Repetition in University Classroom Interaction: A Case Study of the University of Dar es Salaam
Abstract
This paper investigates how lecturers use repetition to perform different functions during classroom interaction at the University of Dar es Salaam. The data encompass eight recorded lectures and interviews with the respective lecturers teaching first year students in the Departments of Political Sciences and Public Administration and Sociology and Social Anthropology. The objective is to identify, describe and analyse how lecturers apply repetition as a communication strategy to convey information at a sophisticated level of academic rhetoric to facilitate knowledge delivery. Discourse analysis (DA) approach facilitated the identification and analysis of repetition as a discourse strategy of lecturers, and as part of spoken registers that are generically used in university teaching in Tanzania. The findings indicate that lecturers used phrasal and clausal types of repetition to
achieve cohesion, topic continuity and emphasis. This paper extends knowledge on how multilingual speakers utilise various techniques in facilitating delivery and understanding of knowledge.
Key words: discourse analysis, discourse strategy, repetition, lectures,
lecturers
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