Search

Stance-taking in academic writing is now a well-established topic of interest in English language research, with explorations across a range of theoretical frameworks including metadiscourse and systemic functional linguistics (SFL). This includes studies investigating second language (L2) stance-taking, particularly those comparing stance features deployed by L1 and L2 English writers. However, studies investigating stance-taking using the APPRAISAL framework for evaluative discursive language across L1 and L2 production are relatively rare. Incorporating the APPRAISAL framework into research on stance-taking enhances our comprehension of evaluative language in academic writing, especially when it comes to cross-linguistic contexts. It also provides useful advantages for language assessment and instruction. In this learner corpus-assisted discourse study, APPRAISAL was used to determine how L1 English speakers and L2 English learners from L1 Vietnamese backgrounds expressed attitudes through their written texts. We also investigate the relationship between use of APPRAISAL resources and expert raters’ perceptions of written stance via a stance rubric. Findings show L2 English students are more explicit in argumentative writing than L1 English writers, despite fewer APPRAISAL choices in L2 texts. Besides, while high-rated texts were associated with more judgemental evaluation and invocation, more personal feelings were expressed in low-rated texts. These findings have implications for the instruction of L2 writers in conveying attitudinal meanings in text, as well as for raters tasked with assessing L2 academic essays for stance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bilinguals often outperform monolinguals at apprehending the perspectives of others—an apparent consequence of their experiences moving across linguistic and sociocultural contexts. Whether English learners' (ELs') use of such skill in academic writing may be affected by literacy curriculum is the focus of this study. The study explored students' use of social perspective taking (SPT) in writing by examining their responses to a novel argumentative writing task, the iPad–Take A Stand assessment (iTAS). The iTAS was designed to assess the efficacy of the Word Generation curriculum (WG), which provides supports for discussing and deploying multiple perspectives, during its 2012–2014 randomized controlled trial. iTAS essays produced in that study by 4th–7th-grade ELs and their non-EL peers were coded along two dimensions of SPT, acknowledgment and articulation. Analyses revealed a positive impact of WG irrespective of language status on social perspective acknowledgment, the less sophisticated dimension; in contrast, a 'bilingual boost' of the curriculum was detected in students' use of social perspective articulation, the more sophisticated dimension. These findings suggest ELs may draw on their SPT skills when constructing written arguments, at least in the presence of WG's sociocognitive and linguistic supports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significance of positive psychology constructs in second language learning and teaching is currently being emphasized by many L2 scholars. Accordingly, the present study intended to investigate the relationship between a set of positive psychology variables (namely, critical thinking, academic resilience and grit) and argumentative writing performance of 48 Iranian EFL learners. The necessary data were collected based on the students' responses to an argumentative essay writing prompt and the instruments measuring their status in critical thinking, academic resilience and grit. The coefficient of correlation indexes indicated rather low associations between argumentative writing performance and these constructs. Multiple regression pointed to the superiority of subscales targeting affective aspects and emotion regulation in accounting for the argumentative writing performance of the learners. Nevertheless, despite the superiority of high-skilled writers compared to moderately-skilled and less-skilled writers in critical thinking, academic resilience and grit, MANOVA results indicated no statistically significant differences among these groups of learners in these variables. Finally, it was concluded that since these positive psychology constructs are responsive and amenable to instruction, some appropriate pedagogical interventions, materials, and activities must be designed to improve the students' competence in these constructs which, in turn, can positively influence their performance on rather challenging academic tasks.

