Abstract: In recent years, the theoretical studies of metadiscourse from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics have been in full swing.At the same time, a trend has gradually emerged towards multi-perspective and interdisciplinary metadiscourse studies.However, the present literature mainly focuses upon the classification, research paradigms and background theories of metadiscourse, with the problems and prospect of metadiscourse research being largely neglected.This paper reviews the development of metadiscourse research at home and abroad in the past three decades(1989-2019), with an aim of clarifying the development of metadiscourse studies in both theoretical and applied fields.On the basis of this, this study discusses the potential problems in the current studies and the prospect of the future development in metadiscourse studies.