Oral communication in the sciences: lectures

Oral communication in research is an area which is yet to be addressed systematically. The aim of this project is to fill this research gap. One text type to be examined is the lecture, which can be classified as an orally realised text type within a direct-communication constellation. In general, the lecture can be located on intensity scales between "spontaneous" and "not spontaneous", "oral" and "written", and "using spoken language" to "using written language". For foreign language teaching the position recorded on these scales has allowed the degree of difficulty for listening comprehension to be determined and has fed into the planning of foreign language courses.
All these aspects of the lecture have been examined with respect to different subject-area cultures. Moreover, for lectures within a particular subject-area culture, groups of patterns associated with the ways in which specific themes and sub-themes are treated have been identified and described. This last point especially is a focal point of research, since how these patterns are actually realised can be vital to what the learner of a foreign language understands in the classroom and how well. The investigation is intended to reveal the extent to which such meta-communicative action is employed.

Project management:
Prof. Casper-Hehne

Project duration: 01.01.2004 - 2007

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Hiltraud Casper-Hehne
phone: 0551-39-7157
fax: 0551-39-13383
e-mail: h.casper-hehne@phil.uni-goettingen.de

Publications:

Casper-Hehne, Hiltraud (2005): Wissenschaftskommunikation in internationalen Studiengängen und Deutsch als Fremdsprache. In: AKS-Verlag Bochum. (Dokumentationen der 23. Arbeitstagung 2004). (in Druck).