The mastery of formulaic sequences by language learners is considered to be crucial since it enables them to accomplish the basic communicative requirements (Wray, 2002) of target language use. Of all the formulaic sequences, the mastery of collocations is known to have an enormous impact on learners’ ability to move beyond the intermediate level. This data-driven study explores the word combinations (both conventional and unconventional L2 strings) of L2 users of English. Specifically, the adjective-noun combinations in an L2 corpus (Turkish Undergraduate Writers of English) were explored to find the potential L2 strings functioning as unconventional collocations. Then, these L2 strings were compared with the adjective-noun collocations in the LOCNESS corpus to determine whether the choices made by L2 learners differed from those of L1 users. The findings show that the spectrum of the L2 word combinations was broader in comparison with LOCNESS. The results suggest that the L2 learners produced a higher number of unconventional collocations than conventional collocations matching with the L1. The L2 strings support that the use of collocations can be rather problematic for learners of English however advanced they are. Some pedagogical implications of the findings for explicit collocation and vocabulary teaching are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses L1 transfer in Chinese EFL learners' use of thematic progression in English argumentative writing. Through a series of statistical analyses of the data collected from argumentative essays written by Chinese and American university students, the study finds that the overuse of thematic progression patterns in English writing is under the influence of Chinese EFL learners' native language both linguistically and conceptually. Tests of potential effects of intra-group homogeneity and intra-L1-group congruity provide convincing evidence for the identification of L1 transfer. In addition, the study further explores the underlying causes of L1 transfer both at linguistic and conceptual levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While considered elusive and abstract, authorial voice is paramount in English writing. Unfortunately, many of Indonesian EFL learners found it is highly challeging to show their voice in their writing. The importance of voice is even exaggerated in argumentative writing, since this kind of writing needs obvious stance of the writer. This study investigates the authorial voice students made in their argumentative writing. The purpose of this study is to gain the picture of students' writing ability especially in authorial voice to map the road in guiding the next writing classes. The object of the study is the argumentative writing made by English department students' at one Indonesian State College of Islamic Studies in their writing III course. Using Hyland's interactional model of voice (2008) the data analysis results the authorial presence in the essays is in position 2 at 0 ² 4 scale which means the reader feels somehow weak presence of the authorial voice in the essay. This result confirms the findings of some previous studies that EFL learners especially from 'interdependent' cultural background tend to find this authorial voice difficult in writing English essay.

The present study investigated and analysed the structures and functions of 3-word to 6-word lexical bundles of 120 English argumentative writing by Chinese EFL students and employed the framework based on Biber et al.’s structural classification and Hyland’s functional classification of lexical bundles. It was found that there was generally a negative correlation, both structurally and functionally, between the frequency and the length of lexical bundles although there were some fluctuations in certain specific categories. Results indicated that the participants did not have a good command of lexical bundles, affecting the quality of English argumentative writing in various ways. First, the sampled students used limited types of lexical bundles frequently. They generally lacked lexical richness when employing specific lexical bundles to express their opinions and text-oriented lexical bundles to convey transitional signals. Second, they relied heavily on the anticipatory it structure and did not have the consciousness of using hedges and boosters when expressing their attitude. Third, they virtually did not use lexical bundles involving attributive clauses. Fourth, they are inclined to use colloquial language in writing. The paper includes implications for instruction of effective use of lexical bundles in argumentative writing.

Cohesive devices are essential elements that have long been recognized as important features of good writing. However, making use of them appropriately is viewed as problematic for learners. This descriptive qualitative study aimed to investigate Indonesian EFL learners' ability to use cohesive devices in their writings. Twenty EFL learners of a state university in Malang, East Java, Indonesia were required to write and send one piece of argumentative essay consisting of five paragraphs to be analyzed. Twenty essays were analyzed by identifying the number of correct and errors of grammatical cohesion. The errors were then evaluated to know the possible causes that contributed to the learners' errors. The results showed that the total number of grammatical cohesion used by the learners was 2386, while 175 of them performed errors. It was also found that there was a heavy reliance on the use of particular cohesive items. The intralingual transfer mostly caused the errors made by learners. This implied a need for writing teachers to apply strategies for the development of EFL learners' writing ability, such as exposing students to exercises, using collaborative learning, giving feedback, and using the learning management system.

