English for Specific Purposes 31 (2012) 103116

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English for Specific Purposes

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/esp

The use of questions by professors in lectures given in English: Influences

of disciplinary cultures
Yu-Ying Chang
Department of Foreign Languages and Applied Linguistics, Yuan Ze University, 135 Yuan-Tung Rd., Chungli 32003, Taiwan

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Available online 29 September 2011
Keywords:
English for Academic Purposes (EAP)
English medium instruction
English lectures
Genre studies of language
Interdisciplinary comparison
Questions

a b s t r a c t
Several previous studies have investigated the use of questions to facilitate interactions in
academic lectures in tertiary education. However, the issue of how disciplinary cultures
influence the patterns of questions in lectures has received little attention. Therefore, this
study aims to examine the interdisciplinary differences in professors use of questions in
terms of both their forms and functions. The corpus used in this study consists of 15
small-class lectures from three academic divisions: Humanities & Arts (HA), Social Sciences
& Education (SS) and Physical Sciences & Engineering (PS). These data are a subset of the
Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE).
Previous studies on academic spoken English have reported that, compared with other
contextual factors, the disciplinary culture seems to exert a more critical influence on
the use of various linguistic features. However, the results of this study show far more similarities than differences across different disciplines. Based on the major findings pertaining
to the use of question forms and functions across the three divisions, it is suggested that for
questions in academic lectures at the tertiary level, the influence of genre seems to outweigh that of disciplinary culture.
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1. Introduction
Recently, the world has witnessed a trend toward internationalization in higher education and increasingly widespread
use of English as a medium for instruction (EMI) at the tertiary level of education in non-native English-speaking countries.
As a result, academic English speaking and listening skills have become as important as academic English reading and writing skills for non-native English-speaking students. Therefore, although written genres are still the primary focus of research
in the field of English for Academic Purposes (EAP), spoken genres have also gained far more research interest in this field.
Among the various spoken genres in EAP, lectures have been considered the most prominent format of instructional activity
in higher education worldwide (Bamford, 2005; Fortanet, 2004a), hence have attracted a great amount of research attention.
Previous EAP and applied linguistic studies on lectures have discerned various lecturing styles. For example, DudleyEvans and Johns (1981) distinguished among reading style, conversation style, and rhetorical style, whereas Goffman (1981)
discussed the memorization style, reading aloud style and fresh talk style. Among the various styles, scholars have observed
that there is a general move toward a more interactive lecturing style (i.e., a more informal and conversational style of lecturing) in the US, the UK, and many other countries (Bamford, 2005; Flowerdew, 1994; Fortanet, 2004a; Morell, 2007). This
informal, conversational lecturing style has been found to induce a higher degree of interaction between the lecturer and his/
her audience (Crawford Camiciottoli, 2004, 2008; DeCarrico & Nattinger, 1988; Dudley-Evans, 1994; Morell, 2007). In

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Y.-Y. Chang / English for Specific Purposes 31 (2012) 103116

addition, various linguistic features that enhance the degree of informality and interaction have also been reported to have
positive effects on non-native English-speaking students lecture comprehension (Lee, 2009; Morell, 2004, 2007) and on their
learning of the subject content (Northcott, 2001).
Given these findings, an increasing number of applied linguistic and EAP studies have begun to investigate how various
linguistic and textual features are used to enhance the degree of interactivity within lectures. The linguistic and textual features that have been examined include personal pronouns (e.g., Fortanet, 2004b; Morell, 2001, 2004; Rounds, 1987a, 1987b),
modality (e.g., Crawford Camiciottoli, 2003), interactive lexico-syntactic patterns (e.g., Crawford Camiciottoli, 2004),
discourse markers (e.g., Chaudron & Richards, 1986; Eslami & Eslami-Rasekh, 2007; Flowerdew & Tauroza, 1995;
Morell, 2001, 2004), metadiscourse (e.g., Perez & Macia, 2002; Thompson, 2003), questions (e.g., Bamford, 2005; Crawford
Camiciottoli, 2008; Fortanet, 2004a; Morell, 2004; Thompson, 1998), and asides (Strodt-Lopez, 1991).
Of the various linguistic devices, the question is among the most useful for stimulating human interaction, given that a
question presupposes an answer (Goody, 1978) and that to form a complete proposition, both the question and the answer
are necessary (Bamford, 2005). Additionally, the question has long been recognized as an important interactional device employed by teachers to activate and facilitate teaching and learning processes (Crawford Camiciottoli, 2008; Gall, 1970; Long &
Sato, 1983). Aschner (1961) even calls a teacher a professional question maker and believes that asking questions is one of
the basic ways by which the teacher stimulates student thinking and learning (originally cited in Gall, 1970, p.707).
Because of this prominent role of questions in educational settings, scholars from many different disciplines have conducted studies on the use of questions in classrooms (Wu & Chang, 2007). However, it is rather surprising that, as yet,
the use of questions in English academic lectures at the tertiary level has attracted the research attention of only a handful
of EAP scholars (e.g., Bamford, 2005; Crawford Camiciottoli, 2008; Csomay, 2002; Fortanet, 2004a; Morell, 2004; Thompson,
1998).
Among the studies located during the literature review stage of the present study, Csomay (2002), Fortanet (2004a), and
Morell (2004) only included questions as one of the interactive features in their text analyses. None of them specifically focused on examining the use of questions in lectures. Thompson (1998), although focusing on the analysis of questions, used a
mixed corpus consisting of both academic lectures and presentations. She did not distinguish the differences in the use of
questions between these two genres because her focus was the use of questions in academic talks in general. Crawford
Camiciottolis (2008) study was comparative in nature and examined the use of questions in academic lectures and written
instructional materials in the field of business studies. Her main purpose was to observe how communicative modes influenced the use of questions. Thus, she did not focus on analyzing in detail the use of questions in lectures.
The only study located that specifically focused on the use of questions in English academic lectures was Bamford (2005).
In this study, Bamford analyzed the functions of question/answer adjacency pairs and serial questions in academic lectures
from the field of economics. She pointed out that question/answer sequences in academic lectures were characterized by one
interactant (i.e., the instructor) performing both the questioning and the answering roles. That is, although the instructor
already possesses the information posited by the question, he/she still asks the question and provides his/her students with
the answer. On the basis of this observation, Bamford focused on examining how lecturers used their control of both the
question and the answer as an effective attention-focusing mechanism or a hedged criticism. Additionally, she also attempted to show that by echoing the prosody of spontaneous conversation, such question/answer sequences can serve
to induce the student into thinking that what is taking place is an interactive sharing of ideas and information (Bamford,
2005, p. 126).
From the above review, we can conclude that, although many EAP studies have revealed the important influences of disciplinary culture on both academic written discourse (e.g., Hyland, 2000; Hyland & Bondi, 2006) and spoken discourse (e.g.,
Dudley-Evans, 1994; Poos & Simpson, 2002; Schleef, 2004, 2008), few researchers have paid attention to interdisciplinary
variations in the use of questions in academic lectures. Moreover, it appears that in the few existing studies on the use of
questions in lectures no special efforts have been made to examine how different question forms are used for different question functions. This study therefore aims to fill these gaps by specifically investigating the interdisciplinary differences in
professors1 use of questions in lectures given in English. In the analysis, special attention will be paid to comparing the use
of various question forms and functions in three broad academic divisions and to observing how each question form is used
for different question functions across these divisions.
2. Method
2.1. The corpus
This study deliberately focuses only on small-class lectures because the potential influence of class size on lecture interaction has been noted in previous studies (Hansen & Jensen, 1994; Lee, 2009). In the manual of the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE; Simpson, Lee, & Leicher, 2002), a small-class lecture is defined as a lecture given to a class
which contains no more than 40 students. Fifteen small lectures in MICASE were chosen for the present study. Five were

