Instruction and Interaction in an American Lecture Class. Observations from a Corpus

Abstract

Taking the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English, this paper explores the pragmatic behavior of one-word tags – a common feature in conversational English – in academic speech. The analysis indicates that university professors use tags within textual metadiscourse patterns to signpost their audiences and facilitate comprehension. In addition, tags correlate with interpersonal metadiscourse elements typical of conversation that help lecturers adopt stances, convey solidarity and socialize with their undergraduates. The conclusion section relates the interpersonal semiotics of lectures to the communicative goals of university talk and suggests the need to approach listening comprehension through students’ awareness of genres as social actions.