DISCOURSE MARKERS IN ANNUAL ORATIONS BY THE VICE-CHANCELLORS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

Abstract

The University of Oxford is one of the most prestigious higher education institutions (HEIs) in the United Kingdom (the UK). Annually, the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford delivers the so-called “oration”, a programmatic speech that informs the faculty and student body about the university’s major achievements, student intake numbers, financial objectives and obligations, environmental sustainability, cultural and ethnic diversity, ethical considerations, and various aspects associated with the teaching and learning process. To an extent, an oration resembles annual reports by a corporate or a public actor. Whilst corporate as well as government-related annual reports have been profoundly elucidated through a linguistic lens, the vice-chancellor’s orations have received relatively little attention in linguistics and discourse studies. Specifically, there is insufficient research on metadiscourse in the vice-chancellor’s orations. Attempting to fill the current gap in scholarship, the article presents a corpus-assisted study on discourse markers in the vice-chancellor’s annual orations. The corpus analysis indicates that the vice-chancellor’s orations are characterised by the frequent occurrence of such discourse markers as (i) and, (ii) as, (iii) but, and (iv) so. These findings are further discussed and illustrated in the article.