Jin, Xiaoling
(2023)
Appraisal Analysis on Lecture Discourse of ELF Lecturers Teaching Content Subjects at An EMI University in China.
PhD thesis, University of Liverpool.
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Abstract
This study focuses specifically on the lecture discourse of academics working in a Chinese EMI universitywhen teaching different disciplines using English as the academic lingua franca. The aim of the study is to investigate linguistic patterns of evaluative language used by university lecturers and to describe how evaluative meanings are encoded; in other words, establishing a pattern of what is appraised and how it is appraised in academic lectures. The linguistic data of this research is real-time lecture discourse recorded from 12 lecturers teaching content courses in humanities and hard sciences; all of the transcribed spoken data of this research were coded using the framework of appraisal in SFL (systemic functional grammar). All the appraisal expressions identified in this current study have been defined as appraisal signals, i.e., attitude signal, engagement signal, graduation signal. These expressions can be regarded as discourse signals embedded in the lecture discourse and the research focus of this current study is to describe how EMI academics use appraisal expressions to signal their evaluative meanings in academic lectures. Results show that the meaning of an appraisal signal is closely associated with its co-text. The linguistic meanings of suchco-text may refer to the referents being evaluated in the verbal context, some frequently used pronoun patterns, and lecturers’ modulations of the evaluative meanings and their flexible use of integrating different types of appraisal signals. Findings regarding the disciplinary differences and ELF features of the appraisal signals have also been discussed. It can be concluded that appraisal signals are useful linguistic devices to enhance communicativeness of the lecture discourse in use and essential to the clarity and mutual intelligibility of the ELF communication in academic lectures at EMI universities.
| Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) |
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| Uncontrolled Keywords: | evaluative language, appraisal analysis, lecture discourse, English as an academic lingua franca, disciplinary differences |
| Divisions: | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of the Arts |
| Depositing User: | Symplectic Admin |
| Date Deposited: | 22 Aug 2023 15:28 |
| Last Modified: | 22 Aug 2023 15:28 |
| DOI: | 10.17638/03170840 |
| Supervisors: |
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| URI: | https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3170840 |
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