Thông tin tài liệu
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ĐỖ THỊ KIỀU LAN AN INVESTIGATION INTO CORRELATION BETWEEN DISCOURSE MARKERS USAGE FREQUENCY AND ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING SKILLS BY STUDENTS AT BUSINESS ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY NGHIÊN CỨU MỐI QUAN HỆ GIỮA SỬ DỤNG DẤU HIỆU DIỄN NGÔN VÀ KĨ NĂNG VIẾT VĂN LUẬN CỦA SINH VIÊN TIẾNG ANH THƯƠNG MẠI TRƯƠNG ĐẠI HỌC KINH TẾ QUỐC DÂN MA Minor Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 602215 Hanoi - 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ĐỖ THỊ KIỀU LAN AN INVESTIGATION INTO CORRELATION BETWEEN DISCOURSE MARKERS USAGE FREQUENCY AND ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING SKILLS BY STUDENTS AT BUSINESS ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY NGHIÊN CỨU MỐI QUAN HỆ GIỮA SỬ DỤNG DẤU HIỆU DIỄN NGÔN VÀ KĨ NĂNG VIẾT VĂN LUẬN CỦA SINH VIÊN TIẾNG ANH THƯƠNG MẠI TRƯƠNG ĐẠI HỌC KINH TẾ QUỐC DÂN MA Minor Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 602215 Supervisor: PGS.TS Võ Đại Quang Hanoi - 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION……………………………………………………….……… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………….…… ….ii ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………….… … iii TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………… iv LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………… vi PART A INTRODUCTION Rationale …………………… ……………………………………… Scope of the study ……………………………………………………2 Aims and objectives of the study ………………….…………………2 Research questions……………………………………………………3 Design of the study……………………………………………………3 PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I LITERATURE REVIEW English study in Vietnam 1.1 English study in Vietnam and National Economics University…4 1.2 Issues in writing academic arguments………………………… Studies related to the topic of the study……………………………….7 Definition and background information of terms 3.1 Definition of academic writing and argumentative essay … 11 3.2 Discourse markers…………………………….…………… 12 3.2.1 Definition of discourse markers ……………….………… 12 3.2.2 Properties of discourse markers……………………………16 3.2.2.1 Phonological properties ………………………… 17 3.2.2.2 Morphological properties …………………………17 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3.2.2.3 Syntactic properties and classification ……………17 3.2.2.4 Semantic properties and classification ………… 19 3.2.3 Types of discourse markers ……………………………….19 3.3 Role of discourse markers in writing……………………… 20 CHAPTER II METHODOLOGY Background of the site for data collection………….….………………21 Data gathering technique………………………………………………21 Participants……………………………………………….……………22 Research instruments ………………………………………………….22 Research procedure …………………………………………….…… 23 CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Findings ………………………………………………………….… 25 1.1 Frequency of discourse markers ………………………….… 25 1.2 Frequency of type of discourse markers ………………….… 31 1.3 Correlation between the use of discourse markers and quality of argumentative writing essays……………………………….…36 Discussions…………………………………………………….………38 PART C CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS Recapitulation …………………………………………………… .43 Concluding remarks ….………………………………………… … 43 2.1 Concluding remark on objective ………………………… 43 2.2 Concluding remark on objective ………………………… 44 Implication…………………………………………………………….44 Recommendation for further research………………………… …….45 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………46 APPENDIX……………………………………………………………………I LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Results of students‟ writing ……………………………………… 26 Table 2: Ratio of number of writing essays of three groups……………….… 27 Table 3: Distribution of discourse markers in all essays……………….…….…27 Table 4: Frequency of use of discourse markers in group essays………… 28 Table 5: Frequency of use of discourse markers in group essays……….… 28 Table 6: Frequency of use of discourse markers in group essays……….……30 Table 7: Frequency and percentage of types of discourse markers in group essays ……………………………………………………………… 32 Table 8: Frequency and percentage of types of discourse markers in group essays ……………………………………………………………… 33 Table 9: Frequency and percentage of types of discourse markers in group essays ……………………………………………………………… 34 Table 10: Frequency of four types of discourse markers in three groups….… 36 Table 11: Percentage of four types of discourse markers in three groups….…….36 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A INTRODUCTION Rationale Vietnamese government views English as a vital tool for exchanging knowledge and doing business Therefore, a command of English is emphasized, and English is a required subject in public schools as well as private schools where grammar is unofficially main focus in the process of teaching and studying Vietnamese students, especially those whose major field is related to English, however, face considerable challenges as they begin their tertiary studies Therefore, they need to familiarize themselves with the requirement and purposes for writing argument genres from the training institution They need to realize the significance of argumentative writing skills and factor that contributes to the flow of argumentative essays content namely discourse markers or transitional signals and develop control over language- discourse markers to improve the express arguments persuasively and directly Within the past fifteen years or so, there has been an increasing interest in the theoretical status of discourse markers in spoken language and written language To date, there have been a few studies undertaken to explore the discourse markers usage in writing in general There has not yet