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Article published In:
Register Studies
Vol. 2:1 (2020) ► pp.131–165

Language variation in university classrooms

A corpus-driven geographical perspective

| San Diego State University
| National University of Singapore

Corpus-based university classroom discourse studies found differences in teaching as it relates to language use: discourse organization, levels of instruction and interactivity, and disciplinary differences in participant talk. These practices were primarily reported on US-based classrooms, while scholars with different foci looked at British university classrooms as well. However, a comparison of how discourse is organized in university classrooms in varying geographical contexts is still missing. The present study provides lexico-grammatical analyses of classroom discourse at a South-East Asian university as associations are made to the communicative and pedagogical functions in the discourse structure of lectures, and comparisons are made to a corpus of university classroom discourse from the US. Findings show differences in language use and associated discourse organizational patterns within three disciplinary areas (Humanities, Natural Sciences, and Engineering) as they are delivered in the two geographical contexts. Implications are discussed for register, disciplinary, and discourse structure studies.

Keywords: register variation, geographical context, university classroom talk, discourse organization
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1The structure of university classroom discourse
    • 2.2Corpus analyses of university classroom discourse structure
      • 2.2.1Automatic segmentation of texts into smaller units for corpus studies
    • 2.3A multi-dimensional analysis of North American university classroom discourse
      • 2.3.1Situational characteristics of university classrooms (Phase 1)
      • 2.3.2Dimensions of linguistic variation in university class sessions (Phases 2 and 3)
    • 2.4Goal of this study
  • 3.Analytical procedures
    • 3.1Corpora
    • 3.2Preparing the files for linguistic analyses
    • 3.3Discourse units
    • 3.4Multi-dimensional analysis of university classroom discourse
    • 3.5Summary of analytical steps
  • 4.Findings
    • 4.1Humanities
    • 4.2Natural sciences
    • 4.3Engineering
  • 5.Summary and conclusion
  • 6.Implications and limitations
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 April 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rs.18002.cso
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