Aims

The research project “Metaphor use in one-to-one academic consultations in English: Implications for Spanish student mobility in Europe”, which is being carried out by a team of researchers from five different European universities, is set against the background of over thirty years of applied linguistic research into metaphor and the role it plays in reasoning and communication. But it is also situated against the background of research into academic discourse generally, aiming to contribute to our knowledge of office hours’ consultations and the kind of conversations that lecturers have with students from other European universities, with whom they most often do not share the same mother tongue or the same cultural background – which includes, of course, their understanding of university life, the teaching and learning activities that take place there or the systems used to assess students’ academic progress and achievement.

This research project aims to contribute to our knowledge of the role played by metaphor in office hours’ consultations by video-recording conversations between lecturers and undergraduate Spanish ERASMUS students. These recordings were made between April 2012 and February 2013 in the four countries mentioned. The different parts of the website provide detail on the way these recording were made, the broad and detailed transcriptions of the conversations recorded, and the additional data gathered about the participants involved. We hope that the data made available through this website will prove of use to other researchers interested in metaphor, academic discourse, or intercultural communication more generally.