This study investigated Japanese college students' linguistic and rhetorical patterns in classroom English presentation introductions. We found that, for Japanese speakers, the introduction functions as an introduction of the topic or a clue, and they often use a question form to involve and engage the audience.
This study investigated the rhetoric pattern of classroom English presentation introductions used by Japanese university students. An effective introduction is crucial for a successful presentation but is often tricky for learners of a second language because rhetoric styles vary among languages. According to Sakurada (2018), English speakers have a strong tendency in their English presentation introductions to lead with the thesis that follows; meanwhile, Japanese speakers in a Japanese presentation tend to start by describing the overall framework without clearly delineating the thesis until the very end of the presentation. The current study collected English presentation data from 60 Japanese college students in the Tokyo area. The first part of their presentation-namely, the introduction-was transcribed. The students typically started their presentations with a greeting, presenting topic keywords and questions. Thirty-nine students (65%) stated the thesis at the end of their presentation, not in the introduction, while 11 (18%) stated the thesis in the introduction. Instead of mentioning a thesis in the introduction, the students showed a strong tendency to use topic keywords, as in "I will talk about SDGs," to keep the audience involved and engaged in the presentation. Furthermore, they showed a tendency to use questions in the introduction. Thirty-nine of the 60 students asked questions in the introduction, such as "1972, do you know what this number represents?" and "Have you ever used their products?" Meanwhile, only 13 students used questions in the subsequent sections. Our findings suggest (1) for Japanese speakers, the introduction functions as an introduction to the topic or a clue that facilitates understanding of the topic, but does not immediately introduce the thesis, and (2) Japanese presenters often use a question form to engage the audience (Tannen, 2007) by attempting to shorten the psychological distance and build rapport with the audience. These tendencies are also frequent in Japanese rhetoric, suggesting that learners use their first-language rhetoric "think with audience strategy" in the second language. Accordingly, we argue that a learner rhetoric pattern exists in English as a lingua franca.
