Eco-Metadiscourse in Constructing Ecological Awareness in Children's Nature-Themed Educational Videos

This study investigates the use of metadiscourse in children’s nature-themed educational videos, introducing the concept of eco-metadiscourse as a new analytical perspective. Eco-metadiscourse brings together the analytical framework of metadiscourse, grounded in this study in Hyland’s (2005) Interpersonal Model, and an ecolinguistic approach (Stibbe, 2015), offering a framework that addresses both the role of discourse in structuring information and interaction and its role in conveying ecological values, responsibilities, and worldviews. The dataset comprises four educational videos produced by the TEMA Foundation, totalling approximately 15 minutes of audiovisual material. The study adopts a qualitative approach, analyzing interactive resources such as transitions, frame markers, evidentials, endophoric markers, and code glosses, as well as interactional resources including hedges, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions, and engagement markers. The findings indicate that metadiscourse resources perform a multidimensional function in the construction of ecological awareness, presenting ecosystems as dynamic networks grounded in interdependence, cyclicity, and diversity. In this respect, interactive resources contribute to the logical and conceptual structuring of ecological processes, while interactional resources support ethical evaluation, a sense of responsibility, and the development of participatory awareness. At the level of subcategories, transitions, frame markers, and endophoric markers organize ecological processes step by step and guide the flow of discourse; evidentials and code glosses define and exemplify concepts, providing credible, accessible, and concrete explanations; hedges and boosters introduce both caution and emphasis, establishing a balance between possibility and certainty; and attitude markers, self-mentions, and engagement markers strengthen evaluative and ethical guidance, narrator mediation, and audience interaction, contributing to the development of responsibility, care, and participatory ecological awareness among children. The study shows that even in a limited corpus, eco-metadiscourse plays a central role in shaping children’s ecological knowledge and ethical orientations. The findings also highlight the pedagogical potential of eco-metadiscourse and point to its relevance across a range of educational and public genres, including textbooks, environmental campaigns, educational media, and children’s literature. Overall, the study positions eco-metadiscourse as an explanatory analytical framework for examining how ecological awareness, responsibility, and caring orientations are constructed through language.