Interpersonal metadiscourse in the language of architecture. Analysis of an oral corpus within the academic environment

Ruth Rodriguez Cuadrado

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1108-1398

Spain

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid image/svg+xml

I am a PhD student in Architectural Communication at the Universidad Politécnica of Madrid (UPM). I have a bachelor’s degree in Journalism at Universidad Complutense of Madrid and a master’s degree in Cultural Journalism at the Universidad San Pablo CEU of Madrid.
My research fields are Communication, Linguistics, and Emotions.

I am the author of several chapters and books, research articles published in international and national journals, and papers presented at conferences in the field of Communication, Linguistics and Sociology.

I have experience in different communication departments of foundations and publishing companies. I have taught Communication and protocol at Aula de Cultura (UPM) and Spanish as a foreign language at Estudio Sampere

I have participated in several European projects as the European project SEAH to create a corpus and its dissemination for the teaching of languages in the field of architecture and construction (www.seahproject.eu).

Paloma Úbeda Mansilla

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3577-1131

Spain

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid image/svg+xml

I am a Full Professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) where I have been working since 1994. I hold a PhD in Education from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM).

During my 33 years of teaching, I have worked at different educational levels, from Primary to Higher Education abroad and in Spain. I have also taught Spanish at Exeter University, St John´s University of York (UK), and at various secondary schools in Sweden. Currently, I am teaching English and Spanish to national and international students of architecture. My academic and research progression has been recognized so far with three Spanish State Evaluation on Education milestones in 2010, 2014, and 2019. Additionally, in 2018 I achieved the maximum level of recognition in DOCENTIA. Finally, I have received four times the Award for Outstanding Teaching granted by the students of the School of Architecture.

My research interests include English and Spanish Foreign Language Teaching, Academic & Professional, Language & Communication, Design of Teaching & Learning tools, and Cognitive Linguistics, all under a multi-disciplinary teaching perspective in different socio-cultural experience backgrounds, focusing on the students of Architecture. I have extensive experience in the design of Spanish and English subjects in the field of academic and professional communication in the field of architecture and construction to native and non-native speakers. I also belong to DISCYT research group focused on language teaching and I coordinate the APLAI group, focused on the design of teaching materials and tools. I am the author of eight books as well as different chapters in four collective works, thirty-four research articles published in international and national JCR journals, and twenty-five papers presented at conferences in the field of Linguistics and Education. All these publications have been supported by educational research and innovation projects by the UPM, and three of them have been awarded prizes by highly recognized institutions (INAP, AELFE, UCM). I have tutored several PhD and Masters’ theses developed within the scope of Language and Communication in Architecture, and I have also collaborated as a peer reviewer of research articles for different Spanish and international publishing firms specialized in foreign language teaching and learning.

Besides my teaching and research activities, I am also responsible for the creation and opening of several Erasmus Mundus bilateral teaching agreements for the Madrid School of Architecture. At present, I am coordinating the European project SEAH Erasmus+ KA 203 (Sharing European Architectural Heritage: innovative language teaching tools for academic and professional mobility in Architecture and Construction).

Submitted: 2024-03-13

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Accepted: 2024-07-26

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Published: 2025-07-25

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4995/rlyla.2025.21349

Copyright (c) 2025 Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Keywords:

discourse analysis, metadiscourse, oral communication, language of architecture

Supporting agencies:

This research was not funded

Abstract:

Metadiscourse markers constitute linguistic mechanisms that contribute to providing conviction to discourse and to establishing relationships between the sender and the receiver. This article presents an analysis of interpersonal metadiscourse in a corpus of oral presentations in Spanish made by students of E.T.S of Architecture of Madrid. In its quantitative and qualitative methodology, specific interpersonal markers (attitude, self-mention, hedges, and boosters) were identified and then quantified using the tool Sketch Engine. This provided their frequency index in our corpus.  These were then compared with a general register reference corpus. The application of the binomial test showed significant differences in the use of specific hedges and self-mention markers between the specialized corpus and the general register corpus. This study provides new data on the prototypical metadiscursive strategies of this subgenre that can be used in the defense of projects in both the academic and professional field.

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