Text-structuring metadiscourse, intonation and the signalling of organisation in academic lectures

Abstract

EAP teaching materials frequently emphasise the importance of text-structuring metadiscourse (sometimes referred to as ‘signposting’ language) to signal hierarchical organisation in lectures, and EAP teaching materials are often rich in samples of this type of metadiscourse. This raises two key questions: how important this type of metadiscourse is as a means of indicating to an audience the organisation of a lecture, and what other resources are available to the lecturer. This article focuses on the roles of text-structuring metadiscourse and intonation in signalling the larger-scale organisation of academic talks. The occurrence of metadiscoursal and intonational signals of organisation is compared in authentic undergraduate lectures and in talks appearing in EAP listening skills materials. It is argued that both metadiscourse and intonation are used by academic speakers to help an audience form a coherent ‘mental map’ of the overall talk and how its parts are interconnected. However, it appears that the models of organisation in lecture discourse provided by some EAP materials may be misleading. The article ends by considering the implications of the findings for EAP listening skills courses.