Li, Ting, 1978- and Wharton, Sue. (2012) Metadiscourse repertoire of L1 Mandarin undergraduates writing in English : a cross-contextual, cross-disciplinary study. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Vol.11 (No.4). pp. 345-356. ISSN 1878-1497

Preview

Text WRAP_Wharton_Li and Wharton Journal of English for Academic Purposes prepublication version.pdf - Accepted Version Download (841Kb) | Preview

Abstract

This article presents a qualitative, comparative study of metadiscourse in the academic writing of two groups of undergraduate students working in two different disciplines. The groups of students were: 1) Native speakers of Mandarin studying in China through the medium of English; 2) Native speakers of Mandarin studying in the UK through the medium of English. For each group of students, we examined writing undertaken in two undergraduate disciplinary courses: Literary Criticism and Translation Studies. Our aim was to extend research into English writing by L1 Mandarin speakers, and to identify patterns of difference and similarity both between educational contexts and between disciplines. Results suggest that patterns of metadiscourse use in our corpus are associated with both disciplinary and contextual factors, but that contextual factors may have a stronger effect than disciplinary factors. For our data, local institutional culture seems to have a noticeable influence on student writers' use of metadiscourse.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Centre for Applied Linguistics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Academic writing
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of English for Academic Purposes
Publisher:	Elsevier Ltd
ISSN:	1878-1497
Date:	December 2012
Volume:	Vol.11
Number:	No.4
Page Range:	pp. 345-356
Identification Number:	10.1016/j.jeap.2012.07.004
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access
References:	Becher, T. 1990. The counter-culture of specialisation. European Journal of Education 25 (3): 333-346. Becher, T. & Trowler, P. (2001). Academic Tribes and Territories: Second Edition. Buckingham: Open University Press. Bloch, J. & Chi, L. (1995). A comparison of the citations in Chinese and English academic discourse. In D. Belcher and G. Braine (Eds.). Academic writing in a second language: Essays on research and pedagogy. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Bolton, K., Nelson, G. & Hung, J. (2002). A corpus-based study of connectors in student writing: research from the International Corpus of English in Hong Kong (ICE-HK)’. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 2: 165-182. Bondi, M. & Mazzi, D. (2008). ‘In this article, we focus on…’: metadiscourses across disciplines. In A. Martelli and V. Pulcini (Eds.) Investigating English with corpora:Studies in honour of Maria Teresa Prat. Pp 293-309. Monza: Polimetrica International scientific publisher. Brew, A. (2008). Disciplinary and interdisciplinary affiliations of experienced researchers. Higher Education 56: 423-438. Bruce, I. (2010).Textual and discoursal resources used in the essay genre in sociology and English. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 9: 153-166. Cadman , K. (1997). Thesis writing for international students: a question of identity. English for Specific Purposes 16 (1): 3-14. Cheng, X. (1994). A method for teaching metadiscourse to university-level composition students. (Doctoral dissertation, Illinois State University). Dissertation Abstracts International. 55: AAG9507279. Cheng, X. and H. Jiang. 2004. ‘亚言语在大学英语写作中作用的研究’. 外语界.第5期（总第103期）: 68-73. Cheng, X. & Steffensen, M. S. (1996). Metadiscourse: a technique for improving student writing. Research in the Teaching of English 30 (2): 149-81. Chiang, S. (2003). The importance of cohesive conditions to perception of writing quality at the early stages of foreign language learning. System 31: 471-84. Crewe, W. J. (1990). The illogic of logical connectives. ELT Journal 44 (4): 316-25. Crismore, A. (1983). Metadiscourse: What it is and how it is used in school and non-school social science texts. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois. Deng, F. (2006). The effect of the use of adverbial connectors on Chinese EFL learners’ English writing quality’. CELEA Journal (Bimonthly) 29 (1): 105-11. Deng, Y. -C. & Liu, R. -Q. (1989). 语言与文化. 北京: 外语教学与研究出版社. Elton, L. (2010). Academic writing and tacit knowledge. Teaching in Higher Education 15 (2): 151-160. Gao, X. -W. (2007). A study on the difficulties of Chinese ESL postgraduates in academic writing. 中国电力教育月刊. 10: 129-30. Garside, R., Leech, G., & McEnery, T. (1997). Corpus annotation: Linguistic information from computer text corpora. London: Longman. Gee, J. (2005). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method. (2nd edition). New York: Routledge. Henderson, R. & Hirst, E. (2007) Reframing academic literacy: re-examining a short-course for 'disadvantaged' tertiary students. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 6 (2): 25-38. Hu, Y. -M. (2005). Academic writing and the challenges it poses to Chinese students in anglophone universities. Journal of Sino-US English Teaching 2 (12): 42-47. Hyland, K. (1998). Persuasion and context: The pragmatics of academic metadiscourse. Journal of Pragmatics 30: 437-55. Hyland, K. (2000). Disciplinary discourses: Social interactions in academic writing. London: Longman. Hyland, K. (2002). Options of identity in academic writing. ELT Journal 56 (4): 351-358. Hyland, K. (2004). A convincing argument: corpus analysis and academic persuasion. In U. Connor and T. A. Upton (Eds.). Discourse in the professions: Perspectives from corpus linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hyland, K. (2005). Metadiscourse. London: Continuum Hyland, K. (2009). Writing in the disciplines: research evidence for specificity. Taiwan International ESP Journal 1: 5-22. Hyland, K. & Milton, J. (1997). Qualification and certainty in L1 and L2 students’ writing. Journal of Second Language Writing 6 (2): 183-205. Hyland, K. & Tse, P. (2004). Metadiscourse in academic writing: a reappraisal. Applied Linguistics 25 (2): 156-77. Ifantidou, E. (2005). The semantics and pragmatics of metadiscourse. Journal of Pragmatics 37: 1325-53. Ivanic, R. & Simpson, J. (1992). Who’s who in academic writing? In N. Fairclough (Ed.) Critical language awareness. London: Longman. Jin, K. (2004). Cohesive conjunctions in the ESL argumentative writing. Journal of Jimei University (Philosophy and Social Sciences) 7 (4): 84-88. Kang, Y. -H. (2006). Analysis of English writing’s contrast and difference between Chinese and Western students. 语文学刊（高教·外文版）. 12: 112-14. Lafuente Millan, E. (2010). ‘Extending this claim, we propose…’ The writer’s presence in research articles from different disciplines. Iberica 20: 35-56. Lautamatti, L. (1978). Observations on the development of the topic in simplified discourse. In V. Kohonen and N. E. Enkvist (Eds.). Textlinguistics, cognitive learning and language teaching. Turku: University of Turku. Lea, M. & Street, B. (1999). Writing as academic literacies: understanding textual practices in higher education. In C. Candlin and K. Hyland (Eds.) Writing: Texts, processes and practices. Harlow, Essex: Addison Wesley Longman. Lea, M. & Street, B. (2006). The academic literacies model: theory and applications. Theory into Practice, 45 (4): 368-377. Li, J. -Y. (2007). 汉语思维方式在英语写作中的语用分析’. 沈阳航空工业学院学报. 24 (6): 55-57. Li, Z. (2000). Improving students’ writing ability in a semantic coherence perspective. Journal of PLA University of Foreign Languages 23 (3): 51-54. Liu, C. (2007). The empirical study on the use of metadiscourse in argumentative writing. Journal of Hebei Normal University of Science & Technology (Social Science) 6 (1): 29-33. Luo, Y. (2003). On the use of adverbial conjuncts in Chinese learners’ academic writing. Journal of PLA University of Foreign Languages 26 (1): 59-62. McEnery, T. & Wilson, A. (1996). Corpus Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Mitchell, S. (1994). The teaching and learning of argument in higher education: final report. University of Hull School for Education/ Centre for Studies in Rhetoric. Murray, N. (2010). Conceptualising the English language needs of first year university students. The International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education, 1 (1): 55-64. Pinch, T. (1990). The culture of scientists and disciplinary rhetoric. European Journal of Education 25 (3): 295-304. Samraj, B. (2008). A discourse analysis of master's theses across disciplines with a focus on introductions. Journal of English for academic purposes 7: 55-67. Sanderson, T. (2008). Interaction, identity and culture in academic writing: the case of German, British and American academics in the humanities. In A. Adel & R. Reppen, Corpora and discourse: The challenges of different settings. Amsterdam: Benjamins Shi, L. (2004). Textual borrowing in second-language writing. Written Communication 21 (2): 171-200. Silver, M. (2006). Language across disciplines: Towards a critical reading of contemporary academic discourse. USA: Universal publishers. Sinclair, J. (1991). Corpus, concordance, collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sinclair, J. (1994). Trust the text. In M. Coulthard (Ed.). Advances in written text analysis. London: Routledge. Tang, R. & John, S. (1999). The ‘I’ in identity: exploring writer identity in student academic writing through the first person pronoun. English for Specific Purposes 18: 23-39. Tseng, Y. C. &. Liou , H. C. (2006). The effect of online conjunction materials on college EFL students’ writing. System 34: 270-83. Vande Kopple, W. J. (1985). Some exploratory discourse on metadiscourse. College Composition and Communication 36: 82-93. White, R. (1998). Making allowable contributions. In R. Lonsdale (Ed.) Writing in higher education: Perspectives in theory and practice. Proceedings of the fourth conference on writing development in higher education, University of Wales Aberystwyth, 8-9 April 1997. Williams, J. (1981). Style: Ten lessons in clarity and grace. Boston: Scott, Foresman. Wu, S.M. (2007). The use of engagement resources in high- and low-rated undergraduate geography essays. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 6 (3): 254-71. Xiong, D. (2007). A comparison between English and Chinese metadiscourse. Journal of Chong Qing Jiao Tong University (Social Science Edition) 7 (6): 101-105. Xu, H. -M. &. Gong, S. -L. (2006). An investigation into the correlation between use of metadiscourse markers and writing quality. Modern Foreign Languages (Quarterly) 29 (1): 54-61. Yakhontova, T. (2006). Cultural and disciplinary variation in academic discourse: the issue of influencing factors. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 5: 153-167. Yu, Y. -T. (2004). Computerized feedback and bilingual concordancer for EFL college students’ writing. Unpublished Master’s thesis. National Tsing-Hua University. Zhao, W. (2003). 中国学生英语作文中逻辑连接词使用量化对比分析. Foreign Language Education 24 (2): 72-77.
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/50325

Request changes to a record

Actions (login required)

View Item