Second Language Writers' Text: Linguistic and Rhetorical Features (ESL and Applied Linguistics Professional Series) (ESL & Applied Linguistics Professional Series)

✍ Scribed by Eli Hinkel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 391
• Series: ESL and Applied Linguistics Professional Series ESL & Applied Linguistics Professional Series
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This comprehensive and detailed analysis of second language writers' text identifies explicitly and quantifiably where their text differs from that of native speakers of English. The book is based on the results of a large-scale study of university-level native-speaker and non-native-speaker essays written in response to six prompts. Specifically, the research investigates the frequencies of uses of 68 linguistic (syntactic and lexical) and rhetorical features in essays written by advanced non-native speakers compared with those in the essays of native speakers enrolled in first-year composition courses. The selection of features for inclusion in this analysis is based on their textual functions and meanings, as identified in earlier research on English language grammar and lexis. Such analysis is valuable because it can inform the teaching of grammar and lexis, as well as discourse, and serve as a basis for second language curriculum and course design; and provide valuable insight for second language pedagogical applications of the study's findings.

✦ Table of Contents

Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
Foreword......Page 10
Preface......Page 18
I: Background......Page 22
1 Writing as Text......Page 24
2 Research in Academic and ESL Written Discourse and Text......Page 36
3 Written Discourse and Text in Different Rhetorical Traditions......Page 51
4 The Goals and Politics of Teaching ESL Writing......Page 66
5 The Study of Features of Second Language Text: Essays, the Data, and Methods of Analysis......Page 79
II: Common Linguistic and Rhetorical Features of Academic ESL Text......Page 94
6 Nouns, Pronouns, and Nominals and Their Functions and Uses in Text......Page 98
7 The Verb Phrase and Deverbals and Their Functions and Uses in Text......Page 117
8 Adjectives and Adverbs and Their Functions and Uses in Text......Page 139
9 Subordinate Clauses and Their Functions and Uses......Page 149
10 Text-Rhetorical Features and Their Functions and Uses......Page 162
III: The Effect of Prompts on ESL Text......Page 182
11 The First Three Prompts......Page 186
12 The Second Three Prompts......Page 212
13 The Differences That the Prompts Make......Page 236
IV: Conclusion......Page 264
14 Determining Priorities in Teaching and Curriculum......Page 266
15 Epilogue......Page 278
Appendix A: Rank Order of Median Frequency Rates of Linguistic Features in NS and NNS Texts......Page 288
Appendix B: Comparisons of Frequency Rates for Features in Student Texts by L1 Group......Page 290
Glossary......Page 362
References......Page 368
Author Index......Page 380
Subject Index......Page 386