1
The term professor(s) is used here following the tradition of US higher education; it refers to professors at different ranks, including assistant professors,
associate professors, and full professors.

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Y.-Y. Chang / English for Specific Purposes 31 (2012) 103116

Table 1
MICASE small lecture corpus.
Academic division

File

Topic

Gender

Participant

Words

Length (min)

Humanities & Arts (HA)

1
2
3
4
5

Graduate Online Search and Database

Visual Source
Beethoven Lecture
American Literature
Historical Linguistics

F
F
M
M
M

Junior Graduate Students

Senior Undergraduates
Mbed Graduates
Senior Undergraduates
Senior Undergraduates

14,910
8299
6747
13,514
12,117

147
69
75
99
69

Social Sciences & Education (SS)

6
7
8
9
10

Ethics Issues in Journalism

Labor Economics
Statistics in Social Sciences
Honors Intro Psychology
Intro to Psychopathology

M
M
F
M
F

Senior Undergraduates
Junior Graduate Students
Mbed Graduates
Junior Graduate Students
Senior Undergraduates

5662
11,204
13,831
5430
7863

83
77
109
49
52

Physical Sciences & Engineering (PS)

11
12
13
14
15

Graduate Physics
Intro to Groundwater Hydrology
Radiological Health Engineering
Professional Mechanical Engineering
Intro Programming

M
F
F
M
M

Mbed Graduates
Junior Graduate Students
Senior Undergraduates
Junior Graduate Students
Senior Undergraduates

11,757
12,295
11,865
12,013
7442

105
82
98
90
50

selected from each of the three academic divisions: Humanities & Arts (HA), Social Sciences & Education (SS) and Physical
Sciences & Engineering (PS). In addition to class size, when selecting the lecture samples from MICASE, a special effort
was made to balance the distribution of different student levels (cf. Csomay, 2002) and genders of the professors (see Table 1
for the breakdown). Moreover, the professors were all native speakers of American English, and the student audiences also
mostly shared the same linguistic-cultural background.
2.2. The analysis
Questions can be categorized on a formal level according to their structural characteristics or linguistic forms. Questions
can also be defined on a functional level on the basis of the speakers intentions while uttering a question (Athanasiadou,
1991). In this study, a question was identified not only based on the syntactic form but also on the utterance meaning
and intonation. To determine both the form and function of each question asked by the professors, the transcripts were manually searched with reference to their corresponding sound files. Moreover, the following items were excluded in the analysis of this study:
1. Professors single-item responses to students intervention (e.g., yes?, yeah?, and Dennis?).
2. Embedded questions in the professors narrative passages (e.g., and they talk about that right at the end where he says to
her, why did you ever start this in the first place?).
3. Rhetorical questions (e.g., Who knows? and Who cares?): For a more detailed discussion of this exclusion, please see
the quotation from Crawford Camiciottoli (2008, p. 1223) in Section 2.2.2 of this paper.
2.2.1. Classifications of questions in previous studies
Thompson (1998, p. 140) classified questions as having two different orientations. The first type is the audience-oriented
question. When a speaker asks a question belonging to this type, the audience is at least symbolically provided with an

Fig. 1. The taxonomy of question functions.

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Y.-Y. Chang / English for Specific Purposes 31 (2012) 103116

