Stories and scenarios: lecturers’ use of fantastic hypothetical events

Hilary Nesi; Sian Alsop

doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2021.101022

Stories and scenarios: lecturers’ use of fantastic hypothetical events

Hilary Nesi, Sian Alsop

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Abstract

A number of studies have examined the occurrence of stories in lecture contexts, and have suggested that stories can encourage student engagement and the acquisition and retention of lecture information content. Some of these studies have analysed story structures in terms of Labov and Waletzky’s model (1967) or the more elaborate model developed by Martin (2008). Such models work well for stories that recount events that took place in past time, but they do not capture another type of story, the hypothetical scenario, sufficiently well. Drawing on prior research into stories in lecture discourse, and ‘Imagining Scenarios’ (Ädel 2010, 2012), we identify and describe passages in lectures where listeners are invited to imagine a fantastic hypothetical situation. Scenario identification criteria were developed, and examples were extracted from the British Academic Spoken English (BASE) corpus, the Engineering Lecture Corpus (ELC), and the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE). Novice EMI lecturers may understandably be nervous about straying away from the delivery of facts and into the realms of fantasy, but our findings suggest that scenario-telling is part of the experienced lecturer’s repertoire, and is an engaging way of elaborating abstract technical terms, concepts, or arguments central to a disciplinary topic.

Original language	English
Article number	101022
Journal	Journal of English for Academic Purposes
Volume	53
Early online date	5 Jun 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2021.101022
Publication status	Published - Sept 2021

Bibliographical note

© 2021, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Copyright © and Moral Rights are retained by the author(s) and/ or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This item cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder(s). The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.

This document is the author’s post-print version, incorporating any revisions agreed during the peer-review process. Some differences between the published version and this version may remain and you are advised to consult the published version if you wish to cite from it.

Keywords

lecturer training
story
scenario
corpus analysis
EMI
lectures

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10.1016/j.jeap.2021.101022

Post-PrintAccepted author manuscript, 896 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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abstract = "A number of studies have examined the occurrence of stories in lecture contexts, and have suggested that stories can encourage student engagement and the acquisition and retention of lecture information content. Some of these studies have analysed story structures in terms of Labov and Waletzky{\textquoteright}s model (1967) or the more elaborate model developed by Martin (2008). Such models work well for stories that recount events that took place in past time, but they do not capture another type of story, the hypothetical scenario, sufficiently well. Drawing on prior research into stories in lecture discourse, and {\textquoteleft}Imagining Scenarios{\textquoteright} ({\"A}del 2010, 2012), we identify and describe passages in lectures where listeners are invited to imagine a fantastic hypothetical situation. Scenario identification criteria were developed, and examples were extracted from the British Academic Spoken English (BASE) corpus, the Engineering Lecture Corpus (ELC), and the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE). Novice EMI lecturers may understandably be nervous about straying away from the delivery of facts and into the realms of fantasy, but our findings suggest that scenario-telling is part of the experienced lecturer{\textquoteright}s repertoire, and is an engaging way of elaborating abstract technical terms, concepts, or arguments central to a disciplinary topic.",

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Stories and scenarios: lecturers’ use of fantastic hypothetical events

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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