Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2019 Prosodic and discourse function variations in lexical bundles in university lectures Rania Hani F Mohammed Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Part of the Linguistics Commons Recommended Citation Mohammed, Rania Hani F, "Prosodic and discourse function variations in lexical bundles in university lectures" (2019). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 17059. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/17059 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Prosodic and discourse function variations in lexical bundles in university lectures by Rania Mohammed A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Major: Applied Linguistics and Technology Program of Study Committee: John Levis, Major Professor Bethany Gray Tammy Slater Jo Mackiewicz Horabail Venkatagiri The student author, whose presentation of the scholarship herein was approved by the program of study committee, is solely responsible for the content of this dissertation. The Graduate College will ensure this dissertation is globally accessible and will not permit alterations after a degree is conferred. Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2019 Copyright © Rania Mohammed, 2019. All rights reserved. ii DEDICATION To my loving parents and supportive husband iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................ v LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................ xxvii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................. xxix ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................... xxx CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1 1.1 Lexical bundles ........................................................................................................ 3 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................ 8 2.1 Background on multi-word sequences .................................................................... 8 2.2 Multi-word sequences in academic spoken language ............................................ 10 2.3 Categorization of discourse-organizing functions ................................................. 12 2.4 Frequency-based approach .................................................................................... 14 2.5 Communicative role of prosody ............................................................................ 16 2.5.1 Prosody signaling of information structure ................................................... 17 2.5.2 Grammatical categories and information structure ....................................... 22 2.5.3 Pitch signaling pragmatic functions and information status ......................... 25 2.6 Prosodic features of multi-word sequences ........................................................... 26 2.7 Gap in research ...................................................................................................... 32 CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY .................................................................................... 35 3.1 Corpus .................................................................................................................... 35 3.2 Lexical bundle identification and selection ........................................................... 38 3.3 Discourse function analysis ................................................................................... 42 3.3.1 Coding guide ................................................................................................. 44 3.4 Prosodic analysis ................................................................................................... 50 CHAPTER 4. RESULTS .................................................................................................. 60 4.1 One of the most ...................................................................................................... 61 4.2 One of the things .................................................................................................... 69 4.3 On the other hand .................................................................................................. 76 4.4 We’ll talk about ..................................................................................................... 79 4.5 We’re talking about ............................................................................................... 82 4.6 As you can see ....................................................................................................... 87 4.7 Lexical bundles with one discourse function ........................................................ 92 4.7.1 We’ve talked about ........................................................................................ 93 4.7.2 It turns out that .............................................................................................. 95 4.7.3 That is to say.................................................................................................. 97 4.8 Summary of Findings ............................................................................................ 99 iv CHAPTER 5. DISCUSSION .......................................................................................... 103 5.1 Lexical bundles as subphrasal units ..................................................................... 105 5.2 Cohesion .............................................................................................................. 109 5.3 Lexical bundles and the BCC study .................................................................... 114 5.4 Lexical bundles and formulaic expressions ......................................................... 117 5.5 Speech annotation tools ....................................................................................... 119 5.6 Teaching implications .......................................................................................... 120 5.7 Further research and limitations .......................................................................... 122 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 125 APPENDIX A. GLOSSARY OF TERMS ..................................................................... 132 APPENDIX B. LEXICAL BUNDLES in YALE CORPUS .......................................... 133 APPENDIX C. CODING GUIDE .................................................................................. 135 APPENDIX D. PILOTED PROSODIC ANALYSIS ..................................................... 144 APPENDIX E. TRANSCRIPTS OF LEXICAL BUNDLES AND PITCH CONTOURS ................................................................................................................... 149 As You Can See ......................................................................................................... 149 It Turns Out That ....................................................................................................... 188 On the Other Hand ..................................................................................................... 227 One of the Most ......................................................................................................... 273 One of the Things ...................................................................................................... 317 That is to Say ............................................................................................................. 359 We’ll Talk About ....................................................................................................... 398 We’re Talking About ................................................................................................. 436 We’ve Talked About ................................................................................................. 473 v LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 2.1. Peak on first occurrence of the word tombs .................................................. 23 Figure 2.2. Leveled pitch contour on second occurrence of the word tombs .................. 24 Figure 3.1. Flowchart illustrating the criteria used to choose lexical bundles ................. 40 Figure 3.2. Pitch contour of on the other hand showing a peak generated by Praat ....... 52 Figure 3.3. Pitch listing for pitch contour of an occurrence of on the other hand ........... 53 Figure 3.4. Sketch of the original pitch contour showing a peak pattern for on the other hand ..................................................................................................... 53 Figure 3.5. Fall-rise pattern for the lexical bundle as you can see .................................. 54 Figure 3.6. Non-continuous pitch contour of an occurrence of one of the things ............ 55 Figure