比較英語為母語和中文為母語的大學教授在學術講課中言談標記詞So之使用

A Comparison of the Use of Discourse Marker So in Academic Lectures Given in English by Native Speakers of American English and Mandarin Chinese

劉緯玲(Wei-Ling Liu)

指導教授 ： 張玉櫻

元智大學/人文社會學院/應用外語學系/碩士(2012年)

摘要

由於英語作為通用語言(English as a lingua franca, ELF)的地位確立，加上高等教育國際化的趨勢，現今即使在英語為非母語的國家中，高等教育中以英語教授專業科目(English as a medium for instruction, EMI)的情形日益廣泛。因為此一發展，英語學術講課(English Academic Lectures)越來越受到研究學術英語(English for Academic Purposes, EAP)的學者們的關注。有越來越多的EAP學者們研究老師在課堂上不同語言特徵的使用在提高學術講課的互動性和學生的聽課理解程度上，所產生的不同影響。言談標記詞 (Discourse markers) 即為其中研究的語言特徵之一。先前的研究結果發現，教師在講課時適當的使用言談標記詞，可有效提升英語為非母語學生的英語學術講課理解程度。

然而，關於各種言談標記詞使用的詳細分析，先前的研究多數集中在英語為母語的人士如何使用不同的言談標記詞，極少學者研究ELF人士的使用。此外，先前研究的語料大多採自日常對話和訪談，針對學術口語語料中言談標記詞的分析相對稀少。因此，我們基本上仍然不甚清楚英語為母語的教授和ELF教授在英語學術講課中，在言談標記詞的使用上有何異同。基於上述觀察，本研究特別仔細地分析最常見的言談標記詞so，探討其在工程領域英語學術講課中的使用情形，同時也比較了六個台灣籍教授和六個美國教授，在使用言談標記詞so時的異同。

研究結果發現這兩組教授在言談標記詞so的使用上「同大於異」。相同的地方在於，他們對於so可以表達的不同功用，在使用頻率上的排列順序相似。而造成兩方在so的使用上如此的相似性，可歸因於學術講課此一特殊體裁(genre)的特性限制。相對的，兩組教授不同的地方在於台灣教授在用so表達每個不同功能時，幾乎每一個項目的使用頻率都高於美國教授。如此較高的使用頻率可能與台灣教授的母語干擾、先前英語學習經驗和他們在課堂上所使用的較多元的活動與教具有所關聯。

關鍵字

言談標記詞 ； 學術講課 ； 非母語人士 ； 母語人士 ； so

並列摘要

Due to the well-established status of English as a lingua franca (ELF) and the trend of internationalization in higher education, the use of English as a medium for instruction at the tertiary level in non-native English-speaking countries has become increasingly widespread. The genre of academic English lecture has thus gained far more research attention in the field of English for Academic Purposes. An increasing amount of studies focusing on investigating how various linguistic and textual features are used to enhance the degrees of lecture interactivity and students’ comprehension have been conducted.

Among the various linguistic devices, discourse markers (DMs) have been reported to have significant effects on L2 lecture comprehension. However, detailed analyses of how various DMs are used in ELF spoken discourses are relatively fewer than those of native speakers. Moreover, most of the existing studies of DMs locate on the non-academic speech contexts such as daily conversations and interviews. We are thus still largely left unclear about the use of DMs by ELF speakers in academic lectures and how it might differ from that of native English speakers. Therefore, this study compares six engineering lectures given by ELF professors in Taiwan with six engineering lectures given by native American English-speaking professors from MICASE (Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken Discourse), focusing on one of the most common DMs so in both sets of sample lectures.

The results of this study show that far more similarities than differences were observed between the two groups of professors. The two groups display very similar patterns in their preferred functions of so. On the other hand, their differences in the relative frequencies of categories of so are salient. The Taiwanese professors used almost all categories of so much more frequently than the American professors. It is suggested that their similarities in the use of so can be largely attributed to the constraints exerted by the lecture genre. Meanwhile, their distinct differences in the overall frequency of so seem to be affected by the intertwined influences of L1 interference, previous English language learning experience, and instructional activities as well as visual aids used by the professors.

並列關鍵字

so ； discourse marker ； academic lecture ； non-native speaker ； native speaker

參考文獻

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