scholarly journals Differences between Students' Linguistic Knowledge and Text Production Ability: A Case of the Use of Cohesion as a Resource of Texture in Academic Writing

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Zulfiqar Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Discourse Community ◽  
Significant Relationships ◽  
Text Production ◽  
Cohesive Devices ◽  
Explicit Teaching ◽  
Actual Use

Assuming cohesion as a non-structural resource of texture in text, the present study analyzed students' academic essays to establish the role of cohesion in creating text. A survey was also conducted to gauge students' beliefs about their ability to use cohesive devices in writing. The results of the text analysis and the survey were then used to identify differences between students' linguistic knowledge and their actual use of the cohesion devices. The results revealed statistically significant relationships between the textual variables of cohesion to the extent that the sample texts had visibly dense texture. The results of the survey variables were also found to be statistically significant. In addition, there were gaps in students' understanding of the concept of cohesive devices and their actual use in the texts. The study recommends explicit teaching of cohesive devices rather than as grammatical entities as well as training in expanding the lexical base of the students to help them achieve discourse competence appropriate to the expectations of the academic discourse community.

scholarly journals Teaching Writing in EAP Contexts

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viorica Condrat
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Process Development ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Teaching Writing ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Discourse Community ◽  
State University ◽  
Efl Students

Academic writing is a particular type of scholarly interaction which signals the writer’s affiliation to a specific discourse community. Developing academic writing skills should become a priority for higher education. This paper describes a small-scale study which investigates the role of blogging in developing academic writing skills in undergraduate students. Blogging is viewed as a platform where the scholarly interaction between members of the same discourse community can take place. The paper is based on the survey data and observation during the experiment conducted at Alecu Russo Balti State University of Moldova. It reports on how EFL students reacted to the use of blogs for academic writing tasks. The findings suggest that students seem to have a positive attitude to blogging pointing out to such benefits as: enhanced self-efficacy, awareness of the writing process, development of reader awareness, increased responsibility for the quality of the writing. We argue that blogging can yield significant improvement in undergraduate students’ academic writing.

scholarly journals Text Cohesion in English Scientific Texts Written by Saudi Undergraduate Dentistry Students: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Textual and Logical Relations in Oral Biology Texts

SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402110321
Author(s):  
Hesham Suleiman Alyousef
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Bachelor Of Science ◽  
Lexical Cohesion ◽  
Multimodal Discourse Analysis ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
Cohesive Devices ◽  
Analysis Scheme

This qualitative study examined multimodal cohesive devices in English oral biology texts by eight high-achieving Saudi English-as-a-foreign-language students enrolled in a Bachelor of Science Dentistry program. A Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA) of the textual and logical cohesive devices in oral biology texts was conducted, employing Halliday and Hasan’s cohesion analysis scheme. The findings showed that students used varied cohesive devices: lexical cohesion, followed by reference and conjunctions. Although ellipsis was minimally employed in the oral biology texts, its discipline-specific uses emerged: the use of bullet points and numbered lists that facilitate recall. The SF-MDA of cohesion in multimodal semiotic resources highlighted the processes underlying construction of conceptual and linguistic knowledge of cohesive devices in oral biology texts. The results indicate that oral biology discourse is interdisciplinary, including a number of subfields in biology. The SF-MDA of pictorial oral biology representations indicates that they include instances of cohesive devices that illustrate and complement verbal texts. The results indicate that undergraduate students need to be provided with a variety of multimodal high-cohesion texts so that they can successfully extend underlying conceptual and logical meaning-making relations.

scholarly journals Job Seekers’ Self-Directed Learning Activities Explained Through the Lens of Regulatory Focus

2021 ◽  
pp. 089484532199164
Author(s):  
Adam M. Kanar ◽  
Dave Bouckenooghe
Keyword(s):  
Job Search ◽  
Regulatory Focus ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Learning Activities ◽  
Job Seekers ◽  
Self Directed Learning ◽  
Significant Relationships ◽  
Directed Learning ◽  
Job Searching

