日本大学歯学部紀要 33，59‑68，2005

Signaling devices in scientific oral presentations given by nativeand non‑native speaker guest lecturers in international settings
C.S.Langham
Abstract
This paper reports an investigation of the use of signaling devices by native speakers andnon‑native speakers to indicate the structure of text in guest lectures given in English in aninternational setting. It was found that lectures given by non‑native speakers of English
showed more examples of highly‑marked signaling devices than those delivered by native
speakers. This difference appeared to reflect a greater consciousness on the part of the non‑native speaker of English for the need to produce a transparent monologue that could bereadily interpreted by the audience. The findings of this study are of relevance to theeducation of novice members of the discourse community, as well as the production ofteaching materials aimed at both the comprehension and delivery of academic speech.They
may also have relevance for the training of presenters and lecturers in international settings
such as conferences and guest lectures,as well as those involved in lecture courses at colleges
and universities where the student body is made up of a large proportion of international
students.
Key words: signaling devices, oral presentations, guest lectures, academic discourse, discourse markers, metadiscourse

Introduction
For people working in many academic fields around the world today,the need to be able tofunction in English is becoming increasingly important.This is true for a wide range of people
from undergraduates, through graduate‑students, right through to teaching staff and people
involved in research work at universities and institutes.Until relatively recently,for a numberof reasons, emphasis was placed on the ability to function in English in terms of reading andwriting. This is particularly true of Japan where university English language classes havetraditionally placed emphasis on the ability to read and write English,at the expense of being
able to function orally/aurally. In this authorʼ
s experience of teaching in higher education in
Japan,it is still relatively common to encounter teaching and research staff who say that they
feel confident in reading and writing English, but far less so in listening and speaking. At thesame time,researchers in the field of Applied Linguistics have concentrated almost exclusively
on the study of written texts when investigating scientific discourse.That this is so can be seenby the predominance of work carried out on the research article. For example, we find work
focusing on politeness by M yers (98), evaluation of reporting verbs, Thomson and Ye (91),日本大学歯学部

英語

Nihon University School of Dentistry
1‑8‑13 Kanda‑Surugadai, Chiyoda‑ku, Tokyo 101‑8310, Japan〒 101‑8310 東京都千代田区神田駿河台１‑８‑13(受理：2005年９月 28日）

59

日本大学歯学部紀要 33，59‑68，2005

hedging, Salager and M yer (94), abstracts, Melander, Swales & Frederickson (98) and also
article introductions, Samraj (02), as well as numerous other studies. At the same time,
publishers of English language teaching books have concentrated on the development of
textbooks that aim at the teaching of reading and writing skills to students in scientific fields.
This has meant that textbooks devoted to developing studentsʼabilityto comprehend academic
speech are few in number and limited in scope. The same goes for textbooks that aim atteaching presentation skills which, up until relatively recently,have been very few in number.
In terms of research work on spoken academic English, particularly that of the genre of thescientific oral presentation, Crawford Camiciottoli (2004)points out that,
research on spoken academic discourse still lags behind its written counterpart
This can be explained, as mentioned above, by the added prestige traditionally afforded toreading and writing. There are, of course, other practical reasons for the neglect of academic
spoken discourse, notably the fact that accessing and transcribing spoken data is a complex,
expensive and time‑consuming activity that not all researchers in the field can readily undertake for a number of practical reasons. However, valuable research in this field has been
carried out by M ontgomery (1987) on the structure of university lectures, Barr (1990) on
discourse intonation, Thomson (1994) on lecture introductions and cohesion in scientific lectures. Rowley‑Jolivet (2002) has concentrated on visual discourse in scientific oral presentations. M auranen (2001) considers expressions used in lectures on the Michigan Corpus of
Academic Spoken English (M ICASE).Jung (2005)has shown how lack of discourse markers cancontribute to L2 learnersʼmisinterpretation of a lecture. All of the above studies point to thefact that academic speech is gaining importance as a research field mainly because of the rapid
internationalization of both graduate and undergraduate studies,as well as increased mobility
in academic circles in the form of exchanges of staff members, guest lectures and joint
research.Such research is timely and of increasing relevance,since with the above‑mentioned
increasing mobility and internationalization, it is important to be able to function in terms ofboth speaking and listening.This need is strongly stated by Webber (2005)who informs us thatIn the medical profession, besides reading, the ability to follow oral communication ofresearch is also very important because international conferences are an essential part ofthe communication network within the scientific discourse community.

The study
For a number of years,I have been working on discourse markers in scientific oral presentations. These are often referred to as discourse signals or metadiscourse. The function of
metadiscourse is to guide the audience through a speech event by helping them to create amental map. In other words, lecturers inform their audience about what is about to come andhow this connects to what has alreadybeen said and will be said.This,I believe,is an importantfield of research as it can benefit science and technology students whose mother tongue is not60Signaling devices in scientific oral presentations

English to comprehend academic lectures and eventually prepare them to move towards giving
presentations themselves. Additionally, findings from studies carried out in this field are of
relevance to native speakers and non‑native speakers who give lectures and presentations atuniversities and conferences in an international setting.This is especiallyin terms of the raisingof awareness of the importance of creating transparent presentations with clearly marked
salient points,and also for the training of both novice and experienced presenters.A third useof the results of this kind of work is in the production of teaching materials that have the aimof training students to comprehend and deliver oral and poster presentations. The main aimsof the present study were as follows. To investigate how organization is signaled and toascertain the methods presenters use to make their presentations transparent.Furthermore toconsider how examples of transparencycan be transferred to the creation of teaching materials
and the instruction of novice members of the discourse community.Since the data used in thisstudy was derived from guest lectures given by a native speaker and also a non‑native speaker,
a further goal was to consider differences in lecturing styles between native and non‑native
speakers.
In July 2001, the author had the opportunity to collect data from a guest lecture given in
English to faculty members and graduate students at Nihon University, School of Dentistry.
The lecture was analyzed for signaling devices and the results reported in Langham (2002).The
lecture lasted sixty minutes and was given by a native speaker of Dutch with a near‑native
command of English (hereafter referred to as NNS). The presenter speaks frequently atinternational conferences and while working in Holland spends part of the year in the UnitedStates and Japan. The presenter used a total of seventeen slides and two diagrams drawn on
a whiteboard.The presenter did not provide a handout.The presentation was informal in styleand was followed by a question and answer session lasting approximately ten minutes. The
presentation was recorded,transcribed manuallyand then analyzed for signaling devices.It was
concluded that the presentation displayed a large number of structural markers.Additionally,
it was found that the presenter seemed to go out of his wayto produce a transparent monologuethat was highly marked in terms of signaling devices.
In June 2003,another guest lecture was given at the same institution by a native speaker ofEnglish (hereafter referred to as NS)who is accustomed to speaking in international settings.
The field was pharmacology and many of the audience present at the lecture given in 2001 by
the NNS were also present on this occasion. The opportunity to analyze the use of signaling
devices in guest lectures given in an international setting by both a NS and a NNS was a very
welcome one, since it allowed me to address differences as well as similarities, if any, in
lecturing styles and the use of metadiscourse features. It is worth noting here the results ofother studies comparing the lecturing styles of native and non‑native speakers of English ininternational settings.Khuwaileh (1999)examined chunks,phrases and body language and theirrole in facilitating understanding in lectures given in English by a teacher whose first language
61日本大学歯学部紀要 33，59‑68，2005

is Arabic and a native speaker of English at a universityin Jordan.The author found significant
differences in delivery. The NS was more interactive andused many questions which were answered partially and sometimes completely by thelearners
The NNS, however, did not display the use of such question techniques. The NS also usednumerous examples of the use of chunks to signal direction and boundaries
which were of great importance to the learners as they started writing another set of notes
each time the teacher used a chunkFor example, the lecturer used chunks such as the following.
Let me turn to elasticity.
The same lecturer is reported to have made use of paraphrasing expressions such as,
In other words
What I mean by this is
The conclusion of this study is that the lecture given by the NS showed more highly marked
discourse markers than used by the NNS and the frequency of use of such signaling devices
aided the audience in comprehending the lecture. However, a study by Crawford Camiciottoli(2004)came up with rather differing results. In a comparison of guest lectures given by both
native speakers and non‑native speakers, she found thatinteractive discourse structuring was found to be most frequent among L2 guest lecturers
and least frequent in L1 guest lecturers
She suggests that in comparison to native speakers, non‑native speakers are more aware ofpotential problems an international audience may have in grasping the meaning of a lecture.
The above studies provide results that are conflicting and which suggest that further investigation of differences in the strategies and lecturing styles used by NS and NNS lecturers is
required.

Results
As noted in Langham (2002), the NNS speaker in this study produced a transparent monologue that was highly marked in terms of signaling devices.This can be seen quite clearly fromthe introduction to the lecture which was as follows:“
Today, Iʼd like to talk about a new concept which might be very helpful in the future fortreating Parkinsonʼ
s disease. Iʼm going to divide my talk into five main parts. In the first part,Iʼd like to say something about Parkinsonʼ
s disease itself. What is the disease? How is it caused?
And, how do we treat it today? In the second part, Iʼm going to explain the concept of atypicalanti‑Parkinson compounds. And then Iʼ
ll go on to the third part to discuss the effects of a
prototype. In part four, Iʼ
ll consider the best animal model of Parkinsonʼ
s disease, namelymonkeys. In the last part, I want to focus on possible sites of action in the brain. Okay, let me
start with Parkinsonʼ
s disease.”
62

Signaling devices in scientific oral presentationsFirst of all,the speaker introduces the topic of the presentation,which in this case is Parkinsonʼ
s disease.He uses the phrase,ʻIʼ
d like to talk aboutʼto introduce the topic of the presentation
and avoids at this stage including detailed information or technical terms. Following that, heclearly states that there will be five sections in his presentation by saying ʻIʼm going to divide
my talk into five main partsʼ
. At this point, the presenter starts to build a map of thepresentation.The sections are introduced by using expressions such as,ʻin the first partʼ,ʻin thesecond partʼ,ʻin part fourʼ. Notice how the presenter effectively uses rhetorical questions toshow some of the topics to be covered.The presenter uses the following three questions to help
to focus the attention of the audience on the information that will follow.ʻ
What is the disease?
How is it caused?And how do we treat it today?ʼThe presenter also uses the verb ʻfocus onʼto emphasize the subject.Looking at the grammar used,we need to notice that the future tense
is used.For example ʻIʼm going toʼ.The presenter also uses ʻIʼllʼand ʻIʼ
d like toʼ.The above isan example of an effective introduction employing techniques that signal the intentions of the
speaker and help the audience to create a mental map that aids comprehension.Other signaling
devices used by this speaker were as follows:
Repetition: So,one of the first symptoms is tremor.So,tremor in the hands,in the limbs.You
see them trembling.
Rephrasing : A second symptom is rigidity. So, stiffness in the muscles.
Simplification: Normally,the transmitters are metabolized― er broken down.In other words,
if the cells die there is a disruption of the sensory input and the motor input.
Referring back : Okay, as I said. This is typical behavior.
Presenting known (given information): And it is known that if you block the dopamine
Highlighting : And what is important is that we measured the amount.
Rhetorical questions: So, what is SKF83 doing?
Forward movement : And I will show you that later on.
Introducing a section : So, now I would like to move on to the final part.
Skipping : I wonʼt go into details.
Introducing visuals: In the next slide, you see again the atypical agent.
Summarizing :As you have seen, we now have animal models which allow us to pick up
compounds with the same profile.
Concluding : So that is what I wanted to tell you this afternoon about the SKF compound.
In the guest lecture by the NS, we find a less detailed introduction to the lecture. When
compared with that of the NNS,it is found to be not so heavily marked with signaling devices,such as division of the lecture into sections and an indication of the contents of each section.
The lecture opened with the following sentence.
Iʼm pleased to talk about our collaborative studies targeting gene selection on knockout
mice.
However, the NS guest lecturer gave a detailed background to the study that lasted several
63日本大学歯学部紀要 33，59‑68，2005

minutes and which effectively functioned as a prelude to the main body of the lecture. This
explanation of the background was marked by the following two sentences.
The background to this work is as follows:
So this is just a background exemplification of some of the simple and less simple issues
in the use knockout mice.
The use of the above sentences represents a clear attempt on the part of the lecturer toaccommodate the graduate students in the group by providing sufficient background information to make the talk accessible.
Chunks have been acknowledged as playing important roles in scientific discourse,and at thesame time posing difficulties for novice members of the discourse community. Chunks aredefined by Nattinger (1986)as
conventional structures that occur more frequently and have more idiomatically determined meaning than language that is put together each time
The chunks, “have a look at”and “take a look at”, were employed by the NS on several
occasions to introduce a topic in the following way.
Letʼs have a look at how these knockouts are constructed in mice.
Letʼs take a brief look at D5 dopamine receptors.
This authorʼs data from previous studies suggests that “have a look at”and “take a look at”
are frequently used idiomatic expressions particularly in British English which are typical of
the informal style frequently employed by NS presenters. The same data suggests that NNS
tend not to use such informal chunks so frequentlywith Japanese lecturers presenting in English
not using them at all. I would suggest that idiomatic chunks like these are a commonlyoccurring feature of academic speech, but also that they might be a source of comprehension
problems for some members of the audience in an international setting. The use of “letʼs”, asit occurs in the above two examples,is also worthyof discussion here,as it occurs several times
in both sets of data.The use of “letʼs”indicates that the speaker includes the audience in whatmight be termed a joint enterprise to interpret the data. It also stresses the stance of thepresenter, suggesting that there is a conscious effort to address the audience on equal terms.
There are several instances of the word “here”in the data.Most of them,as you would expect,
being used to introduce visuals. These are the examples.
Here, you are looking at the induction of locomotion by a drug which stimulates the D2
family of dopamine receptors.
Here are the originators.
Both sets of data showed several of the above usages of “here”mainly to introduce visuals.
However, it is worth noting that in the authorʼs analysis of presentations given in English bynative speakers of Japanese,examples of the above usage of “here”were conspicuous by theirabsence. Instead, the phrase “
this slide shows”occurred with remarkable frequency. It is
possible that these presenters, as non‑native speakers of English,had a much narrower range
64Signaling devices in scientific oral presentationsof expressions at their disposal with which to introduce visuals.This may also be the result ofidealized forms that they had encountered in textbooks.It is worth pointing out here that in acomparison of authentic presentations with scripted ones accompanying textbooks in the fieldof English for Academic Purposes, Thompson (2003) finds that the latter are more clearlysignaled than the former with chunks of information in textbook material being smaller,all ofwhich suggest that EAP students and novice members of the discourse community may build
up unrealistic pictures of what actually happens in presentations.
It is important to be able to focus on information that the presenter considers to be of note.
In other words,the ability to emphasize effectively is important.In the data,we find the chunk,“we are interested in”occurs frequently, as noted below.
And we are interested in psychomotor behavior and orofacial movements and how theyare
regulated by dopamine receptor subtypes.
And we are also interested in not just receptor, but in transduction mechanisms.
We are interested in many aspects of motor behavior.
The above sentences suggest that the presenter sees the need to avoid a ʻflatʼand ʻ
featurelessʼ
presentation. Additionally, the speaker made clear the focus of the lecture by the use of
sentences such as this one.
Iʼm going to concentrate on locomotion.
This sentence is to be compared with several instances in the data of “focus on”all of whichhave the same function. As pointed out in the sample derived from the NNS, the use ofrhetorical questions in presentations is a common way of focusing the attention of the audienceand also of building either an argument or content. Essentially, rhetorical questions are
signaling devices within a lecture that do not generally require an answer and are mostfrequently used to provide information. They are commonly used devices in both sets of datain this study. On several occasions, lecturers put forward a rhetorical question and then went
on to answer it themselves. Here are several examples of this, all of which show the speakerdisguising what is essentially a signaling device as a question.
What does the animal look like normally without actually challenging it with an agonist?
How is the motor function in general terms? And the answer to that is that its motor
function is remarkably well‑preserved.
The first thing that I want to say about darp‑32 is that it is an easily said acronym. But
what does it actually stand for?What is it?
The use of rhetorical questions helps focus the attention of the audience. This authorʼs datasuggests that this kind of signaling device is frequently used by native speakers as well as nonnative speakers with a good command of English.For example in a presentation on a topic in
Biology,a young British presenter used this device seventeen times in total.Instances of the useof rhetorical questions in a similar corpus of presentations given in English by Japanesescientists were almost non‑existent, suggesting a significant difference in style.
65日本大学歯学部紀要 33，59‑68，2005

