markers of lesser importance in lectures
TRANSCRIPT
Markersoflesserimportanceinlectures
KatrienDeroey
Citeas:Deroey,K.L.B.Markersoflesserimportanceinlecturediscourse.1stInternationalConferenceonCorpusAnalysisinAcademicDiscourse.22November2017,Valencia,Spain.
Whatareimportancemarkers?
Markersof(lesser)importance
‘Lexicogrammatical devices that overtly mark the
relative importance or relevance of points which are
presented verbally or visually’(Deroey &Taverniers,2012a,p.222)
Markersof(lesser)importance
Discourseorganization:hierarchyofimportanceoflecturepoints+Evaluation:‘parameterofimportanceorrelevance’(Thompson&Hunston,2000,p.24)• Of‘discourseentities’(Thetela,1997,ascitedinHunston,2000,p.182)• Oninteractiveplaneofdiscourse(Sinclair,2004)• Lectureras‘textconstructor’(Hunston,2000,p.183)
Markersof(lesser)importance
ImportancemarkersDeroey (2015,2014),Deroey &Taverniers (2012a),CrawfordCamiciottoli(2007),Swales&Burke(2003)
MarkersoflesserimportanceDeroey (2014),Deroey &Taverniers (2012b)
Redcrosse hasafightwithoneoftheseguysandwinsandanotherguyandlosesetceteraetceterabutthepointis whatyouhavetorememberisthatinanallegoricalstoryeverybodythehtheheromeetsiswhathehasinsidehimsoit’sawayofcreatingacomplexpsychologicalfigure
Howwerethemarkersretrieved?
Deroey &Taverniers (2012b)
BritishAcademicSpokenEnglishcorpus
160lecturesArts& Humanities,SocialStudies& Sciences,PhysicalSciences,Life& MedicalSciences
Subcorpus:40lectures(1252256tokens)
Pilot:4lectures
Other36lectures
160lectures
ManualsearchTworesearchersRefineinclusioncriteria
AutomatedSketchEngine
Manualsearch1researcher
Sampleinterrating
90items3researchers
Deroey&Taverniers,2012b
Howdolecturersmarklessimportantpoints?
Deroey &Taverniers (2012b)Deroey (2014)
Spotthemarker(s)oflesserimportance
mycatisademonidon'tknowwhyiputdow thatdownasametaphoryouonlygottolookatmetoseethatthat'struebutnevermind
Interpreting pragmaticfunction
Co-text
Non-verbal,visual,prosodiccues
Lecturegenre
Interpreting pragmaticfunction
Co-textthatdoeshavecertainconsequencesforforchangebutanyway i’m noti won’tbegoingon ontothose
Interpreting pragmaticfunction
Non-verbal,visual,prosodiccuesfortypercentorsoofdiabeticsgetbaddiabetesincludingtheeyesthekidneysetceteraandsoifyouwereacynicyou'dsaywellwhybotherforthosefortypercent'causethey'rebuggeredanyway [[voicedpause]]butnonethelessi thinkwehaveto[[voicedpause]]adoptapositiveapproach
Interpreting pragmaticfunction
Lecturegenree.g.ifsomethingisimportant,thelecturer•willcoverit
i'm notgoingtotalkaboutthesecondequation
•willrememberit
i can'tremember theexactdetailsofthecase
• islesslikelytoadviseagainstnote-taking
don't bothertotrytocopy itdown
Markersoflesserimpo
rtance Messagestatus
Topictreatment
Lecturerknowledge
Attention- ¬e-takingdirectives
Assessment
Markersoflesserimpo
rtance Messagestatus
Topictreatment
Lecturerknowledge
Attention- ¬e-takingdirectives
Assessment
Messagestatus
Assignnegativevalue
that’salittlebitofasidewaysidelinei'm joking
Signaltransitionsbetweenmore& lessimportant
thatdoeshavecertainconsequencesforforchangebutanyway i’m noti won’tbegoingonontothose
Markersoflesserimpo
rtance Messagestatus
Topictreatment
Lecturerknowledge
Attention- ¬e-takingdirectives
Assessment
Topictreatment
Indicatelimiteddiscourse/timeisdevotedtotopic
whati'd liketodonowistosayalittlebitaboutwater
thenyoudoafewmoreoperationswhichi willnotdragyouthroughrightnowandwhythisissoetceteraetcetera
Markersoflesserimpo
rtance Messagestatus
Topictreatment
Lecturerknowledge
Attention- ¬e-takingdirectives
Assessment
Lecturerknowledge
Suggestsimprecise/partialknowledge
i can'trememberit'sinthetextbookbutignorethat'causeit'stotallyirrelevantfortheactualwhati'm goingtotellyou
it'snevercalledthatinfilmstudyidon'tknowwhybutitisn't
Markersoflesserimpo
rtance Messagestatus
Topictreatment
Lecturerknowledge
Attention- ¬e-takingdirectives
Assessment
Attention- andnote-takingdirectives
Directstudentsnottopayattention/takenotes
youdon't needtocopy themalldown
ignore that'causeit'stotallyirrelevant
Markersoflesserimpo
rtance Messagestatus
Topictreatment
Lecturerknowledge
Attention- ¬e-takingdirectives
Assessment
Assessment
Indicatewhatinformationwon’tbeexamined
itwon't comeuponanexampaper
youdon'thaveto know thedetailsofof Keynes'economictheories
What doesit mean?