opportunity to either verbally or non-verbally respond to it. The other type is the content-oriented question. No audience
response occurs or seems to be expected for this type of question. Thompson further categorized audience-oriented questions into three functions: (1) to check if the audience can perceive and understand the speakers utterances, (2) to evoke
a response from the audience, and (3) to seek an agreement with the audience. Similarly, she further categorized content-oriented questions into two functions: (1) to raise issues and (2) to introduce information.
Following Thompson (1998), Crawford Camiciottoli (2008) also categorized questions into audience-oriented and content-oriented types. In Crawford Camiciottolis (2008) comparative study on the use of questions by lecturers and material
writers, three types of question functions were identified as audience-oriented questions. These questions included those
that (1) elicit a response, (2) request confirmation/clarification, and (3) solicit an agreement. Content-oriented questions
were also subdivided into the following two functions: those that (1) focus information and (2) stimulate thought.
2.2.2. The taxonomy of question functions in this study
In this study, a combined framework of question functions was adopted; it integrated the taxonomies proposed by
Thompson (1998) and Crawford Camiciottoli (2008). In addition, one additional subcategory (i.e., classroom management/
engagement) was added under the category of audience-oriented questions. The following section briefly describes each
of the functions in the combined framework (see Fig. 1).
2.2.2.1. Audience-oriented questions.
1. Eliciting response: This type of question is used to invite the student to supply a piece of information related to the
course content. The following are two examples:
(1) What are some examples of the specifics, when dealing with photographs? (SS6)
(2) What kind of a cemetery might it have been? (HA2)
2. Class management/engagement: In contrast with questions designed to elicit a response, when asking a class
management/engagement question, the professor does not expect the student to answer the question in accordance
with the course content. Rather, this type of question is used to manage the class and thereby enhance the teaching
flow (example 3). In addition, this type of question can be used to build rapport or increase the level of interaction
with the student audience (example 4).
(3) Have you guys found it? Its page nine-point-two-three. (PS12)
(4) Do people wanna take a five minute bathroom break? (SS10)
3. Soliciting agreement: Professors use this type of question to appeal to the students to agree with their propositions
(Thompson, 1998, p. 141). For instance, the professor in example 5 assumes that a certain statement is true and
invites his students to confirm this statement.
(5) That would be the other extreme, right? (SS6)
4. Checking comprehension: This type of question is used to ensure whether students have already understood the
information presented by the professor (examples 6 and 7). These questions may be answered verbally or
nonverbally. Even if they are not verbally answered by the student, they still manifest the professors concern about
the students comprehension of the subject matter.
(6) Everybody get that idea? (PS12)
(7) In other words, it actually occurs on both sides of the linguistic border. Alright? (HA5)
5. Requesting confirmation/clarification: This type of question is used to check if the professor has correctly or
incorrectly understood/heard the students previous remark (i.e., requesting confirmation, example 8). It could also
be used to request the students reiteration of a previous remark (i.e., requesting clarification, example 9).
(8) Did-did you say distance? (SS6)
(9) Student: Uh... two-thirty-eight.
Professor: Pardon me?
Student: Two-thirty-eight. (PS13)

2.2.2.2. Content-oriented questions. In audience-oriented questions, the audience is at least symbolically given an opportunity
to provide an actual verbal or non-verbal response. In contrast, content-oriented questions require no immediate response
from the audience (Thompson, 1998, p. 143). According to Crawford Camiciottoli (2008, p. 1223), although some researchers
may consider the questions belonging to this category to be rhetorical questions, these questions should be distinguished
from rhetorical questions. She argues the following:
According to Quirk et al. (1985: 825), a rhetorical question has the force of a strong assertion and generally does not
expect an answer. However, as pointed out by Bamford (2005), in the context of a lecture, even questions to which
answers from students are not expected have been raised precisely for the purpose of discovering the answer, although
this may actually be provided by the lecturers themselves. Thus, such questions do not completely conform to Quirk

Y.-Y. Chang / English for Specific Purposes 31 (2012) 103116

107

et al.s (1985) definition of rhetorical questions where answers are not expected either because they are irrelevant or nonexistent (e.g., Who knows?).
Following Crawford Camiciottolis (2008) categorization, the two major functions of content-oriented questions in this
study are focusing information and stimulating thoughts.
1. Focusing information: This type of question is posed and immediately answered by the professor. It is used to lead the
students attention to upcoming information, as shown by the following examples:
(10) Whats gonna happen here? Its gonna start killing the signal. (PS11)
(11) You have an incident photon it disappears it must take place, uh, in the electric field of a nucleus why? Because
the nucleus has to, conserve momentum and get a little bit of, recoil. (PS13)
2. Stimulating thought: These questions are big questions or issues to which there are no easy answers. When asking
these questions, the professor does not immediately provide an explicit answer to his or her own question. However,
the professor may comment on or evaluate the question in order to encourage the student to reflect upon the
question (example 12).
(12) Are there linguistic change that can be attributed to the, to language contact? This is a fairly controversial uh area
within the area of Romance linguistics. . . (HA5).

2.2.3. The taxonomy of question forms in this study

The analysis of the question forms in this study was mainly based on Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik (1985) with
the following minor modifications. Specifically, the analysis also included one question form (i.e., Declarative/Imperative + word tag question) adapted from Thompson (1998), and another form (i.e., Incomplete question) adopted from Wu
and Chang (2007). After the modifications, the question forms in this study were classified into six categories: (1) Wh-questions, (2) Yes/no questions, (3) Tag questions, (4) Declarative/imperative + word tag questions, (5) Alternative questions, and (6)
Incomplete questions (see Table 2).
In Quirk et al.s (1985) original classification, Tag questions were categorized under Yes/no questions. In this study, Tag
questions were separated from Yes/no questions because the pilot study showed that, although Yesno questions can be used
for several different functions, Tag questions seemed to be used only for one specific purpose (i.e., soliciting students agreement). If we did not separate Tag questions from Yes/no questions, our mapping of the questions forms and functions might be
blurred.
In addition, Thompson (1998, p. 140) used Declarative + word tag to represent a question form that is used to check something with the audience by the use of word tags such as OK, right, and all right (e.g., And this is the carbon carbon bond
OK). However, after conducting a preliminary analysis of the data, this term was changed into a more precise one (i.e.,
Declarative/Imperative + word tag question) because the form Imperative + word tag was also found in the data (e.g., Notice
that it is a fountain, okay?). Of particular note, the Tag questions in this study refer to the canonical type of Tag questions,
which contain reversed or constant polarity (e.g., Students are tough arent they?), whereas Declarative/Imperative + word
tag questions are formed by a declarative statement or imperative followed by a word tag such as ok, alright, and right.
Furthermore, based on the preliminary analysis of the data, another question form (i.e., Incomplete questions) was adopted
from Wu and Chang (2007). In Wu and Chang (2007), an Incomplete question refers to an incomplete utterance that ends with
a pause, which subtly invites the audience to complete the utterance.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Interdisciplinary differences in question frequency
As shown in Table 3, obvious variations can be found in the frequency of question occurrences across the three divisions.
Whereas the HA professors asked questions most frequently (i.e., 13.3 questions per 1000 words), those in SS had the lowest
Table 2
The taxonomy of question forms.
Questions forms

Examples

1.
2.
3.
4.

