Importance marking in EMI and L1 lectures: a case of similarities and idiolect

DEROEY, Katrien; Jane Helen Johnson

doi:10.1075/jemi.24018.der

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Importance marking in EMI and L1 lectures: a case of similarities and idiolect

DEROEY, Katrien; Jane Helen Johnson

2025 • In Journal of English-Medium Instruction

Peer reviewed

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https://hdl.handle.net/10993/63681

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10.1075/jemi.24018.der

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Keywords :

importance marker, discourse structure, metadiscourse, lecture, EAP, English medium instruction

Abstract :

[en] This study examines how EMI and L1 lecturers signal important points using metadiscursive ‘importance markers’ (e.g. the point is; remember). Importance marking is a feature of discourse structuring, which is widely advocated for inclusion in listening and lecturing training. To this end we analysed a corpus of 46 engineering lectures from Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand and the UK. Comparing the EMI with the L1 corpus revealed that importance marking happened to the same extent. However, this belies substantial frequency differences between the two components that make up each of these corpora. We further found that both L1 and EMI lecturers used a large variety of markers and lexis. Overwhelmingly, differences could not be attributed to the different lecture contexts. Instead, they were typically due to idiolect. This suggests the specificity of language use in lectures and the dangers in lumping together varieties as representing EMI or L1 lecture discourse. We conclude with pedagogical implications for lecturer training.

Disciplines :

Languages & linguistics

Author, co-author :

DEROEY, Katrien ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Humanities (DHUM) > English Studies

Jane Helen Johnson; UNIBO - Università di Bologna > Dept. of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures (LILEC)

External co-authors :

Language :

English

Title :

Importance marking in EMI and L1 lectures: a case of similarities and idiolect

Publication date :

2025

Journal title :

Journal of English-Medium Instruction

Publisher :

John Benjamins

Peer reviewed :

Peer reviewed

Focus Area :

Educational Sciences

Available on ORBilu :

since 17 January 2025

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