A corpus-based look at linguistic variation in cla

JournalofENGLISHforACADEMICPURPOSESJournalofEnglishforAcademicPurposes6(2007)336–355Acorpus-basedlookatlinguisticvariationinclassroominteraction:TeachertalkversusstudenttalkinAmericanUniversityclassesEnikoCsomaySanDiegoStateUniversity,LinguisticsandAsian/MiddleEasternLanguages,MC7727,SanDiego,CA92182-7727,USAAbstractStudiesonclassroominteractionhavetypicallyfocusedonrelationshipsbetweenturn-takingpatternsandsomelargerunitofanalysisofvaryinglengthandnature.However,twoquestionsstillleftunansweredarehowteacherstalkdifferentlyfromstudentsingeneralandhowlinguisticvariationbetweentwoparticipantsmightrelatetodifferencesindisciplineorlevelofinstruction.Thepresentstudytakesacorpus-basedapproachtoexploredifferencesbetween‘teachertalk’and‘studenttalk’analyzingalargecollectionofspokentextscollectedinAmericanuniversityclassrooms.Thecorpuscomprises196transcribedsessionsrecordedatfiveuniversitiesacrosstheUnitedStates,totaling1.4millionwords.ResultsindicatethatstudentsinAmericanclassroomstakemoreturnsthanteachers.However,over80%ofstudentturnscontainfewerthan30wordsatatime.Whencomparinglinguisticdifferencesmanifestedinlongerturns,itisapparentthatteachersusesignificantlymorelinguisticfeaturesassociatedwithacontextual,directiveorientationinEngineering,Business,andinEducation,andinfiveofthesixdisciplinesexamined(exceptEngineering)studentsusemostlylinguisticfeaturesassociatedwith‘personalizedframing’elements.Patternsofvariationarealsopresentacrosslevelsofinstruction.r2007ElsevierLtd.Allrightsreserved.Keywords:Englishforacademicpurposes;Corpuslinguistics;Spokendiscourseanalysis;Classroominteraction;Languagevariation;UniversityclassroomcontextARTICLEINPRESS:10.1016/j.jeap.2007.09.004Tel.:[phone].E-mailaddress:[e-mail]eedecades,mostclassroominteractionstudies(Cazden,2001)havebeencarriedoutinelementaryschoolsettings(e.g.,culturaldifferencesininteractionalsequencesbyPoole,2005)orinlanguageclassrooms(Bygate,1988),focusingmainlyoninteractionalpatternsastheyrelatetolargerfunctionalunitsofanalysis(e.g.,Initiation–Response–FeedbackmodelsbySinclair&Coulthard,1975).Thesestudiesareinvaluableastheyprovideuswithdetailedanalysesofinteractionintheclassroom;however,large-scaleinvestigationsintopatternsoflanguageusebyteachersandstudentsarestillmissing.Additionally,whileanumberofstudieshavediscussedstudentwritinginacademiccontextsfrommultipleperspectives(e.g.,Hyland,2002;Johns,1997),littleattentionhasbeengiventothecharacterizationofparticipants’patternsoflanguageuseinuniversityclasssessions.1.1.UniversityclassroomtalkLinguisticstudiesinvestigatingacademiclectureshavefocusedononeorafewclasssessionsatatimeto‘‘reflectthegeneralinterestinthelexical,rhetorical,andtopicalstructuresofdiscourse’’(Csomay,inpress).Forexample,numerousstudieshavereportedonthevaryingfunctionsofindividuallinguisticandlexicalitemsinlectures(e.g.,lexicalphrasesbyNattinger&DeCarrico,1992;idiomsbySimpson&Mendis,2003;reflexivitybyMauranen,2001;evaluativeadjectivesbySwales&Burke,2003;pronounsbyFortanet,2004).Asfortherhetoricalperspective,moststudieswerecarriedoutinthe90s,andreportedondisciplinarydifferencesastheyrelatetovariationindiscourseorganization(e.g.,Dudley-Evans,1994;Young,1994).Afterexaminingthetopicalstructureofafewlectures,Hansen(1994)concludedthattopicshiftscanbeidentifiedmostreliablythroughtracingthosediscoursemarkersthatsignaltopicshifts;othershavelookedfordiscoursemarkersandtheirfunctionalvariantsinacorpusoflectures(CamiciottoliCrawford,2004).Althoughthesestudiesinvestigateuniversityclassroomdiscoursefromdifferentperspectives,nearlyallofthemfocusonlexicalitemsandtheirfunctions,whileneglectingindividualgrammaticalfeaturesoragroupofgrammaticalfeaturesandtheirfunctionalcorrelates.Additionally,theymostlyinvestigateteacher-ledmonologicclasssessions.Inordertoprovidecomprehensivedescriptionsoflinguisticvariationinuniversityclassrooms,computationalmethodsandquantitativeanalysesareneededtocarryoutlarge-scaleinvestigations.Corpus-basedapproachestoresearchprovidethisframework.Theyexplorelinguisticvariationamongspokenandwrittenregistersintheacademiccontext(Biber,2006)andhavesuccessfullydescribedpatternsofco-occurringlinguisticfeaturesinuniversitysettingsingeneral(e.g.,Biber,Conrad,Reppen,Byrd,&Helt,2002;Biberetal.,2004)andintheclassroominparticular(Csomay,2005).Supportedbythismethodology,otherstudiesalsoshowthatNorthAmericanuniversityclassesdisplaylinguisticfeaturesofbothface-to-faceconversationandwrittenacademicprose(Csomay,2000,2006).Investigatingclasssessionsfurther,corpus-basedstudiesincludebothmonologicandinteractivetypesofclassesandreportontherelationshipbetweenlanguageuseanddegreesofinteractivity.Forexample,Csomay(2002)tracksvaryingpatternsofturntakinginclasssessionstoidentifydegreesofinteractivityanddescribeslinguisticvariationinARTICLEINPRESSE.Csomay/JournalofEnglishforAcademicPurposes6(2007)336–355337classesinrelationtothisclassification.Fina