been a study done that investigated fully the correlation between discourse markers usage and quality of argumentative writing essays The current study is hereby designed to examine the relationship between the frequency usage of discourse markers and argumentative writing skills by students at Business English Department, National Economics University LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Scope of the study The discourse marker is a vast topic in English teaching and learning in which various aspect and functions of it have been under research It would ambitious to cover so many aspects in this study Therefore, the area investigated of the study is the correlation between frequency usage of discourse markers and argumentative writing kills and subjects of the study are 38 second-year students at Business English Department, National Economics University Aims and objectives of the study 3.1 Aims of the study The study aims at helping students recognize the significance of discourse markers in writing argumentative essay and then applying them in their writing by providing them knowledge on types of discourse markers, and functions of each type 3.2 Objectives of the study By helping students recognize the importance of discourse markers, the study will firstly (1) examine the frequency of use of discourse markers in argumentative essays written by 38 second year students at Business English Department, Faculty of Foreign Languages, National Economics University More specifically, it will seek the average percentage of discourse markers and their types in argumentative essays The study, then, (2) discloses the relationship between the frequency of discourse markers and students‟ writing quality LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Research questions In this study the answers to the following research questions were of particular interest: What is the usage frequency of English discourse markers in students‟ argumentative essays? How does the frequency of use of discourse markers correlate with the quality of written essays? To answer these questions, a study employing detailed linguistic analysis will be pursued The primary data comprises the analysis of argumentative essays written in Academic writing course by 38 students at Business English Department, National Economics University Design of the study The thesis is divided into three main parts including Introduction, Development and Conclusion In part A, readers will be informed of the real situation in teaching and learning academic writing and the urgent need leading to the study being conducted Also, the writer will mention the aims and objectives of the study In the second part, Development, there are three chapters: Literature review supplies background information of terms, and summary of previous researches; Methodology describes carefully the participants, the research instruments and the research procedure; Findings and Discussions reveals the results of the study and implications for the teaching of argumentative essay writing Conclusion is the final part wrapping up the thesis LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I LITERATURE REVIEW English study in Vietnam and National Economics University and issues in writing academic argument 1.1 English study in Vietnam and National Economics University Vietnamese government regard English an indispensable tool for doing business, educating students and fostering relations with other countries Therefore, a command of English is vital and English is a required subject from grade sixth and it is going to be a compulsory subject at primary school in most private and state schools There are some issues; however, which occur to prevent students from achieving English proficiency Primary students from grade one to five mainly focus on sets of simple vocabulary and grammar is the first hinder It is common knowledge that one teacher may be responsible for teaching many subjects, which means the teacher of English might not be well-trained in the subject (this is the reason why Ministry of Education has implemented a teacher‟s level upgrading programme for primary teachers) In addition, a large class of approximately 40 students is teacher‟s teaching responsibility, which leads to the lack of time for teacher to provide feedback for every single student The next reason is that Vietnamese students study English as a foreign language Although English is viewed important for the reasons above, students typically study other subjects in their national language The last reasons and perhaps the most significant reason is that a typical English lesson is Vietnam focuses on grammar, vocabulary and reading, and tests are often in the form of multiple choice questions rather than requiring extended writing Students, therefore, have less exposure to composing texts LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com With the background setting as mentioned above, it is natural that numerous Vietnamese students find it difficult to write essays What make academic writing in English specifically difficult for Vietnamese students is that what they pursue their studying at university, their language demands are twofold they need to improve their English communicative skills both in speaking and writing While they are trying to upgrade their English proficiency, another trouble appears when they have to distinguish between formal and informal language In this sense, students need to move from the more general English taught from primary to high schools to the much more specialized, academic writing of university level Furthermore, it is worth noting that not only are students inexperienced in composing extended texts in English, they