Register-Specificity of Signalling Nouns in Discourse

Abstract

Signalling nouns are abstract nouns the meaning of which is only fully realized in context. Because this class of noun is particularly prevalent in academic discourse, this paper examines to what extent the use of these nouns varies across two different academic genres: textbooks and lectures. The research was based upon two corpora. The first of these consisted of transcribed recordings of an undergraduate lecture course in biology (92,939 words). The second corpus was made up of the relevant sections of the prescribed textbook for the lecture course upon which the lectures were based (90,482 words). Both corpora covered the same subject matter; therefore, the differences between them can be attributed to the genres rather than the subject matter. Analysis was assisted by the use of Wordsmith Tools (Scott 1999). Using Halliday’s contextual parameters of field, tenor and mode, differences were noted in each of these domains. The most striking finding was that the total usage of signalling nouns is much more prevalent in the textbook than in the lecture --more than twice as frequent. Finer distinctions were found, however, according to Halliday’s contextual parameters. The findings are used as the basis for recommendations for pedagogy.