Dicción

Academic Speaking
Analysis of an academic presentation

Introduction
Research on the discourse of academic presentations has become more and more relevant in recent years. This may be due to the increasing interest of both teachers and students to find an accurate representation of the formal features of lectures. Therefore, the question arises as to how this instance of institutional talk isordered and accomplished.
The aim of this paper is to present a brief description of the main characteristics of the genre, highlighting the studies presented during the course. The lecture chosen for this purpose is part of a course called Introduction to Theory of Literature. The analyzed recording is Lecture 7 on ‘Linguistics and Literature’ presented by Professor Paul Fry at Yale Universityin 2009.

Analysis of the lecture
Structural and Stylistic features
The purpose of this section is to examine both the structural and stylistic features of the data collected. We will provide a close examination of the examples found in the recording.
Structural features
In the book Academic Listening: Research Perspectives (1995), Lynne Young presents the concept of Phasal analysis. Sheposits that ‘Phases, then, are strands of discourse that recur discontinuously throughout a particular language event and, taken together, structure that event.’
Therefore she suggests a classification of phases. The first three are Metadiscoursal phases which comment on the discourse itself –Discourse Structuring Phase, Conclusion and Evaluation.
* Discourse Structuring Phase: ‘addressorsindicate the direction they will take in the lecture.’
* Conclusion: ‘where lecturers summarize points they have made throughout the discourse.’
* Evaluation: ‘the lecturer reinforces each of the other strands by evaluating information which is about to be, or has already been transmitted.’
In ‘Linguistics and Literature’ the Discourse Structuring Phase is clearly indicated through the useof verbal groups, particular pronouns and wh- clauses, imperatives, declaratives. In our analysis we found:
* Verbal groups: ‘Jakobson, you will notice, introduces an element of time into the synchronic analysis of a semiotic system […]’; ‘Indeed, it's no accident that he writes about Genesis, as I will indicate in a minute’; ‘We'll be taking a look at that when we read Peter Brooks' text’[…]’; ’I want to come back to that in the context of showing that in a certain way […]’.
* Particular pronouns: Such as ‘you’ and ‘we’ which engage the speaker and the listener.
* Wh- clauses, imperatives, declaratives: ‘[…] notice that this is one of those occasions on which the myth explodes into other cultures’; ‘Now you understand’. ‘What is the principle of equivalence?’
The nextMetadiscoursal phase is the Conclusion phase. In ‘Linguistics and Literature’ we found many examples:
* Relational processes: Such as: ‘examples’; ‘problems arise’; ’content or context’; ‘strong argument’.
* Little or no mood variation: There are no instances of mood variation in this phase.
* Repetition of terms: Such as ‘structure’; ‘functions’; ‘utterance’; ‘formalists’.
The lastMetadiscoursal phase is the Evaluation phase. In the lecture chosen we found these examples:
* Key terms: Such as ‘structuralism’; ‘synchrony’; ‘diachrony’; ‘literature’.
The next three phases mark University lectures. These are:
* Interaction: ‘Indicates an important feature of this registerial variety.’
* Theory or Content: ‘Reflect the lecturer’s purpose, which is to transmit theoreticalinformation.’
* Examples: It is in this phase in which ‘the speakers illustrate theoretical concepts through concrete examples familiar to students in the audience.’
In ‘Linguistics and Literature’ the Interaction phase can be reflected on the following examples:
‘You have to infer an intention, right’. ‘That's a rhetorical question with which I don't necessarily agree but it is a...