A Corpus Analysis of Metadiscourse Markers Used in Argumentative Essays by Pakistani Undergraduate Students

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (04) ◽  
pp. 341-351
Author(s):  
Asmara Shafqat ◽  
Faiza Arain ◽  
Maheen Tufail Dahraj
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Argumentative Essays

scholarly journals Analysis of Metadiscourse Features in Argumentative Writing by Pakistani Undergraduate Students

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 78
Author(s):  
Rashid Mahmood ◽  
Ghadia Javaid ◽  
Asim Mahmood
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Considerable Importance ◽  
Argumentative Writing ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
Interpersonal Model

Metadiscourse involves the interaction between the reader and the writer of the text in the overall process of communication. Metadiscourse not only guides the reader to understand the primary message of the text through structure and content, but also it intimates the reader with the particular slants and perspectives in the primary discourse. The students have to master the use of Metadiscourse in their writings. The purpose of this study is to examine the distribution and frequency of Metadiscourse features used by Pakistani undergraduate students in their argumentative essays and to analyze roles played by these particular features. Moreover, the research explores the extent of appropriateness and inappropriateness in this particular text as well. Hyland’s Interpersonal model of Metadiscourse (2005) was adapted to conduct the present study. AntConc 3.4.4 software is used for corpus analysis of the text. Findings show that Pakistani undergraduate students are more comfortable with using Interactional Metadiscourse 61% rather than Interactive dimension 39%. It has been observed that undergraduate students used high score of self-mentions 37% and engagement markers 37%. Endophoric markers were not used by these students 0%. Findings have considerable importance, as they assist the learners to figure out the problems of the students regarding the use of Metadiscourse. Trainings should be given to the students to use these features appropriately.

scholarly journals Developing A Framework For Writing Skill: A Corpus-Based Analysis Of The Written Argumentative Essays

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (4-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Kanestion ◽  
Manvender Kaur Sarjit Singh ◽  
Sarimah Shamsudin
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Written Discourse ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Writing Skill ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
Argumentative Essays

Most scholars have studied written discourse both in academic and professional setting within the scope of genre-based analysis, which demonstrate an increase interest in analysing the rhetorical structure of written texts. Conversely, there is a dearth of research in Malaysia that explains the rhetorical structure of argumentative essays from a genre analysis perspective. This paper introduces a genre-based corpus analysis using a compiled representative corpus of the argumentative  essay for developing a rhetorical structure, also known as , an analytical framework to enhance the students’ writing skills. The compiled representative corpus was consisted of 24 argumentative essays.  As a qualitative study, a corpus–based analysis is employed to explore  the distinguished move patterns used in the argumentative essays. Using Hyland’s (1990) 11 move pattern as an analytical framework of the argumentative essay, this study revealed a list of moves and steps which were signaled by the linguistic features. Consequently, there were altogether 9 moves and 14 steps were identified in the three stages, namely Introduction, Argument and Conclusion. However, the moves used by the pre-university students in the study did vary from the model as new moves were marked in each stage. Pedagogically, the findings of this study were expected to guide in developing a framework for writing skills.  

Engagement in high- and low-rated argumentative essays: Interactions in Indonesian students’ writings

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-24
Author(s):  
Anis Handayani ◽  
Nur Arifah Drajati ◽  
N. Ngadiso
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
First Year ◽  
Writing Quality ◽  
Explicit Teaching ◽  
Data Validity ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
Persuasive Arguments

This study reports the use of engagement in high-rated and low-rated EFL undergraduate students’ argumentative essays. The engagement here refers to one of the aspects in interacting with the readers, which is called metadiscourse (Hyland, 2005a). The data in this study were ten highest-rated and ten lowest-rated argumentative essays written by first-year undergraduate students. The data were coded manually by two raters to maintain data validity. The results reveal that high-rated essays contain less engagement than low-rated ones. However, it also shows that the engagement in high-rated essays was more varied and grammatically sophisticated than those in low-rated essays. Furthermore, while this study reveals that the higher number of engagement used in argumentative essays does not always coincide with the improved quality of the writing, it implies that the writing quality and score do not depend on the number of engagement expressed but more on the ways students use the engagement effectively. Thus, the explicit teaching on how to use engagement effectively in persuasive writings may be useful for the students to build more persuasive arguments as well as to improve their writing quality.

scholarly journals The Effect of Using Conjunction as Cohesive Device on the Undergraduates’ Quality of Writing in Argumentative Essays of Jordanian EFL Learners

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rawhi Yousef Salman Al Shamalat ◽  
Che An Binti Abdul Ghani
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
English Language ◽  
Mixed Method Research ◽  
Writing Quality ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Cohesive Devices ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
Mu'tah University

The goal of this research was to investigate the effect of use conjunctions on the overall quality of argumentative writing of Jordanian English as foreign language (EFL) learners. This mixed-method research included sixty (n=60) undergraduate students at the Department. of English Language and Literature at Mu’tah University in Jordan. The participants of the research were selected using purposive sampling method. The data of the research were collected using written essays and interviews. The data was analyzed using SPSS. The data was collected using analytical scale Jacob et al., (1981) to measure the quality of argumentative essays. The result of this research showed that there was a weak negative but irrelevant correlation between writing quality and the frequency of conjunctions as cohesive devices. This correlation indicates that the frequent and general use of devices in the writing of Jordanian students did not contribute to the quality of the writing under any conditions. Also the finding revealed that there is an extremely negative but irrelevant correlation between the use of conjunctions devices by Jordanian EFL students and their writing quality. Therefore, the correlation was negative and insignificant for Jordanian EFL students. More specifically, the result shows that the frequencies of conjunctions were not found as an indicator of good writing quality for Jordanian EFL students. This research is significant for providing a considerable number of pedagogical implications for further research that will offer great contribution to the field of teaching writing in EFL setting in Jordan in particular and English as second language (ESL) context in general. Moreover, the research has shown a better understanding of cohesive devices / conjunctions by Jordanian EFL students at Mu’tah University.