are also not introduced to the genre of argumentative essays While English argumentative essay writing is an important feature of academic leaning Thus, it is not surprising that composing argumentative essays successfully is a serious challenge for students at National Economics University as well as other EFL students with similar educational backgrounds 1.2 Issues in writing academic arguments As mentioned above, there are several challenges facing students when studying English as a Foreign Language Adult learners learn English for different purposes, varying from study purposes to occupational purposes To meet specific needs and prepare learners to communicate effectively in their study and work situation, the field of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is divided into two main areas: English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP), with the focus on meeting the LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com It is crystal clear that there was no correlation between frequency of use of discourse markers and quality of writing essays In the first place, the number of discourse markers used in essays accounted for small one, only 5.55% per 100 words in group and 7.21% per 100 words in group Although group were those who got higher marks than group 3, students in group still employed smaller number of discourse markers in their writing Therefore, discourse markers were not a factor that influenced the quality of writing which was determined by the integrated skills The following example of subject in group will prove that Taking a case of a fat man, he is lazy and overeat, but he wishes to lose weight without doing exercises or cutting the meals when he watches a TV commercial of a losing-weight bell A model on that advertisement just need to wear the bell and relax, her weight will be reduced kilos after a week Therefore, the fat man purchase that product after watching an advertisement This student although employed the density of discourse markers but only got overall score of 5.5 Grammatical mistakes and mistake in expressing ideas could be found in extract that affected student‟s mark Even spelling mistakes was found when she used “losing-weight bell” instead of “losing-weight belt” Or in the extract of Subject in group 3, the length of introductory paragraph (103 words) was incompatible with the others while her essay only reached 225 words Nowadays, along with the development of human’s society, production industry has also had some significant steps The goods in market are produced much more diversified than the last years to supply for all customers’ need And advertising had appeared to become the link for goods and products coming to customers easier and more convenient Therefore, advertising is one of the most important marketing strategies for manufacturing companies and some people believe that the high sales of popular customer goods reflect the power of advertising and not the 37 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com real needs of the society However, in my opinion, that opinion can be agreed some extent Even the essay was written by subject in group who studied the general rules and knowledge of academic, mistakes of contraction were still found First, this topic refers the phrase popular consumer goods meaning that these goods in necessary with people needs in life so that they still need to buy these ones without seeing much advertising For examples, people always buy clothes, food, and fruits every day, but they don’t base on advertising In the essay of Subject 4, the student misused the word and got mark because of misunderstanding of the topic Nowadays, advertising is considered as the most powerful tool for each producer in almost fields It not only helps producers to build customer’s belief in their product but also promote their product in the long term However, it is unfavorable to attribute the high sales of popular consumer goods to the influence of advertising Causes of high sales of popular consumer goods can mainly be blamed for economic uncertainty and government policies In conclusion, the frequency of use of discourse markers was unrelated to the quality of argumentative writing The high density of discourse markers employed in argumentative essays had no correlation with the high proficiency of students Discussions The study attempted to answer two research questions (1) What is the frequency of use of English discourse markers when students write argumentative essays? 38 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com (2) How does the frequency of use of discourse markers correlate with quality of writing essays? by calculating the number of discourse markers used in essays and investigated the correlation between the frequency of use of discourse markers and the quality of writing essays The results of the study showed that Elaborative markers were the most frequently used cohesive devices in argumentative essays The means for the use of these markers and the percentage of them turned out to be much higher than those of the other discourse markers These results are in line with those of other studies showing that Elaborative markers are those frequently used cohesive devices This might imply that the use of Elaborative markers is more closely related to argumentative compositions than other types of discourse markers The most commonly used Elaborative markers in text types were and, also, moreover and or, among which and was used in a significantly higher quantity than other markers The extensive use of Elaborative markers may also be due to the fact that argumentative texts entail expressing an opinion and trying to persuade the reader by providing