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Spoken ELF in engineering education in Sweden

Spoken ELF in engineering education in Sweden. Code and discourse features Recipient reactions Beyza Björkman beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se. Outline. Higher education in Sweden: an ELF setting in respect of oral interaction The present project: Research questions and design

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Spoken ELF in engineering education in Sweden

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  1. Spoken ELF in engineering education in Sweden Code and discourse features Recipient reactions Beyza Björkman beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se

  2. Outline • Higher education in Sweden: an ELF setting in respect of oral interaction • The present project: • Research questions and design • Material • The three dimensions of this project • Form: Morphosyntax • Communicativeness: Analyses at discourse level • Attitudes • Results: Back to research questions • Frequently asked questions

  3. Material A typical international Scandinavian (technical) university INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMES 2007 45 International Master’s Programs in English INTERNATIONAL STUDENT EXCHANGES 2007 1,057 foreign exchange students 1,105 international master’s students Around 100 nationalities with highly diverse backgrounds (Erasmus) Two types of speech events:Lectures and student group-work Digital recordings of authentic high-stakes communication from content courses(naturally occurring speech) 3

  4. Background Key background literature: • Firth (1990, 1996), Firth and Wagner (1997), Meierkord (1998, 2000, 2004) • Jenkins (2000; 2007) • Seidlhofer (2004), VOICE (Pölzl, 2006; Lichtkoppler, 2005; Breiteneder, 2005; Breiteneder et al. 2006; Pietzl, 2005; Hülmbauer, 2007) • Cogo and Dewey (2006) • House (2002), Lesnyák (2004), Mauranen (2004, 2006; 2007), ELFA (Ranta, 2006) • Erling (2004)

  5. Research questions What, if any, are the morphosyntactic commonalities of non-standard usage in monologic and dialogic speech events studied in the ELF setting examined? Are the commonalities found the same with those described in the literature? What kind of morphosyntactic non-standard usage results in disturbance in spoken ELF communication? What are the discourse features in the two speech event types in the ELF setting examined? Are the discourse features found the samewith those described in the literature? What kind of morphosyntactic non-standard usage is perceived as irritating by speakers in ELF situations? FORM (1, 2), COMMUNICATIVENESS (3, 4, 5), ATTITUDES (6) 5

  6. Research design Lectures: 21 (48 hrs) Student group-work:24 (28 hrs) 20L1s, 61 speakers • Extensive and intensive analyses • Extensive: a large sample required to allow for making general deductions from this ELF environment (FORM) • Criteria: The feature • occurs a minimum number of ten times • is used by different L1 speakers • in both speech event types • Intensive: a smaller sample (DISCOURSE LEVEL) (Dörnyei, 2001; Guilloteaux, 2007; Charles, Pecorari and Hunsten, 2009) • An experiment on attitudes: 100 students Lectures: 4 Student group-work: 4 46,662 words

  7. Form: Commonalities • No overt disturbance caused by these forms • Overt disturbance caused by: Non-standard question formulation • How many pages we have now? • What means endothermic? • What other equation I would use? • Why we place it there? • So from which point you started? • Why the flutter’s velocity is lower than the divergence velocity? 7

  8. QUESTIONS HERE AND NOW LOW REASONING DEMANDS PLANNING TIME PRIOR KNOWLEDGE DIALOGIC DIVERGENT (Adapted from Robinson, 2001)

  9. Communicativeness 2: Discourse Clarification techniques (Penz, 2008) Clarification of terms and concepts details and content of task Metadiscursive comment on intent discourse structure (gist, reformulation etc.) discourse context common ground Backchanneling and repetition (Dewey, 2006) Topic abandonment What is ’steam reforming’? It is a commercial way to produce hydrogen. I don’t know if we’re supposed to know the code during the lab. That’s not what I wanted to say. That was my question. First I’ll go through the time frame. We have to check the distillation process. 9

  10. Topic abandoment (1) <S4> why you always miss the lecture , sorry just curious </S4> <S3> (curious) er sometimes i have some other lectures </S3> <S4> other lectures the there's some conflict in the timetable </S4> <S3> yeah </S3> <S4> mhm </S4> <S4> and sometimes [(xx)] </S> <S4> [but it's] impossible impossible all time you there’s there's a conflict for the all lecture @@ maybe you don't want to have lecture you don't want to attend this </S4> <S3> yes sometimes @@ </S3> <S1> it's not interesting to you </S1> <S4> @@ </S4> <S3> it is but </S3> <S1> but you're busy @@ </S1> <S4> what's the time now oh it's from china time </S4> <S1> i haven’t changed the time </S1> (ERCA-090307-03)