What phases are you comparing? (PS 11)

You wanna stop it here? (SS10)
Its very moving isnt it? (HA5)
Well, it depends on a lot of things, right? (SS7)
And notice also that it is a fountain, okay? (HA2)
Is it cold or warm? (HA1)
Oh really you were? (HA 2)

Wh-question
Yes/no question
Tag question
Declarative/imperative + word tag

5. Alternative question
6. Incomplete question

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Y.-Y. Chang / English for Specific Purposes 31 (2012) 103116

Table 3
Frequencies of question use in the three divisions.
Academic division

Topic

Words

(per 1000)

Humanities & Arts (HA)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

14,910
8299
6747
13,514
12,117

355
138
90
98
69
Average

23.8
16.6
13.3
7.3
5.7
13.3

Social Sciences & Education (SS)

6. Ethics Issues in Journalism

7. Labor Economics
8. Statistics in Social Sciences
9. Honors Intro Psychology
10. Intro to Psychopathology

5662
11,204
13,831
5430
7863

152
102
44
12
14
Average

26.8
9.1
3.2
2.2
1.8
8.6

Physical Sciences & Engineering (PS)

11.
12.
13.
14.
15.

11,757
12,295
11,865
12,013
7442

222
202
86
53
18
Average

18.9
16.4
7.2
4.4
2.4
9.9

Graduate Online Search and Database

Visual Source
Beethoven Lecture
American Literature
Historical Linguistics

Graduate Physics
Intro to Groundwater Hydrology
Radiological Health Engineering
Professional Mechanical Engineering
Intro Programming

frequency of questions (i.e., 8.6 questions per 1000 words), and in between the two extremes were the PS professors with a
frequency of 9.9 questions per 1000 words. However, if we scrutinize the data shown in the same table, we can also observe
great variations among the individual professors within each of the three divisions. Both the highest question frequency (i.e.,
26.8 questions per 1000 words in Journalism) and the lowest frequency (i.e., 1.8 questions per 1000 words in Psychopathology) were found in the SS division. This finding suggests that any interpretation of the results pertaining to question frequency should be done carefully. Additional studies with larger sample sizes are needed to clarify this issue.
3.2. Overall distribution of question forms
Across the corpus as a whole, Wh-questions (34.0%), Yes/no questions (32.2%) and Declarative/Imperative + word tag questions (30.2%) were the three most common question forms found in this study. These three forms occurred with similar frequencies and constituted more than 95% of the questions we examined. However, their relative frequencies were not
identical in each division. The form that occurred the most frequently was the Yes/no question in HA, the Declarative/Imperative + word tag question in SS, and the Wh-question in PS (see Table 4). As far as the other question forms are concerned, they
seemed to be used rather sporadically in academic lectures (from 0% to 4.3% only).
3.3. Overall distribution of question functions
Overall, 90% of the questions posed in these MICASE lectures were audience-oriented questions. As shown in Table 5, even
when we examine the question functions across the three divisions, we can still see this type of question predominates. In all
these divisions, more than 80% of the questions asked by the professors were audience-oriented (HA: 90.0%; SS: 89.2%; PS:
80.6%). However, while the professors in the soft fields of HA and SS tended to ask approximately 10% more audience-oriented questions than those in the hard fields of PS, the professors in PS asked relatively more content-oriented questions.
Content-oriented questions comprised nearly 20% of all questions in PS, but they comprised only around 10% of the questions

Table 4
Question forms used in the three divisions.
Humanities & Arts

Social Sciences & Education

Yes/no question

310

41.3%

Wh-question

235

31.3%

Declarative/imperative + word
tag questions
Wh-question

Declarative/imperative + word
tag questions
Tag question
Alternative question
Incomplete question
Total

182

24.3%

Yes/no question

11
7
5
750

1.5%
0.9%
0.7%
100%

Tag question
Alternative question
Incomplete question
Total

Physical Sciences & Engineering

122

37.7%

Wh-question

238

41.0%

96

29.6%

166

28.6%

90

27.8%

Declarative/imperative + word
tag questions
Yes/no question

162

27.9%

14
2
0
324

4.3%
0.6%
0%
100%

Tag question
Alternative question
Incomplete question
Total

6
5
4
581

1.0%
0.9%
0.7%
100%

109

Y.-Y. Chang / English for Specific Purposes 31 (2012) 103116

Table 5
Question functions in the three divisions.
Humanities & Arts
Audience-oriented
Eliciting response
Checking comprehension
Class management/
engagement
Soliciting agreement
Requesting confirmation/
clarification
Content-oriented
Stimulating thought
Focusing information
Total

Social Sciences & Education

675
233
184
177

90.0%
31.1%
24.5%
23.6%

43
38

5.7%
5.1%

75
41
34
750

10.0%
5.5%
4.5%
100%

Audience-oriented
Checking comprehension
Eliciting response
Class management/
engagement
Soliciting agreement
Requesting confirmation/
clarification
Content-oriented
Focusing information
Stimulating thought
Total

Physical Sciences & Engineering

289
92
77
67

89.2%
28.4%
23.8%
20.7%

44
9

13.6%
2.8%

35
18
17
324

10.8%
5.6%
5.2%
100%

Audience-oriented
Eliciting response
Checking comprehension
Class management/
engagement
Soliciting agreement
Requesting confirmation/
clarification
Content-oriented
Focusing information
Stimulating thought
Total