Findingsaboutlecturediscourse
Lecturers tend not to labeltheir discourseasirrelevant.Discourseorganization often happens throughmultifunctional,‘muted signals’(Swales&Burke,2003,p.17) that require contextual disambiguition.Lecturers rarely refer to assessment.
When looking for forms performing afunction,startingfrom preconceived itemslimits representativeness.Consider methods to limitsubjectivity.Analytical accuracy isaffected by triangulation,multimodality,prosody,&non-verbalcommunication.Howreliable &feasible isquantification?Adopt a‘hardto classify’category (cf.Swales,2001)
Implicationsforpragmaticcorpusstudies
‘Muchevaluativemeaningisnotobviouslyidentifiable,asitappearstodependonimmediatecontextandonreaderassumptionsaboutvalue.’
(Hunston,2004,p.157)
‘Judgmentsofplausibilityratherthancertainty’(Mann&Thompson,1988,p.245)
[email protected],K.L.B.,&Taverniers,M.(2012a).Justrememberthis:Lexicogrammatical relevancemarkersinlectures.EnglishforSpecificPurposes,31(4),221-233.
Deroey,K.L.B.,&Taverniers,M.(2012b).‘Ignorethat'cause it'stotallyirrelevant’:Markinglesserrelevanceinlectures.JournalofPragmatics,44(14),2085-2099.
Deroey,K.L.B.(2014).‘Anyway,thepointI'mmakingis’:Lexicogrammatical relevancemarkinginlectures.InL.Vandelanotte,D.Kristin,G.Caroline,&K.Ditte (Eds.),RecentAdvancesinCorpusLinguistics:DevelopingandExploitingCorpora (pp.265-291).Amsterdam/NewYork:Rodopi.
Deroey,K.L.B.(2015).Markingimportanceinlectures:interactiveandtextualorientation.AppliedLinguistics,36(1),51-72.
AcknowledgementThe recordings and transcriptions used in thisstudy come from the British Academic SpokenEnglish (BASE) corpus. The corpus was developedat the Universities of Warwick and Reading underthe directorship of Hilary Nesi and Paul Thompson.Corpus development was assisted by funding fromBALEAP, EURALEX, the British Academy and theArts and Humanities Research Council.
References
CrawfordCamiciottoli,B.(2007).Thelanguageofbusinessstudieslectures.Amsterdam:JohnBenjamins.Hunston,Susan,2000.Evaluationandtheplanesofdiscourse:Statusandvalueinpersuasivetexts.In:Hunston,Susan,Thompson,G.(Eds.),Evaluationintext:Authorialstanceandtheconstructionofdiscourse(pp.176-207).Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress.Hunston,S.(2004),‘Countingtheuncountable:Problemsofidentifyingevaluationinatextandinacorpus’,in:A.Partington,J.Morley& L.Haarman (Eds),Corporaanddiscourse(pp. 157-188).Bern:PeterLang.Mann,W.C.&S.A.Thompson(1988).Rhetoricalstructuretheory:Towardafunctionaltheoryoftextorganization.Text,8(3):243–81.
References
Sinclair,J.(2004).Trustthetext:Language,corpusanddiscourse.London:Routledge.Swales,J.M.(2001).MetatalkinAmericanacademictalk:Thecasesofpointandthing.JournalofEnglishLinguistics,29(1),34–54.Swales,John.M.,Burke,Amy,2003.‘‘It’sreallyfascinatingwork’’:differencesinevaluativeadjectivesacrossacademicregisters.In:Leistyna,P.,&C.F.Meyer,(Eds.),Corpusanalysis:Languagestructureandlanguageuse(pp.1-18).Amsterdam:Rodopi.Thompson,G.,&Hunston,S.(2000).Evaluation:Anintroduction.InS.Hunston &G.Thompson(Eds.),Evaluationintext:Authorialstanceandtheconstructionofdiscourse(pp.1–27).Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress.