Akademik bağlamda sözlü üst-söylem analizi: İngilizcenin ortak dil olarak kullanımında bir keşif çalışması

This study investigates the reflexive metadiscourse components in academic English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) context. Specifically, the current research explores the reflexive metadiscursive devices employed in student and examiner talk separately in PhD thesis defense discussions. With this aim, student and examiner talks have been analyzed regarding the frequency and use of discourse functions based on the taxonomy of metadiscourse in spoken and written English by Adel (2010). Concerning methodology, a corpus-based mixed-method analysis was adopted, and the analysis was performed on the data taken from eight defense discussions in the open-access English as a Lingua in Academic Settings (ELFA) corpus. Findings of this study indicate that reflexive metadiscourse components are used in PhD thesis defense discussions, which is observable through data. However, there are certain discrepancies regarding the frequency and use of the discourse functions in student and examiner talks. It has been analyzed that discourse functions in the 'speech act labels' subtype such as arguing and exemplifying, and discourse functions related to 'metalinguistic comments' subtype such as commenting on linguistic form/meaning and clarifying are observed to be frequent in student talk. However, student talk maintains a lower frequency regarding discourse functions related to managing topic under the 'discourse organization' subtype. Student talk is also frequent in terms of imagining scenarios discourse functions in the subtype of 'references to the audience.' Examiner talk shows a higher frequency of cases, especially regarding managing the message and managing the audience discipline discourse functions in the 'references to the audience subtype and adding to topic and concluding topic discourse functions in the 'discourse organization' subtype. Lastly, student and examiner talks have a high-frequency rate of certain 'discourse organization' related discourse functions such as enumerating and endophoric markings. The results of the study offer insights into the nature of the PhD thesis defense discussions.