Turn openings in academic talk: where goals and roles intersect

Abstract

This study uses Corpus Linguistic (CL) techniques to explore multiple turn openings in conjunction with comparative measures of turn-initial priming (the proportion of occurrences of a form that are turn-initial). Using a benchmark corpus of casual conversation as a point of comparison, six frequent items which have a particularly strong affinity with the turn-opening position – mhm, mm, yes, laughter, oh, no – are identified in a corpus of 250,000 words of spoken academic discourse as key indices of what makes this talk ‘academic’ in respect of role/goal-driven behaviour in interactionally asymmetrical encounters. The paper concludes by arguing that there should be a greater focus on tutor reflection on roles, goals and discourse as part of tutors’ professional development.

Keywords:

• Corpus Linguistics
• response
• goals
• roles
• symmetry
• professional development

Notes

1. Student Evaluation of Teaching, The University of Nottingham, 2012.

2. The original analogue recordings of the data were not made available for this project.