468
199
155
57

80.6%
34.3%
26.7%
9.8%

42
15

7.2%
2.6%

113
84
29
581

19.4%
14.5%
5.0%
100%

in HS and SS. In other words, compared with those in PS, there were approximately only half as many as content-oriented
questions in HS and SS.
Additionally, as shown in Table 5, the professors from all three different divisions primarily asked questions to elicit their
students responses to content-related questions (30.8% overall) and to check their students comprehension of the lecture
content (26.0% overall). Regarding the third most common question function, we can see a difference between the two soft
divisions and the hard division. Whereas the professors in HA and SS asked questions for class management/engagement
with the third highest frequency, those in PS did so for information focusing. In addition, in both HA and SS, the percentages
of questions devoted to class management/engagement were more than double that in PS (HA: 23.6%; SS: 20.7%; PS: 9.8%). It
thus seems that the professors from the soft fields tend to place more emphasis on class engagement and rapport enhancement than those from the hard fields.
The other two types of audience-oriented questions were both used much less frequently than the three discussed above.
The frequency of questions used to request clarification and confirmation was especially low. Given that it is highly unlikely
that professors will frequently have difficulty in comprehending students utterances, this low frequency is understandable.
However, we can observe one interesting result from Table 5: The SS professors appeared to solicit their students agreement slightly more frequently (13.6%) than those in HA (5.7%) and PS (7.2%). According to Thompson (1998), if a speaker uses
questions to seek agreement from the audience, then he/she moves from the higher degree of power associated with giving
information to a more equal relationship with their audience. In this relationship, the speaker asks the audience to confirm
his/her judgment. However, Thompson also points out that the act of soliciting agreement puts a certain amount of pressure
on the audience to agree with the speaker. Thus, this strategy can be potentially face-threatening, especially if it is used to
seek the audiences agreement with a controversial point. Despite its face-threatening nature, the SS professors in this study
asked questions to seek their students agreement the most frequently across the three divisions. This finding might be related to the more complex and fluid nature of social science knowledge, which often encompasses more varied perspectives
and possible interpretations than that in PS, and at the same time, allows a lower degree of subjectivity than the knowledge
constructed in HA.
The final area of analysis is the use of content-oriented questions. The results showed that, compared with the professors
in HA and SS, the professors from PS are proportionately more likely to use this type of question to focus and highlight information than to stimulate thoughts. This finding might be due to the technical nature of hard knowledge, which seems to
impel the PS professors to use content-oriented questions as both an attention-focusing device and a topic highlighter. In
doing so, these professors can guide their students through the discussion of the upcoming information (or technical procedure) and thereby enhance their students comprehension of the lecture content.
However, as Thompson (1998) argues, questions that highlight new information are less dialogic and more controlling
than those used to stimulate thought because the speaker both asks and answers the question himself/herself. Similarly,
Hodge and Kress (1993, p. 99) also note that the act of questioning is related to issues of knowledge and power when they
argue that the right to define the answer to a question comes from social power (originally cited in Thompson, 1998, p.
144). In light of these statements and given the more hierarchical power structures in the hard fields, the results of this study
seem to confirm Thompsons (1998, p. 144) observation that the academic speakers from the hard fields who answer their
own questions project themselves as omniscient beings.
3.4. How was each of the question forms used to represent the different functions?
If we examine how each of the question forms was used for the various question functions, we can find that the mapping
of the questions forms and functions did not have a straightforward, one-to-one relationship (see Tables A and B in Appendix). This result echoes the findings reported in previous studies on EAP discourse (e.g., Hyland, 1996). Except for Tag questions, which were used to express only one function, we found one-to-many and many-to-one relationships between the
questions forms and functions for all of the other cases. That is, one question form can be used to carry out more than
one function. However, multiple question forms can be used to represent a single question function as well.

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Compared with the other uncommon question forms, the three most common question forms (i.e., Wh-questions, Yes/no
questions and Declarative/Imperative + word tag questions) were employed for a diverse number of functions (i.e., 47 different functions) (Table A). Of these forms, Yes/no questions were used for the widest range of functions. In contrast, the
three least common forms were used to express no more than two functions. Tag questions were employed for only one
function across the three divisions (i.e., soliciting agreement), and Incomplete questions were not found at all in SS. On the
basis of these results, we seem to be able to conclude that the more common the question form is, the more variable are
its functions.
With regard to the interdisciplinary comparisons, we again see more similarities than differences among the three divisions. As shown in Table A in the Appendix, except for Yes/no and Incomplete questions, the most common functions represented by all of the other question forms in the three divisions were identical, although they were asked with varying
frequencies. Nevertheless, there were still disciplinary differences in how each question form was used to represent different
question functions. We will start by discussing the use of Wh-questions.
3.4.1. Wh-questions
In all three divisions, it was observed that, although Wh-questions were never used to solicit students agreement or to
check the students comprehension of the lecture content, they were used with varying frequencies to perform
all of the other five functions. As Table A in the Appendix shows, across the three divisions, Wh-questions were
employed to represent the same primary function, that is, eliciting students responses. In each division, over half of the
questions in this form were used for this purpose (see example 13). We can easily understand this result because Wh-questions are open-ended questions that invite students to speak more freely. The second primary function of Wh-questions was
class management/engagement in HA (see example 14) and focusing information in SS and PS (see example 15).

(13) Which is closer to a /f/? (HA5)

(14) Howre you guys doing? (HA2)
(15) Whatever Doppler phase we acquired here what had to happen here? You had to cancel (xx) had to cancel cancel it.
(PS11)

Example 15 may be viewed as an illustration of the observation that the professors in the hard fields tend to
follow up Wh-questions with their own answers to highlight the new information or technical procedures presented
subsequently in their lectures. They do so to focus their students attention and to help them comprehend the
lectures more easily.
3.4.2. Yes/no questions
Except that they were not used to solicit agreements in SS, Yes/no questions were used to perform all of the seven
functions specified in this study across the three divisions. This question form was used for the widest range of functions.
However, as Table A shows, the professors from the soft fields used Yes/no questions differently from those in the hard
fields. Whereas Yes/no questions were employed most frequently for class management/engagement in HA and SS
(HA:40.3%; SS: 52.3%) (see examples 16 and 17), they were employed most frequently to elicit responses in PS (36.7%)
(see example 18).
(16) Okay, you want stop it here? (note: the lecturer asked this question after a movie clip was stopped) (SS10)
(17) Should I spell that for you? (HA2)
(18) Professor: The units have to work out [S2: yeah yeah ] then it should be S squared right? Is it two-H?
S5: I think its two H. (PS 12)

Moreover, the second function commonly represented by this question form was eliciting students responses in the soft
fields (HA:29.4%; SS: 21/1%), but in the hard fields in PS, this form was used to check the students comprehension (24.1%)
(see examples 19 and 20). Additionally, although class management/engagement was ranked only third in PS, it was also a
common function that was represented by the Yes/no questions in this division (see example 21). This form was used for class
management/engagement with only about 2% less frequency than it was used to check the students comprehension of the
lecture content.
(19) Are there any questions so far about any, any of this? (PS15)
(20) Everybody understand that? It means theres water coming in somewhere. . . (PS12)
(21) Have you guys found it? Its page nine-point-two-three. (PS12)

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111

3.4.3. Declarative/Imperative + word tag

The Declarative/Imperative + word tag question was also one of the three most common question forms found in this study.
Professors in all three divisions demonstrated similar patterns in the use of this form. In all three divisions, at least 70% of the
questions expressed in this form were used to check students comprehension (examples 22 and 23). In addition, this form
was also used to solicit agreement from students (example 24)
(22) If you have very short steps youll probably get failure at a lower load. Okay? (PS14)
(23) This is not really Ficks Law but its a way to express, dispersive flux, as a function of, the the gradient and
concentration, okay? (PS12)
(24) Its entirely possible, right? (HA1)

3.4.4. Tag questions

Tag questions were used rarely in the corpus (1.5% in HA; 4.3% in SS; 1.0% in PS). Similar to the Declarative/Imperative + word tag question, the three divisions shared the same pattern in the professors use of this form. When it was used,
it was exclusively employed to solicit the students agreement with what the professor had just said (examples 25 and 26).
(25) That ending is very interesting, isnt it? (HA4)
(26) We can measure that in a different experiment, cant we? (PS12)

3.4.5. Alternative questions

Alternative questions were used even more rarely in this study. In all three divisions, this form was most commonly used
to elicit a response. Example 27 shows an instance of a professor asking an alternative question after a series of WH-questions. By using an alternative question, the professor actually clarified the meaning of a previous question.
(27) Professor: So if you had to choose between the two, as to which pictures larger which pictures smaller wh-which
do you prefer o-of these two? The the the uh, the killer, larger or the victim larger?
Student: The victims. (SS6)

3.4.6. Incomplete questions

In total, only nine instances of Incomplete questions were observed in the HA and PS data (see Table 4), and none were
observed in the SS data. This type of question was used mostly to elicit students responses in both HA and PS (see
Table A in the Appendix), as shown by the following examples:
(28) Professor: What you notice, first of all since were in free fields, what <WRITING ON BOARD> about E B. . . and alpha
and alpha, star? Theyre all perpendicular to?
Students: K. (PS11)

In addition to observing how each question form was used for different functions, the results were also cross-examined
from the opposite direction, that is, how each of the question functions was represented by the different question forms. By
so doing, an even clearer picture of the form-function relationships can be revealed. Here, we once again encounter far more
similarities than differences across the three divisions. As shown in Table B in the Appendix, the question forms used to express six of the seven functions were similar across the three divisions, although each of these forms was used for a specific
function with different frequencies in each of the divisions.
3.5. Additional mapping of the relationship between question forms and functions
By further synthesizing the results pertaining to the use of question forms and functions, we can obtain the most common
association patterns between the question forms and functions in each division. As shown in Table 6, the two most common
question patterns were the same across the three divisions, although they were expressed with different frequencies in the
soft and hard fields. These two patterns were Declarative/Imperative + word tag questions for checking students comprehension (examples 2931), and Wh-questions for eliciting responses from students (examples 3234).

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Table 6
Top 5 question patterns in the three divisions.
Humanities & Arts

Social Sciences & Education

Physical Sciences & Engineering

N = 750

N = 324

N = 581

Declarative/imperative + word tag for

comprehension checking
Wh-question for response eliciting

19.3%

Yes/no question for class management/

engagement
Yes/no question for response eliciting

16.7%

Wh-question for class management/

engagement
Others

(29)
(30)
(31)
(32)
(33)
(34)

17.9%

12.1%
4.1%
29.9%

Declarative/imperative + word tag for

comprehension checking
Wh-question for response eliciting

26.2%

Wh-question for response eliciting

22.9%

17.3%

19.4%

Yes/no question for class management/

engagement
Declarative/imperative + word tag for
agreement soliciting
Yes/no question for response eliciting

14.5%

Declarative/imperative + word tag for

comprehension checking
Wh-question for focusing information

9.3%

Yes/no question for response eliciting

10.5%

5.9%

Others

26.9%

Yes/no question for comprehension

checking
Others

12.9%

6.9%
27.4%

Its called the transition to the transition. Okay? (HA3)

This X variable was, gender. Okay? (SS8)
When I try to quantize the system, Im able to quantize it. . . alright? (PS11)
Mr. Froid, whats a rescue opera? (HA3)
What effect does that have on the reader? (SS6)
Whats the definition of enrichment? (PS13)

As also shown in Table 6, although the third most common question pattern in the soft fields was the Yes/no question for class
management/engagement (example 35), the Wh-question for focusing information (example 36) was the third most frequently used pattern in PS.
(35) Should I spell that for you? (HA 2)
(36) What is that carbon? Uh thats_ remains a mystery. (PS14)

Moreover, among the top five question patterns, two in HA and one in SS were used for class management/engagement,
but none were used for this purpose in PS. In contrast, none of the top five most frequently used question patterns in HA and
SS were associated with the information focusing function, whereas one pattern was in PS. These results confirm that,
whereas the HA and SS professors appear to ask more questions to build a closer rapport with their students and to enhance
their management of the classroom, the PS professors appear to ask more questions to help their students focus on upcoming
new information or technical procedures.
Finally, as we can also note in Table 6, the Declarative/Imperative + word tag question for soliciting agreement ranks as the
fourth most frequently used pattern in SS, but none of the top five patterns in HA and PS fall into the category of soliciting
agreement. This result again confirms the previous finding that SS professors appear to solicit agreement from their students
more frequently than those in HA and PS.
4. Conclusions
Previous studies on EAP spoken discourse have revealed that, compared with other contextual factors, the disciplinary
culture seems to exert more a critical influence on the use of various linguistic features, such as hedging (Poos & Simpson,
2002) and discourse markers (Schleef, 2004, 2008). However, the results of this study show far more similarities than differences between the soft and hard fields with regard to the use of questions in academic lectures. These results seem to
suggest that different disciplinary cultures did not cause great variations in the professors use of questions in these lectures.
The results revealed that the three divisions share the following major similarities:
1. The most commonly used question forms were Wh-questions, Yes/no questions and Declarative/Imperative + word tag questions. These three types of question constituted more than 95% of the questions found in this study.
2. Over 80% of the questions used across these three divisions were audience-oriented. Of questions belonging to this type,
the questions used to check students comprehension and to elicit responses from students occurred the most frequently.
3. Comparing the professors use of each question form for different question functions, except for the Yes/no and Incomplete
questions, the most common functions represented by all of the other question forms were identical. From the other perspective, comparing the linguistic realizations of each question function, six of the seven question functions were
expressed similarly across the three divisions.

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113

4. The two most frequently used question patterns were Declarative/Imperative + word tag questions for comprehension
checking and Wh-questions for eliciting responses from the students.
As indicated in previous studies, professors primarily utilize academic lectures to transmit knowledge, guide and encourage their students by interacting with them (Crawford Camiciottoli, 2004, 2008; Morell, 2007), and to enculturate their students into their disciplinary communities (Thompson, 1998). Given the top objectives of knowledge transmission and
student guidance, we are not surprised to see that in all three divisions, questions are most frequently used to elicit students
responses to content-related questions and to check students understanding of the lecture content.
These findings suggest that for questions in academic lectures at the tertiary level, the influence of genre appears to outweigh that of disciplinary culture. Many EAP scholars have repeatedly indicated that genres provide both frames and constraints for communicative events in a given discourse community (Swales, 1990, 2004). As Bazerman (1997, p. 19) notes,
[g]enres are forms of life, ways of being. They are frames for social action. From this perspective, we can say that for the
academic lecture, which represents an established genre in tertiary education, its communicative purposes are recognized by
the expert members of the academic discourse community. These communicative purposes constitute the genres rationale,
which in turn influences and constrains the choice of (its) content and style (Swales, 1990, p. 58).
Beyond the commonalities, however, we found that lectures still reflect, to some extent, the differences in the disciplinary
cultures and the nature of disciplinary knowledge. In the hard fields, the process of knowledge production is cumulative in
nature; more shared background knowledge and standard procedures of knowledge making can thus be established. Due to
this characteristic of knowledge production, the professors in these fields have developed a less interactive style of lecture
discourse. Moreover, because knowledge in the hard fields is often more technical than that of the soft fields, we could argue
that PS professors tended to ask more content-oriented questions, which are more controlling and less dialogic in nature,
than their HA and SS colleagues as an attention-focusing strategy designed to highlight upcoming information or technical
procedures.
On the other hand, the research targets/subjects in the soft fields are often much more fluid and complex in nature than
those in the hard fields. In these fields, knowledge is by nature more open to multiple interpretations; disciplinary knowledge is thus often established through more sophisticated argumentation and negotiation of knowledge claims, which are
based on more varied and complex perspectives. Additionally, this knowledge is often established with lower levels of
shared background knowledge and standard methodological procedures among the community members. Therefore, the
process of establishing new knowledge in the soft fields tends to be more persuasive and dialogic in nature and does not
show the same linear developmental patterns as that in the hard fields. In conjunction with the less hierarchical power structure among the community members, this fact might explain why professors in the two soft divisions tend to use questions
to engage their students and to manage the teaching flow slightly more often than their counterparts in the hard fields. Furthermore, among the three divisions, the social construction of new knowledge (i.e., scholars competing for the acceptance of
their knowledge claims through negotiations with other community members) is especially apparent in the SS professors
use of questions to solicit their students agreement.
In addition to the similarities and differences in the use of questions among the three divisions, the results of this study
also show that mapping the question forms and their functions did not result in a straightforward, one-to-one relationship.
In general, one question form can be used to represent more than one function; on the other hand, one question function can
be represented by more than one question form. Compared with the other uncommon question forms, the three most common question forms (i.e., Wh-questions, Yes/no questions and Declarative/Imperative + word tag questions) were found to be
employed for more various different functions. In other words, the more common a question form is, the more diverse its
functions appear to be.
In sum, the results of this study suggest that, with regard to the use of questions in academic lectures, the influence of the
lecture as an established academic genre in tertiary education appears to be more critical than that of disciplinary culture.
However, given the small size of the sample used in this study, additional research with a larger sample size is still needed to
verify this finding. Moreover, as reported in Section 3.1, we found great variations in question frequency among the individual professors within each of the three divisions. We therefore suspect that the individual professors inclination to utilize
questions and his/her preferred lecturing style might also play crucial roles in his/her use of questions in lectures. To gain a
deeper understanding of this issue, it is suggested that interviews with individual professors or various elicitation procedures (e.g., stimulated response studies of professors using a variety of questions) be incorporated into the research design
in future studies.
Regardless of the above limitations, the implications and applications of the findings in this study to EAP pedagogy are
clear. Given that the use of questions seems to be largely influenced by the generic practices of the lecture and that the relationship between the question form and function appears to be more complex than we expected, non-native English-speaking students awareness of the underlying rationale of the lecture genre in general and the underlying logic of the use of
questions in their EMI lectures in specific should be enhanced. The findings pertaining to the major functions of the questions and the major linguistic forms associated with these question functions can be used by EAP teachers and material
designers not only to raise such awareness of non-native English-speaking students but also to aid them in developing their
lecture comprehension skills.
On the other hand, the findings of this study can also be incorporated into the design of teaching materials for training
programs that aim at improving the lecturing and presentation skills of the non-native English-speaking professors who are

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Table A
Typical functional realizations of question forms.
Question type

Division

Typical functional realizations

Wh-question

HA

Eliciting response (57.0%), class management/engagement (13.2%), focusing information (11.1%), stimulating
thought (9.8%), clarification/confirmation (8.9%),
Eliciting response (58.3%), focusing information (15.6%), class management/engagement (13.5%), stimulating
thought (11.5%), clarification/confirmation (1.0%)
Eliciting response (55.9%), focusing information (31.5%), stimulating thought (8.8%), clarification/confirmation
(2.1%), class management/engagement (1.7%)

SS
PS
Yes/no question

HA

SS
PS

Class management/engagement (40.3%), eliciting response (29.4%), checking comprehension (12.6%),

clarification/confirmation (5.5%), stimulating thought (5.5%), soliciting agreement (4.5%), focusing information
(2.3%)
Class management/engagement (52.2%), eliciting response (21.1%), clarification/confirmation (8.9%), checking
comprehension (7.8%), stimulating thought (6.7%), focusing information (3.3%)
Eliciting response (36.7%), checking comprehension (24.1%), class management/engagement (22.3%),
clarification/confirmation (6.0%), focusing information (5.4%), stimulating thought (4.8%), soliciting agreement
(0.6%)

Declarative/
imperative + word
tag

HA
SS
PS

Checking comprehension (79.7%), soliciting agreement (9.9%), class management/engagement (9.9%), focusing
information (0.5%)
Checking comprehension (69.7%), soliciting agreement (24.6%), class management/engagement (5.7%)
Checking comprehension (69.8%), soliciting agreement (21.6%), class management/engagement (8.6%)

Tag question

HA
SS
PS

Soliciting agreement (100%)

Soliciting agreement (100%)
Soliciting agreement (100%)

Alternative question

HA
SS
PS

Eliciting response (71.4%), class management/engagement (14.3%), stimulating thought (14.3%)

Eliciting response (100%)
Eliciting response (80.0%), class management/engagement (20.0%)

Incomplete question

HA
SS
PS

Eliciting response (60.0%), class management/engagement (40.0%)

None
Eliciting response (75.0%), class management/engagement (25.0%)

Table B
Typical formal realizations of question functions.
Type

Function

Division Typical functional realizations

Audienceoriented

Eliciting response

HA
SS
PS

Checking comprehension HA

Class management/
engagement

Contentoriented

Declarative/imperative + word tag (78.8%), Yes/no question (21.2%),

SS

Declarative/imperative + word tag (92.4%), Yes/no question (7.6%)

PS

Declarative/Imperative + word tag (73.9%), Yes/no question (26.1%)

HA

Yes/no question (70.6%), Wh-question (17.5%), Declarative/imperative + word tag (10.2%),

Incomplete question (1.1%), Alternative question (0.6%)
Yes/no question (70.1%), Wh-question (19.4%), Declarative/imperative + word tag (10.4%)

SS
PS
Soliciting agreement

Wh-question (57.5%), Yes/no question (39.1%), Alternative question (2.1%), Incomplete

question (1.3%)
Wh-question (72.7%), Yes/no question (24.7%), Alternative question (2.6%)
Wh-question (66.2%), Yes/no question (30.3%), Alternative question (2.0%), Incomplete
question (1.5%)

Yes/no question (64.9%), Declarative/imperative + word tag (24.6%), Wh-question (7.0%),

Alternative question (1.8%), Incomplete question (1.8%)

HA

Declarative/imperative + word tag (41.9%), Yes/no question (32.6%), Tag question (25.6%)

SS

Declarative/imperative + word tag (68.2%), Tag question (31.8%)

PS

Declarative/Imperative + word tag (83.3%), Tag question (14.3%), Yes/no question (2.4%)

Requesting clarification/ HA
confirmation
SS
PS

Wh-question (55.3%), Yes/no question (44.7%)

Yes/no question (88.9 %), Wh-question (11.1%)
Yes/no question (66.7 %), Wh-question (33.3%)

Focusing information

HA
SS
PS

Wh-question (76.5%), Yes/no question (20.6%), Alternative question (2.9%)

Wh-question (83.3%), Yes/no question (16.7%)
Wh-question (89.3%), Yes/no question (10.7%)

Stimulating thought

HA
SS
PS

Wh-question (56.1%), Yes/no question (41.5%), Alternative question (2.4%)

Wh-question (64.7%), Yes/no question (35.3%)
Wh-question (72.4%), Yes/no question (27.6%)

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115

involved in the teaching of EMI courses. Moreover, it is suggested that more pedagogical emphases could be focused on the
use of the three most common question forms (i.e., Wh-questions, Yes/no questions and Declarative/Imperative + word tag questions) because of the more complex form-function relationships associated with them.
Finally, apart from the disciplinary culture, it is possible that there are still various contextual factors that might influence
professors use of questions in academic lectures. Therefore, in order to obtain a fuller picture of this issue, future research is
encouraged to compare the use of questions in the lecture genre with that in the other academic spoken genres and to explore the influences of factors such as gender and the linguistic-cultural background of the professor, the class size, and students academic levels.
Acknowledgments
I give special thanks to my doctoral advisor John Swales and the two ESPJ reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft
of this article. I also thank the research fund supported by the National Science Council in Taiwan (NSC98-2410-H-155-048).
Appendix
(See Tables A and B)
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