Comprehension and interaction in university lectures delivered in English
Abstract
This paper deals with the use of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) in technical and scientific lectures held by Italian native lecturers. The focus is on formulaic nominal constructions, such as any questions?, elliptical and full questions, such as got it? and did you understand up to this point?, and discourse markers, such as okay? which are resources that may help lecturers to verify and ensure understanding. These structures will be examined quantitatively and, in the case of discourse markers, a qualitative analysis will follow aiming at verifying whether these forms are actually used to check comprehension or whether other functions can be noticed. The productions of Italian lecturers are compared to those of native English-speaking professors in order to better identify the specificities of EMI classroom discourse.
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