In terms of indicating new direction in the presentation the chunk “go on to”occurs several
times and can be compared to the usage of“move on to”as found in the data derived from the
NNS lecture.
I want to go on to say something about our most recent work on D4 and D5 knockouts.
Both the NS and the NNS clearly signaled points at which they omitted information. For
example, the NS used the following sentence.
Iʼm not going to say much specifically about orofacial movements.
I have already noted the presentersʼneed to avoid flat or featureless presentations. In thesample, we find several examples of forward and backward movement to signal intentions asfollows.
Iʼ
ll discuss the physiological consequences of this in a minute.
Now, Iʼve just described spontaneous behavior.
The NS presenter frequently introduced a new topic or indicated a shift in topic by startingwith “if”and building up a series of propositions.
If you look at genderIf you look at D1 knockouts
If we look at locomotion
Conclusions in the data from the NS were highly marked,as shown below.It is worth pointing
out that the NS presenter made interim conclusions at several points in the presentation thatfunction as mini‑summaries.
Iʼ
d like to finish by saying something briefly about darp‑32.
So, some simple conclusions about this.
So, some conclusions about darp‑32.

Conclusion
This study has considered the use of signaling devices in two guest lectures given in aninternational setting by a native speaker and a non native speaker.The relatively small size ofthe samples of academic speech used in this study make it difficult to draw any firm conclusions. I believe, however, that the patterns that have emerged in this investigation are ofsignificance and that there can be no doubt that the way presenters use signaling devices is an
important factor in creating a transparent presentation. Both lecturers made considerable
efforts to guide their audiences and help them to form a mental map by the inclusion of various
highly marked phrases and sentences that may be classified as metadiscourse.The NNS gave
a more tightly structured discourse as evidenced by the introduction to his lecture. The NS,
however, spent time giving background information to the audience. The results of this study
tend to confirm those of Crawford Camiociottoli (2004) who, as reported above, found thatsignaling devices were more frequent in L2 lecturers and least frequent in L1 lecturers in guest
lecture situations. The fact that the results obtained by Khuwaileh (1999) suggest that NS66

Signaling devices in scientific oral presentations

discourse is more highly marked than that of NNS discourse is difficult to reconcile with theresults of this study and that of Crawford Camiociottoli (2004).It is,however,important not torule out the fact that,as Barr (1990)points out,most presenters receive no specific training andthat some may be better than others at conveying information in a form that is easilyprocessedby the audience. Added to which there is the problem of the idiosyncratic nature of lecturer
performance and the commonlyaccepted fact that lecturing styles differ from culture to culture
and possibly according to the field. All, or any, of these factors may explain the above
conflicting results. The results of this study also suggest the importance of creating teachingmaterials that aid students in their attempts at both comprehending and delivering academic
speech.Production of such materials highlighting easily discernible patterns in the genre might
have a tendency to emphasize or even over‑emphasize them. However, the main point is thatsuch materials should help students to make the massive transition from the classroom to thereal world of academic discourse. Equally, efforts to make presenters more conscious of theneed to use signaling devices to aid their audiences in processing information are needed.

Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Professor A.R.Cools of the Department of Physchoneuropharmacology,Radbound Universityof Nijmegen,the Netherlands for his kind permission to record
his lecture entitled ʻ
Are the target sites of atypical antiparkinsonian drugs such as SKF 83959
located outside or inside striatal structures?ʼgiven at Nihon University,School of Dentistry on
October 16 2001.The author also wishes to thank Dr.John L.Waddington of the Departmentof Clinical Pharmacology and Research Institute,Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland for hiskind permission to record his lecture entitled ʻ
The use of knockout mice in relation to dopamine
receptor subtype function,and their potential for studying orofacial movementsʼgiven at Nihon
University,School of Dentistry on M ay 17 ,2003.The author is also indebted to Professor N.
Koshikawa of the Department of Pharmacology at Nihon University, School of Dentistry forhis help in explaining some technical aspects of the above presentations.
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