scholarly journals Teaching Critical Discourse Analysis of Sociocognitive Approach to EFL Learners through Corpus-based Analysis

ELT in Focus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-45
Author(s):  
Yogi Setia Samsi ◽  
Iwa Lukmana ◽  
Dadang Sudana
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Systemic Functional Linguistics ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Pedagogical Approach ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Functional Linguistics

Many studies have been researching critical discourse analysis, henceforth CDA, in analyzing a numerous contexts, nevertheless, those studies still have lack of contributions such as in pedagogical aspects and lack of incorporations with specialized technology such as corpus tool. However, this study intended to fill a gap that qualitatively aimed to explore on how teaching CDA focusing on sociocognitive approach through corpus analysis and to know learners’ responses about their experience. Then, this study concerns to three elements: corpus based approach, CDA approach, and pedagogical approach. The target of participants were undergraduate students of university in Karawang, Indonesia. It was randomly participated from higher semester, 7th semester, had been studying linguistics and learning media. The study ran for one month and included two training sessions for learners on how to use concordance software in analyzing words, phrases, concordance line, frequencies, and collocations in order to get sociocognitive which specialized by only microstructure couched by Van Dijk (2008). The corpus were made from 2 different newspaper with a specific issue contained a big data. The main findings showed that the participants can be able to use a concordance software independently as it seemed very excited in the exercise.  It indicated successful way that students eventually can criticize some discoures through corpus analysis that corroborated by the training and the learners’ responses. However, the further study requires to deepen and incorporate with other approaches such as systemic functional linguistics to strengthen the analysis.

scholarly journals A CORPUS-BASED INVESTIGATION OF MOVES IN ARGUMENT STAGE OF ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY

2021 ◽  
pp. 199-204
Author(s):  
Anita Kanestion ◽  
Manvender Kaur Sarjit Singh
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Subject Matter Experts ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
Novice Writers

Genre analysis has been frequently employed in Malaysia to analyse undergraduate and postgraduate target discourse, particularly research articles and abstracts. On the other hand, just a few studies have been done on argumentative essays written by pre-university students taking the Malaysian University English Test (MUET). The goal of this study is to examine rhetorical moves of the argument stage in 60 argumentative essays. The major instrument utilised to assess the rhetorical structure in the assembled essays was a compiled representative corpus of argumentative essays, COMWArE. The identification of rhetorical moves was investigated using BCU approach, which is aided by a computer-assisted corpus analysis (CACA). In addition, two subject matter experts were interviewed in order to gain insider perspectives. The analysis reveals that the argument stage in argumentative essays consists of three moves and five steps. The findings of the study lend itself to providing a representative template of rhetorical organisation for organising argument stage in producing an argumentative essay. Pedagogically, this rhetorical structure is useful particularly to novice writers to better understand how argument stage is produced.

scholarly journals Teachers’ Written Feedback: Does the Delivery Method Matter?

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-34
Author(s):  
Natalia Koliadina
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Student Perception ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
First Year ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
The University ◽  
Global And Local

Responding to student writing, which is a widely researched area, is still one of the most challenging parts of the EAP (English for Academic Purposes) teacher’s job. Little attention has been given to analyzing the role of systematic feedback on students’ improvement of writing at the university. The paper reports on the results of a small-scale action research conducted among first-year undergraduate students, which explored the effect of record sheets, used as a tool to track student progress in writing argumentative essays. Apart from student portfolios and record sheets, the 8-week study used other methods of data collection that included recorded semi-structured interviews and a survey. Findings show that providing consistently structured (praise and criticism) selective (global and local) feedback to students has a positive effect both on the teacher and on student perception of feedback and, generally, their achievements in developing writing skills. The study may motivate EAP practitioners to change their current classroom practices and seek more effective ways of responding to student writing.

Learning to Evaluate Through That-Clauses

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-97
Author(s):  
Deliang Man ◽  
Kok Yueh Lee ◽  
Meng Huat Chau ◽  
Esther Smidt
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Writing Development ◽  
Language Resources ◽  
Learner Corpus ◽  
Learner Corpora ◽  
Evaluative Language ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
Learner Language

The advent of technology has facilitated the study of language development and writing development in the form of learner corpora. While learner corpus studies have flourished in recent years, few consider evaluative language development. This paper reports on a study which examines the use of evaluative that-clauses, a linguistic structure that is regularly used to express evaluation in academic writing, in a longitudinal corpus of 304 argumentative essays written by a group of undergraduate students at a university in Brunei. Results suggest students' dynamic use of language resources over time, and support the findings of previous research on the use of evaluative that-clauses by undergraduate students in other contexts of learning. This study, based on an approach to treating learner language in its own right, contributes to the understanding of the nature of language development. Implications for language teaching, including a revised role for teacher feedback and the use of longitudinal learner corpora for students' learning, are considered.

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