pragmatics, “Preface” is examined as a dialogic text and the features of its interpersonal metadiscourse are identified and investigated. This historical pragmatic scrutiny demonstrates that the interpersonal metadiscourse items represent the figure of the writer as authoritative and persuasive. Moreover, they also lead his addressee to share the writer’s viewpoint on Romantic poetry and language by means of positive politeness building a common context directly involving the reader.