Decoding disciplinary expectations: an analysis of lecturers’ benchmarks for success in undergraduate assignments

One of the most significant and yet often overlooked challenges for university students is decoding what their instructors expect from their assignments. Better understanding those expectations and the vocabulary and grammar needed to achieve them are the motivations behind this investigation. Eleven experienced instructors within an Australian university were interviewed about their motivations for assigning certain genres and their expectations when marking those assignments. This interview data informed the second stage, a linguistic analysis of student assignments. The analysis primarily focused on the occurrence of grammatical metaphor (GM), a powerful linguistic resource within academic discourse. The aim was to better understand what role, if any, GM plays in achieving the genre expectations identified in the instructor interviews. The analysis revealed how GM enabled the successful texts to be structured in ways the instructors valued. The paper concludes with pedagogical recommendations to ensure students are able to meet their instructors’ expectations.