This study aimed to understand the role of regulatory focus for influencing self-directed learning activities during a job search. The authors surveyed 185 job-searching university students at two time points to explore the conditions under which regulatory focus (promotion and prevention foci) impacts self-directed learning activities and the number of employment interviews secured. Both promotion and prevention foci showed significant relationships with self-directed learning activities and number of interviews, and positive and negative affect partially mediated these relationships. The relationships between both regulatory focus strategies and self-directed learning were also contingent on self-efficacy. More specifically, prevention focus and self-directed learning showed a positive relationship for job seekers with high levels of self-efficacy but a negative one for job seekers with low levels of self-efficacy. This research extends the understanding of the role of regulatory focus in the context of self-directed learning during a job search. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

scholarly journals Predictors of Successful Reading Comprehension in Bilingual Adults: The Role of Reading Strategies and Language Proficiency

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Deanna C. Friesen ◽  
Bailey Frid
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Reading Strategies ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
Strategy Use ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Analysis Strategies

The current study investigated the type of strategies that English–French bilingual adults utilize when reading in their dominant and non-dominant languages and which of these strategies are associated with reading comprehension success. Thirty-nine participants read short texts while reporting aloud what they were thinking as they read. Following each passage, readers answered three comprehension questions. Questions either required information found directly in the text (literal question) or required a necessary inference or an elaborative inference. Readers reported more necessary and elaborative inferences and referred to more background knowledge in their dominant language than in their non-dominant language. Engaging in both text analysis strategies and meaning extraction strategies predicted reading comprehension success in both languages, with differences observed depending on the type of question posed. Results are discussed with respect to how strategy use supports the development of text representations.

scholarly journals Politeness of Vietnamese Students in Writing Request Email in English: a Course-based and Socio-pragmatic Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-128
Author(s):  
Thi Minh Trang Pham ◽  
Aiden Yeh
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Cultural Awareness ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Politeness Strategies ◽  
High Level ◽  
Pragmatic Knowledge ◽  
Determining Factor

This exploratory study investigates politeness strategies employed by Vietnamese EFL learners when writing English request emails sent to foreign and Vietnamese professors and school staff. A corpus-based critical discourse analysis is used to analyze sub-elements of politeness including the degree of imposition, terms of address, request-giving strategy and lexicon-syntactic modifier. The results support the assumption that Vietnamese language pragmatic knowledge is deeply ingrained and has tremendous influence on students’ L2 email writing skills. The study also reveals that Vietnamese students applied a high level of imposition with formal term of address and salutation, directness strategies with the overuse of “please” and other hedges. While gender is not a determining factor, the inflexible adoption of fixed phrases and syntactic-lexical devices were attributed to the lack of sociopragmatic competence. Thus, apart from linguistic knowledge, the role of cultural awareness and socio-pragmatic knowledge should be highlighted in communicative English learning and teaching.

scholarly journals The Role of Syntactic Expressive Means in the English Language Economic Mass Media

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Olga Dzhagatspanyan ◽  
Svetlana Orlova
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
English Language ◽  
Economic Report ◽  
Rhetorical Question ◽  
Economic Discourse ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
Oral Speech ◽  
Media Reports

This article studies expressive syntax as a type of stylistic devices and illustrates its use in publicistic style economic oral and written media reports. The relevance of the research is that syntactic expressive means have not been thoroughly studied and analyzed in economic mass media. The work aims to identify the techniques that apply syntactic expressive means to evoke emotiveness in economic media reports. This article also addresses the recurrence of usage of expressive syntax in written and oral speech involving economic discourse. Using the method of text analysis on the bases of theoretical linguistic statements evaluating functional style, media stylistics, and stylistic devices in the English language, we determined the diverse usage of expressive syntax in both videocasting and written articles. From analyzed syntactic expressive means, we identified the frequency and common usage of such syntactic expressive means as rhetorical question and simple repetition in oral and written reports. The sample analysis indicated that a paragraph in any economic report might restrain more than one occurrence of expressive syntax; these carry a manipulative function through psychological phenomena represented via syntactic expressive means.

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