Spoken ELF in engineering education in Sweden

Code and discourse features Recipient reactions

Beyza Björkman

beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se

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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

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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)

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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)

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Research questions

1. What, if any, are the morphosyntactic commonalities of non-standard usage in

monologic and dialogic speech events studied in the ELF setting examined?

2. Are the commonalities found the same with those described in the literature?

3. What kind of morphosyntactic non-standard usage results in disturbance in

spoken ELF communication?

4. What are the discourse features in the two speech event types in the ELF setting

examined?

5. Are the discourse features found the same with those described in the literature?

6. 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)

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Research design

• 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: 21 (48 hrs)

Student group-work:24 (28 hrs)

20L1s, 61 speakers

Lectures: 4

Student group-work: 4

46,662 words

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NonS word forms discriminization

NonS analytic comparative more big

NonS plural forms/countability How many hydrogen ...

NonS article usage Anybody can define the renewability?

Double comparative/superlatives much more wider

Lack of subject-verb agreement A catalyst have...

Tense and aspect issues In water turbines water is flowing...

Word order Salinity affects what kind of material can you use.

Not marking the plural 500 meter, two different reactor, several process

Negation It looks not good. /It’s a not very good generator.

NonS Passive voice It can be happened that…/ We affect by the flow...

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?

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TASK COMPLEXITY TASK CONDITIONS

HIGH REASONING DEMANDS

NO PLANNING

TIME

NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE MONOLOGIC CONVERGENT

LOW REASONING DEMANDS

PLANNING TIME

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

DIALOGICHERE AND NOW

DIVERGENT

QUESTIONS

(Adapted from Robinson, 2001)

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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.

First I’ll go through the time frame.

That was my question.

We have to check the distillation process.

DISCOURSE FEATURES L1 L2 L3 L4 G1 G2 G3 G4

Clarification of terms and concepts 3 1 3 1 - 4 - -

Clarification of details and content of

task

- 26 9 16 6 5 15 33

Metadiscursive comment on discourse

structure1 9 4 5 13 3 3 -

Metadiscursive comment on discourse

context9 10 12 11 12 35 8 -

Metadiscursive comment on intent 3 8 1 1 11 4 4 -

Metadiscursive comment on common

ground60 64 17 - 26 68 76 63

Backchannelling 57 177 174 88

Repetition 11 19 7 8

Topic abandonment - - - - - - - -

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<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)

Topic abandoment (1)

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<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)

Topic abandoment (2)

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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>

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Implications for lecturing

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

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FAQ 1: Why are ELF code features identical with Interlanguage features?

1) They have shared features with World Englishes as well (e.g. African English).

2) The diachronic source of ELF features is individual interlanguage. The feature is kept if it:

does not interfere with communication aids communication is functional

3) The term ’Interlanguage’ is not appropriate for ELF situations:

Used for an individual’s language development Temporal

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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.)

C2

C1

B2

B1

A2

A1

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.

C2

C1

B2

B1

A2

A1

FAQ 2: Are ELF speakers learners of English?

Both must be developing their language ability.

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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

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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.

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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.