Importance marking in lectures by native and non-native speakers

Importance marking in lectures by native and non-native speakers
Importance marking organises lecture discourse by signalling key points (e.g. the point is; remember; that is important). Comparing how this is achieved by native and non-native speakers of English sheds light on the generalisability of genre findings across users of the same language and can inform lecturer training and lecture comprehension courses.
The markers were extracted from the British Academic Spoken English corpus and the Corpus of English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings combining corpus-based and corpus-driven methods. They were quantified and classified for their ‘interactive orientation’ to the listeners (e.g. note), speaker (e.g. I want to emphasize) or content (e.g. the important point is) (Deroey, 2013).
Identifying important points is arguably a key aspect of effective lecture delivery and comprehension and interactivity is also widely advocated. However, non-native speaker lecturers are reportedly less interactive and structure their discourse less explicitly and effectively. Comparing the interactive orientation, explicitness and frequency of importance marking in these corpora enhances our understanding of the lecture genre, its generic variation and the factors that may affect lecturing efficacy.
Deroey, K. L. B. (2013). Marking importance in lectures: Interactive and textual orientation. Applied Linguistics. doi: 10.1093/applin/amt029