In the present study, the effects of four planning time conditions (pre-task, extended task, freewriting, and control) were investigated over the quality of expository and argumentative writings of 108 undergraduate EFL writers. The maximum time limit was 30 minutes for all the four groups of the study. The results revealed significantly higher writing quality in the freewriting condition in both argumentative and expository writings. The results also showed that compared with the effects of the writing mode those of the planning time conditions were more decisive on the writing quality. Moreover, argumentative writings were of higher quality than expository writings. Being placed in different writing modes was not decisive in the choice of planning time conditions. The results may have pedagogical implications for EFL writing instructors and theoretical implications for EFL writing researchers.

Academic writing is not just about presenting a set of ideas, but through the act of writing, the authors position themselves as individuals having particular identities which mostly reflect the dominant sociocultural values and practices of the discourse communities in which they are living and performing. The present study, using a mixed method approach, attempted to explore the evidences of voice and subject positioning, as reflections of authorial identity, in the argumentative writings of 41 advanced Iranian EFL learners. At first, the relationship between voice intensity and overall writing quality of the participants was assessed and the results indicated a positive relationship between the constructs. The multiple regression analysis conducted also revealed that assertiveness, as one of the main subcomponents of voice in writing, had the highest level of contribution in accounting for the writing competence of the learners. Afterwards, some representative instances of subject-positioning (i.e., ideational, interpersonal and textual) in the written texts were identified and discussed based on the ideological context of the study since it is believed that authorial identity and voice can vividly reflect the overall ideology of the specific discourse community in which they are constructed. Finally, it was suggested that raising the awareness of learners and even instructing them about the significance of authorial identity, voice and subject-positioning in writing can assist them in constructing more authentic texts in terms of idea presentation, consideration of readers and specific textual and linguistic features used.

Reading-to-write is an essential skill in academic writing, and reading-writing tasks have been widely adopted in standardized English tests. Much more recent literature on integrated reading-writing tasks has focused on writers' use of source texts or the validity of integrated writing assessment, while little is known about whether the nature of the types of reading texts has any bearing on integrated reading-writing tasks. This study examines whether the types of reading texts (i.e., similar views or opposing views on a debatable issue) have any influence on second language (L2) students' argumentative writing in terms of the use of argument elements and its overall quality. Fifty-four Chinese second-year university students majoring in English language teaching were asked to write an argumentative essay after reading texts with either similar views or opposing views. Results show that students reading texts with opposing viewpoints presented more data and higher overall quality of argumentative essays than students reading texts with similar viewpoints, although the latter group presented more counterargument data. Pedagogical implications on teaching argumentative writing are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research was directed to find out whether there any significant correlation between students' critical thinking and argumentative writing skill in IAIN Bukittinggi. The researcher found several problems in the field, the problems were students got difficulties in starting and developing their ideas into writing a paragraph, they have limited vocabulary in the English language, and some of the students don’t use transition signals. This research employed a correlation design. The population of this research was the students of the fifth semester in Iain Bukittinggi. The researcher used random sampling were the students of class 5A, class 5B, and 5C to get the sample of the research. In collecting the data, the researcher used a reading test to know of students of critical thinking, and the researcher used of writing test to know of argumentative writing essay. The data were processed and analyzed by SPSS 22.0 Statistic technique of product-moment t-test formula and consulted the result into t-table with the level of significant α = 0.05.The result of this study by the correlation coefficient (r-x-y) 0,787. It shows that there was a high correlation between students' critical thinking and argumentative writing, it included the scale of r interpretation score between 0,60- 0,79. Furthermore, with df =25. And the level of significance 0,05 (α= 5%) obtained 0,396. So , try = 0,787 > t table 0,396. So, Ha was accepted and Ho was rejected. It means that there was a correlation between students critical thinking and argumentative writing skill.

