Grammatical thought

First, metadiscourse guides or directs the reader, which means that it is an indicator of the author’s intent. Second, it helps us to understand not only the text, but also the writer’s stance toward it. This also speaks to authorial intent. Although metacomments might indeed have a formulaic quality, they also represent the writer’s choice to mark the presence of some feature that might otherwise have been overlooked.—Steven E. Runge, Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament: A Practical Introduction for Teaching and Exegesis (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2010), 105.