Abstract: How to identify and classify metadiscursive expressions is controversial, the narrow approach, the broad approach, the interpersonal model and the reflexive model have thus been proposed, among which the interpersonal model is most widely used, while less attention has been paid to the reflexive one. This paper discusses the remaining problems of the first three models, and then explores the breakthroughs of the reflexive model with focus on its criteria for identifying and classifying metadiscursive expressions.