Modification of the Illocutionary Force by Information Technology Students in In-Class Debates

Information technology (IT) students are a specific discourse community whose oral communication in English for specific purposes (ESP) predominates at all levels of their university studies and future workplace activities in the multinational IT sector. Since IT students’ pragmatic competence in performing communicative functions is essential for their effective communication in an academic setting and a global work environment, it is important to investigate this aspect of their language systematically and carefully. Accordingly, this paper deals with IT students’ modification of the illocutionary force while participating in structured in-class debates on controversial issues related to their field of study. In-class debates enable ESP learners to develop the ability to collect, organize and critically evaluate information from different sources, clearly communicate ideas, examine and evaluate evidence, and effectively present, consider and refute arguments. Since in-class debates are based on learners’ spontaneous communication and immediate responses, they seem to be a suitable instrument for eliciting samples of learner language. Identification and analysis of metadiscourse markers, in particular boosters and hedges, were made through the corpus-based analysis of transcribed debates in Sketch Engine. The analysis revealed that students used different boosters and hedges for both increasing and reducing the illocutionary force. Besides, the ways IT students used boosters and hedges reflect how they assume and share their professional knowledge and experience in their discourse community.