边界轮与话语整体可理解性——微型学术讲座话语分析

Boundary Exchange and Overall Comprehensibility—Discourse Analysis of Academic Mini-lectures

非母语学术讲座话语研究表明,缺乏明显的话语结构标记是导致话语不可理解性的因素之一。为深入探讨话语标记语和话语可理解性之间的关系,本研究以中国留美学生的微型学术讲座为语料,采用定性及定量方法,分析使用元话语为与话语整体可理解性之间的关系。结果显示元话语为对话语可理解性有显著的预测性,因此在我国英语教学中应充分强调不同语类话语规范的教学。

Studies on nonnative-speaker academic lectures show that lack of obvious transitions or explicit markers of discourse structure is among the causes of incomprehensibility. To further explore the relationship between discourse markers and comprehensibility, the present research focuses on how the use of meta-discourse acts of metastatement and conclusion might affect overall comprehensibility. Twenty Chinese native speakers' mini-lectures in English are analyzed with both qualitative and quantitative methods. Results show that the number of meta-discourse acts is significantly predictive of overall comprehensibility, and hence suggest that discourse conventions of different genres be focused on in teaching English as a Foreign Language.