Examiner Roles and Language Use in Examiners’ Reports

Abstract

The thesis examiner’s report is an evaluation of a thesis, which includes dialogic and evaluative elements. The purpose of the study was to investigate the roles that examiners adopt for themselves and the language use in examiners’ reports on MPhil theses submitted to the School of Graduate Studies, University of Cape Coast. The study purposively selected 100 theses examiners reports from four disciplines. The study revealed that examiners adopted eight different roles in the reports. Another key finding of the study was that evaluator role was most frequent, and the least frequently occurring role was Institutional role. Again, examiners employed imperatives, personal pronouns, and adjectives in their adopted roles. The findings of the study serve to create an awareness for explicit guidelines for both fresh and experienced examiners in the task of postgraduate thesis examination.