  11. Topic abandoment (2) <S4> (xx) we just talk about there's some island in </S4> <S3> in greece </S3> <S4> greece you're from greece </S4> <S3> yeah </S3> <S4> mhm </S4> <S1> we should prepare a chair for the teacher </S1> <S3> @@ </S3> <S4> this one this one this one is for teacher i i will stand behind you </S4> <S1> i think (we should have) other chair </S1> <S4> mhm this . i think greece is a country (full of) charming and that’s why</S4> <S3> mhm </S3> <S4> full of charming </S4> <S3> mhm </S3> <S4> and that's why the greece (xx) refer to that kind of very how to say</S4> <S1> greece </S1> <S4> greece yes , beautiful and </S4> <S1> yeah (incredible) </S1> <S4> yes greece @@ </S4> <S1> but er i have never been to greece </S1> <S4> <NAME> have been to there he says he recommend to be there (later)</S4> <S1> (we should) invite the teacher </S1> <S4> (xx) </S4> <S1> invite the teacher to our group </S1> (ERCA-090307-03)

  12. No topic abandonment <S1> say put that if you divide it by </S1> <S2> yeah how much does it cost to produce it’s like how much it’s not the material like how much </S2> <S1> no no no it’s it’s a the the investment [divided by] the number of [hours of] using it </S1> <S2> [yeah] [yeah] </S2> <S1> and the [operation] </S1> <S2> [workers] operation </S2> <S1> construction </S1> <S3> production cost </S3> <S1> production </S1> <S2> ok </S2> <S1> not the material not the material and the power consumption </S1> <S2> uh that kind of stuff this is everything else but the material cost </S2> <S1> and then you put the material cost </S1> <S2> yeah then you have </S2> <S3> i don’t think so </S3> <S1> [you don’t think so] </S1> <S2> [yeah] , ok so </S2> <S1> [ok ok we do] anyway we we [check check] </S1> <S2> [why do we] [why do we] why do we have done that then why do we done </S2> <S3> we did that we thought that this was something else </S3> <S2> yeah but this...</S2> 13

  13. DIALOGIC SPEECH Speakers employ clarification strategies if communication is at risk Task complexity and conditions: room for maneuver MONOLOGIC SPEECH Up to the lecturer whether to employ clarification strategies Task complexity and conditions set by the lecturer only: little or no room for maneuver Implications for lecturing

  14. FAQ 1: Why are ELF code features identical with Interlanguage features? • They have shared features with World Englishes as well (e.g. African English). • The diachronicsource of ELF features is individual interlanguage. The feature is kept if it: • does not interfere with communication • aids communication • is functional • The term ’Interlanguage’ is not appropriate for ELF situations: • Used for an individual’s language development • Temporal

  15. LEARNERS OF ENGLISH Classroom situation Homogeneous level Norm presented overtly Negative feedback in case of non-standard production Non-standardness not kept= there are direct consequences in the form dimension (testing: grades etc.) FAQ 2: Are ELF speakers learners of English? • ELF SPEAKERS • Authentic communication • All levels together • No overt norm • Little (other repair) or no negative feedback in case of non-standard production • Non-standardness kept. • Little/ no consequence in the form dimension (language generally not assessed). Consequences are in the content dimension. Both must be developing their language ability.

  16. FAQ 3: How often should a feature occur to be a commonality? A large proportion of instances are actually standard. Breiteneder (2005), 20% Ranta (2006), 13% Meierkord (2004), 9% 3% “doubtful constructions” The present study: Low percentage of non-standard features

  17. General conclusions/ answers to RQs Remarkable commonalities across speech event types. (RQ1) Some shared with previous findings. (RQ2) (No who/which, invariable isn’t it tag etc.) Little breakdown in communication (breakdown caused only by nonS question formulation). (RQ3) Rich discourse: (RQ4 and 5) Clarification techniques (unlike Penz) Increased explicitness (similar to Mauranen, Dewey and Cogo) Backchanelling, repetition (similar to Dewey and Cogo) Topic abandonment only in social talk Irritation at varying degrees toward all features. (RQ6) They do not represent majority usage. 18

  18. Publications on the present material Björkman, B. (Forthcoming, 2009). ’ From code to discourse in spoken ELF’. In Mauranen, A. and Ranta, E. (Eds.). English as a Lingua Franca: Studies and findings. Cambridge Scholars Press. Björkman, B. (In press, 2009). ’English as a Lingua Franca at a Swedish Technical University: An Effective Medium?’ Proceedings of the Annual BALEAP Conference: 'EAP in a globalising world: English as an academic lingua franca‘. Peter Lang. Björkman, B. (2008). ‘English as the Lingua Franca of Engineering: the morphosyntax of academic speech events’. Nordic Journal of English Studies 7(3): 103-122. Björkman, B. (2008). 'So where we are': Spoken lingua franca English at a Swedish technical university. English Today, 24 (2), 11-17. Björkman, B. (2008). ‘'We' and 'you': pronouns and genre competence in oral technical descriptions’. In Lainio, J., & Leppänen, A. (Eds.), Linguistic Diversity and Sustainable Development (pp. 89-109). Swedish Science Press.

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