The use of adverbial hedges in EAP students’ oral performance
-
Pascual Pérez-Paredes
Abstract
This paper addresses the natural, non-elicited occurrence of adverbial hedges in the production of Spanish learners of EAP and British students of Modern Languages. The two sets of corpus data we discuss in this research are made up of interviews which were conducted following the same methodology and mirroring the tasks in the LINDSEI oral corpus (de Cock 1998). Linguistically, our research builds on Biber (1988) and Biber et al.’s (1999) Multidimensional Analysis of language, which maintains that there is a tendency for linguistic features of morpho-syntactic and semantic nature to cluster together around dimensions of use. Results show important differences in the frequency of use as well as in the categories of adverbial hedges in these two comparable communities of use. Our research shows that, overall, both groups of speakers use adverbial hedges in a statistically significant and different way.
Abstract
This paper addresses the natural, non-elicited occurrence of adverbial hedges in the production of Spanish learners of EAP and British students of Modern Languages. The two sets of corpus data we discuss in this research are made up of interviews which were conducted following the same methodology and mirroring the tasks in the LINDSEI oral corpus (de Cock 1998). Linguistically, our research builds on Biber (1988) and Biber et al.’s (1999) Multidimensional Analysis of language, which maintains that there is a tendency for linguistic features of morpho-syntactic and semantic nature to cluster together around dimensions of use. Results show important differences in the frequency of use as well as in the categories of adverbial hedges in these two comparable communities of use. Our research shows that, overall, both groups of speakers use adverbial hedges in a statistically significant and different way.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Specialized languages 1
-
Section one. Research based on corpora
- The historical shift of scientific academic prose in English towards less explicit styles of expression 11
- Heteroglossic (dis)engagement and the construal of the ideal readership 25
- Structure, content and functions of calls for conference abstracts 47
- Summarizing findings 71
- The use of adverbial hedges in EAP students’ oral performance 95
- Integrating approaches to visual data commentary 115
-
Section two. Research based on meta-analysis and applications in LSP
- Some dichotomies in genre analysis for Languages for Specific Purposes 139
- English for legal purposes and domain-specific cultural awareness 155
- The Talking Cure 175
- UrgentiAS, a lexical database for medical students in clinical placements 191
- Using natural language patterns for the development of ontologies 211
- Notes on contributors 231
- Index 237
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Specialized languages 1
-
Section one. Research based on corpora
- The historical shift of scientific academic prose in English towards less explicit styles of expression 11
- Heteroglossic (dis)engagement and the construal of the ideal readership 25
- Structure, content and functions of calls for conference abstracts 47
- Summarizing findings 71
- The use of adverbial hedges in EAP students’ oral performance 95
- Integrating approaches to visual data commentary 115
-
Section two. Research based on meta-analysis and applications in LSP
- Some dichotomies in genre analysis for Languages for Specific Purposes 139
- English for legal purposes and domain-specific cultural awareness 155
- The Talking Cure 175
- UrgentiAS, a lexical database for medical students in clinical placements 191
- Using natural language patterns for the development of ontologies 211
- Notes on contributors 231
- Index 237