This research is aimed at reconstructing cognitive processes experienced by Indonesian advancedwriters in five stages of writing: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. Three Indonesian advanced writers were involved to be sources to reveal the noumena or under-meaning structures that make their works come into existence. This research reveals that various ways experienced by every single writer in exploring inspiration, starting to write, developing ideas and arguments, revising draft, and determining them as final drafts.Learning from advanced writers isfruitful effortsto evolve our writing competence. Experiences, cognitions, interests, values, stylistics, metaphors, and mechanics are influential aspects in enriching their works.

One of the key elements in the organization of any piece of writing is its coherence. To date, many propositions have been given regarding the definition, analysis, and evaluation of text coherence. In the current study, Mann and Thompson's (1988) Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) was adopted as the method of text analysis to detect the coherence breaks in writing samples. In order to see what problems Iranian EFL learners have with regard to text coherence, 64 essays in descriptive and argumentative genres written by male students of a language institute in Shiraz were analyzed. The essays were analyzed for discourse errors using RST. The findings indicated that Iranian EFL learners committed eight different types of coherence errors, namely irrelevant content, violation of complet-edness, violation of connectedness, incorrect place, incorrect relation, crossed dependency, scattered units, and topic. The reason behind these errors partly came from the learners' tendency to write in an inductive order, and partly from their inability to coherently connect the constitu-ent parts of their texts together. Genre difference was also proved to be significant in the number of coherence relations and in the type and number of coherence errors. In general, descriptive writing samples were more coherent than argumentative ones.

A widespread instructional practice in the teaching of argumentative writing is the use of writing samples or models during instructional conversations about what counts as "good argumentative writing." In this article, we focus on a set of lessons in a high school English language arts classroom in order to gain insight into how a teacher's use of writing samples contributed not only to what counts as "good argumentative writing" in that classroom, but how her instructional conversations with a group of 11th grade students revealed a shift in her "argumentative epistemologies" for teaching literature-related argumentative writing. We examine simultaneously the impact of instructional conversations on the evolution of the socially constructed definitions of good argumentative writing and the teacher's shifting argumentative epistemologies by tracing the teacher's socially constructed definitions of good argumentative writing in the instructional conversations around argumentative writing samples as they evolve and change over time. The findings suggest that the interactional construction of "good argumentative writing" in instructional conversations was influenced by the broader instructional context (e.g., a testing regimen), by the teacher's argumentative epistemologies for what counts as good writing, and by the conversational interaction of teachers and students in classroom lessons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays the educational paradigm has changed from passive learning into active learning where learners are actively involved in teaching and learning process. Internet, as one of the information and communication products, is believed to be able to facilitate an active and interactive teaching and learning process. One of the examples is the use of Learning Management System (LMS). LMS is viewed appropriate to be applied in teaching English especially the writing skill in which learners need more time and more exercises to improve their skills. The limited time of classroom meeting makes the need impossible to be fulfilled. By using LMS, the teaching and learning process can not only depend on the classroom meeting but also can be done outside the classroom anytime and anywhere. In this quasi-experimental research the researchers were eager to know the effectiveness of active learning by using LMS to improve students’ writing skill, especially in argumentative writing. The data was analyzed with ANCOVA using SPSS version 20. The result shows that the value of F-value is 5.505 and the significant value is .021 which is less than .05, and the F-value is higher than F-table (3.94). It means that the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted. Thus, it can be concluded that teaching writing by using LMS is more effective than conventional classroom meeting.

This study aims at gaining more insight in effective writing instruction to promote historical reasoning. In an experimental study, two types of instructions were compared; a general writing instruction and a discipline-based writing instruction. In addition, the effects of these instructions for students with a different initial writing ability were explored. Participants were 42 students (11th-grade), who followed a unit on the development of Dutch democracy and had to write an argumentative letter in which they argued the historical significance of a self-selected event or person. Students received a short writing instruction, based on the principle of learning from text models, in two versions: a general writing instruction or a discipline-based writing instruction. Analyses focused on historical reasoning and global text quality. Results showed a positive effect of discipline-based instruction on the quality of historical reasoning, but no effects were found on text quality. No differences were observed for good and weak writers. A pre- and post knowledge test showed improvement of students' knowledge, but no differences between conditions were found. The outcomes add to earlier studies that found positive effects of discipline-based writing instruction and provide teachers with directions for designing discipline-based writing instructions based on learning from text-models.

This study investigated students' practice of philosophical thinking through collaborative writing in secondary education. A philosophy course was developed following the rationale of the learning communities in which writing was used as an epistemic tool. 45 students organized into 13 teams participated in the course. In this study, a subsample of six students working in 2 teams during one collaborative argumentative writing activity were analyzed. These groups were selected on the basis of their output (high and medium quality) and because both followed an integrating construction strategy for collaborative writing. Data collected included audio, video and computer screen recordings of both groups' discourse and writing activity during collaborative writing (using Camtasia and Atlas-ti software). Analysis focused on collaborative writing interaction (types of talk; evidence of philosophical competences - problematization, argumentation and conceptualization; regulation of the collaborative writing activity and group dynamics) and the quality of individual and collaborative texts. Results indicate that quality of the interaction was related to text quality. Collaborative writing helped the students: 1) to transform abstract ideas into more concrete and appropriate philosophical concepts using examples related to their experiences, 2) to use these philosophical concepts in their own discourse and 3) to problematize their own ideas and provide arguments to support them. From these results, the importance of a structured context of learning to promote critical thinking through writing is discussed as well as the need to train students to develop efficient peer discussion for learning through collaborative writing.

Employing Halliday's (1994) Systemic Functional Grammar approach, the present study examines the Korean EFL college students' way of organizing thematic structures in written English texts, with special focus on the influence of learner proficiency. A total of 150 learners' argumentative essays consisting of 50 essays each from three levels of learner groups were compared with 50 essays from its native counterparts, with inquiry focused on the thematic selection, usage of various theme features, and semantic distribution of topical themes. The results show that textual themes, multiple themes, and first person pronouns as topical themes are highly overused in the learner texts compared to the native essays. Overall, the level of proficiency significantly affects learners' choices regarding thematic structures although the enhanced proficiency does not involve the improvement in all aspects of thematic organization. From these findings, it is suggested that the EFL writing pedagogy should pay greater attention to the effective use of thematic organization as a means of enhancing textual coherence and embrace level-specific instructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the discourse organization of argumentative speeches of the debaters of Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU). A total of 20 constructive speeches were used as sources of data for this study. These speeches were taken from the following debate programs: ANC Square Off: The Philippine Debate Championships; ANC Square Off: The AUDC; and ANC Frank-ahan: The Drilon Debates. Frequency and percentage distributions were used to determine the discourse organization found in the argumentative speeches. Findings revealed that the debaters use two-move patterns in the orientation, exposition, and summation blocks of their speeches, namely “orientation” and “focusing,” “inquiry” and “response,” and “rounding-off” and “final stance,” respectively. This study offers a more detailed explanation on how argumentative essays may be structured through studying spoken discourse. Thus, student writers may benefit from a more specific instruction in the discrete elements of an argument, including how to formulate an effective claim, how to support a claim with evidence effectively, and how to reach the requirements of the argumentative genre.

The present study is a corpus-based analysis of a selection of polysemous lexical verbs used to express modality in student argumentative writing. Twenty-three lexical verbs were searched for in three 100,000-word corpora of argumentative essays written in English by American, Filipino and Spanish university students. Concordance lines were examined to determine their use in the three corpora. After presenting the overall results for all verbs studied, more in-depth linguistic analysis was performed on the polysemous verb feel. These analyses revealed that the non-native writers, unlike their native counterparts, had a limited grasp of the full range of meanings of lexical verbs such as feel. It also showed that all student writers under study employed only a restricted range of lexical verbs to convey modal meanings in their writing.En este artículo presentamos un análisis de una selección de verbos polisémicos, utilizados para expresar modalidad, en tres corpus de textos argumentativos escritos en inglés por estudiantes universitarios americanos, filipinos y españoles. Después de exponer los resultados generales, se presenta un análisis más exhaustivo del verbo polisémico feel, que revela que los estudiantes no nativos, a diferencia de los nativos, tienen un conocimiento limitado de su diversidad de sentidos. También muestra que todos los estudiantes analizados usaron un repertorio restringido de verbos léxicos que expresan modalidad.

