A cross-cultural investigation of German and American academic style  

Oleh:

Schleef, Erik

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Journal of Pragmatics: An Interdiciplinary Journal of Language Studies vol. 41 no. 6 (Jun. 2009), page 1104–1124.
Topik: Academic discourse; Cross-cultural; Discourse markers; German; American English
Fulltext: Schleef_Erik.pdf (247.25KB)

Isi artikel

This article investigates the speech of Humanities and Natural Science instructors and students in German and American lectures and interactional classes. It describes cross-cultural variation in these two academic genres using naturally occurring language data. This cross-cultural comparison focuses on linguistic items and behaviors that serve primarily interactional and structural functions, as well as functions of conversational support, contrast, and the expression of formality. Structures investigated include certain types of question tags, questions, structural markers, backchannel signals, and turn-initial response tokens. A quantitative sociolinguistic analysis is conducted which provides a global view of structures used in the cultures and contexts investigated. When compared to their German counterparts, American instructors and students make academic student–teacher discourse seem more interactive through the use of questions. American instructors also provide more structure in the interactional class format through the use of questions and in the academic lecture through structural markers and progression checks. German instructors provide more conversational support through the use of turn-initial response tokens and linking elements; however, at the same time they employ more elements that express direct contrast. Furthermore, German academic discourse is made to appear more formal through the use of group vocatives and – in the case of the lecture – frequent use of read-out speech.

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