This study aims to contribute to our understanding of academic lectures delivered in the context of English as lingua franca through an investigation of one of the most frequently used discourse markers – okay, in English mediated academic lectures delivered by native Chinese professors, compared with those of their native English counterparts.
This study aims to contribute to our understanding of academic lectures delivered in the context of English as lingua franca through an investigation of one of the most frequently used discourse markers DMs – okay, in English mediated academic lectures delivered by native Chinese professors, compared with those of their native English counterparts. The data examined include 12 lectures evenly selected from the Taiwanese Lecture Corpus and the British Academic Spoken English Corpus, total 148, 310 words. The categories of okay functions in lectures (Holmes, 1984; Schleef, 2009; Othman, 2010; Looney, et al., 2016) are adapted to analyse our data. This shows that several core features of academic lectures are shared between native Chinese and native English professors in their use of DM – okay, while others reflect their academic culture contextual differences, as well as the influence of the first language, Chinese. The findings of this study will contribute to the field of English as lingua franca, particularly the use of DMs, spoken academic discourse and the implications for English for academic purposes at the university level.