Three methodological limitations in English- Chinese contrastive rhetoric research have been identified in previous research, namely: the failure to control for the quality of L1 data; an inference approach to interpreting the relationship between L1 and L2 writing; and a focus on national cultural factors in interpreting rhetorical differences. Addressing these limitations, the current study examined the presence or absence and placement of thesis statement and topic sentences in four sets of argumentative texts produced by three groups of university students. We found that Chinese students tended to favour a direct/deductive approach in their English and Chinese writing, while native English writers typically adopted an indirect/inductive approach. This study argues for a dynamic and ecological interpretation of rhetorical practices in different languages and cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This descriptive study aims to analyze structures of argumentative papers written by second language (L2) university students, based on the adapted model of argument structure constituting six elements (i.e., claim, data, counterargument claim, counterargument data, rebuttal claim, and rebuttal data). It also investigates how the uses of these Toulmin elements are related to the overall quality of argumentative papers. One hundred and thirty-three second-year university English-majors in a Chinese university wrote an argumentative paper in English after reading two preselected English opinion pieces with opposing views on the same controversial topic. The Toulmin elements in the students’ papers were analyzed and the quality of papers was assessed. It was found that an average paper had at least one claim supported by four pieces of data. However, there were far fewer uses of counterargument claim, counterargument data, rebuttal claim, and rebuttal data in the papers, although their uses were significant predictors of the overall quality of argumentative papers. Potential implications of the findings are discussed as they pertain to L2 argumentative writing pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study compared the rhetorical strategies for argumentative writing in Chinese and English composition textbooks. The textbooks were selected based on four criteria. The results of the study revealed that there are similarities and differences in Chinese and English argumentative writing. Both Chinese and English agree upon the function of the argumentative writing, encourage writers to voice their personal opinions, adopt a similar macrostructure for argumentative writing, recommend placing the thesis statement in the introduction, share similar strategies for writing the introduction and the conclusion, and share several strategies to support the argumentation. In addition, they both recommend deductive and inductive reasoning, emphasize emotional appeals, and stress the necessity of addressing the opposing views. However, English textbooks suggest using Toulmin's reasoning system and avoiding logical fallacies, addressing ethos and the needs of different types of audience, and assessing the audience's values, whereas Chinese textbooks highly value appealing to history and moral issues, and using proverbs, set phrases, and analogy. Possible reasons for the similarities and differences in the rhetorical elements are provided. Results provide insights that are of practical use for both the L2 English composition instructor and the Chinese L2 English writer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phrasal complexity is one of the sub-constructs of syntactic complexity, which focuses on phrasal elaboration. This paper identifies the use of different types of phrasal elaboration demonstrated in Chinese college students' argumentative writing, and investigates phrasal complexity in written production of Chinese EFL tertiary learners majoring in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and English (EM), in comparison to sample essays written by expert writers collected from EFL textbooks (TB). A framework of indices of phrasal elaboration is first established in this study based on grammatical form and syntactic function of phrases. The study finds that the following grammatical forms appear significantly more in argumentative writing collected from textbooks or produced by proficient English majors (with no significant difference found between the two groups): noun phrases functioning as subjects/objects , prepositional phrases (as against to-infinitives , which are significantly fewer) functioning as adverbials , prepositional phrases as noun post-modifiers and their multiple embedding , multiple attributive embedding as pre-modifiers , and appositive phrases. Pedagogical implications for L2 English writing are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]