reasons for argument and, at the same time, presenting the opposing view and refuting it It deals with the mental process of judging "Argumentations can be analyzed in terms of the signals of the writer's attitudes and judgment and the argumentative procedures adopted, whether inspired by logical deduction, or inductively based on facts or examples, or simply derived on an analogical basis" (Abdollahzadeh, 2009, p 12) All argumentative texts promote or evaluate certain beliefs or ideas with conceptual relations such a reason, significance, or opposition frequently It seems that in argumentative texts evaluating the opposing theme and holding it against the writers' main argument and finally making conclusive arguments requires heavier use of contrastive and conclusive discourse markers As a result, to be more rhetorically effective, undergraduate students resort to these 39 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com markers to make their points more convincing, argumentative, and evaluative in nature A high dominance of one marker within each discourse markers category, as well as an almost symbolic incidence of other discourse markers in the same category, seems to be a distinctive feature of the participants‟ essays Discourse markers having appreciably the highest frequencies were: and, but, because, when and however A possible reason for the strong dominance lies in their abundant presence in the current EFL teaching materials They are precisely those markers to which participants had been exposed since the beginning of EFL learning, primarily through textbooks from secondary school to university textbooks In my opinion, this should hardly be surprising since, according to Fraser (in Fischer, 2006), these markers, particularly and and but, are regarded as primary discourse markers within their respective groups, performing a wide range of discourse functions In Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment (2001), at the intermediate level of communicative language competence (the level which university sample group was expected to have attained) learners are expected to be capable of connecting words by means of conjunctions like and, but and because However, the high dominance of these basic markers in written production of university participants suggests that English discourse markers are, generally speaking, neglected in Vietnamese EFL classrooms Therefore, the researcher tend to agree with the suggestion that the poor range of discourse markers and high frequencies of particular markers in the language production of EFL students as a consequence of unnatural linguistic input to which they seem to be exposed In addition, current language teaching approaches at secondary and high schools are still largely focused on grammar, and on literal or propositional (semantic) meaning of words rather than on their pragmatic use 40 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com One of the possible reasons for a high frequency of the discourse markers discussed above can perhaps be found in the fact that markers such as and, but, because and when are very simple in their orthographic and phonological structure, and are semantically unambiguous, which makes them easy to both acquire and use It is along these lines that Yardley (2000) remarked that, although advanced learners are acquainted with other English discourse markers as well, it is symptomatic that they tend to use simple markers like and, but and because in both speech and writing If I add to this insufficient practice in their appropriate use in different contexts, multiple meanings of particular markers, and possible ambiguities compared to the corresponding equivalent in L1, learners‟ inclination towards using simple primary discourse markers should hardly be surprising The findings could be observed from the aspect of EFL teacher talk which, as Muller (2005) claims, is very probably as influential as textbooks Teacher talk or lectures represents one of the principal models of English usage in the classroom environment At the same time, it is one of the main sources of the English language to which learners are most frequently exposed Judging from findings of studies of accidental vocabulary learning (Swanborn and De Glopper, 1999), which results from repeated exposure to particular lexical items, it should be only logical to assume that EFL teachers not frequently use complex discourse markers Since correct usage of various discourse markers in different discourse situations requires a native-like communicative competence, the question arises as to how far teachers approximate native speaker speech, as well as to what degree teachers of English are capable of illustrating authentic use of English discourse markers Teachers of English at National Economics University are not required to spend time in an English-speaking country, which would certainly enable them to further develop their pragmatic and, generally speaking, communicative competence A study on the use of English discourse markers in teacher‟s speech conducted by Hellerman and Vurgun (2007) seems to bear witness to the fact that teachers indeed use a variety of discourse markers, but mostly the ones typical of the transitions between 41 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com teaching activities and generally to manage the lesson (e.g alright, now, so and OK) The register of teachers‟ speech, characterized by such overtones, contributes to the artificial language input and decontextualized nature of teaching environment, which cannot provide learners with a good basis for acquiring discourse and pragmatic functions of discourse markers A high dominance of one marker within each discourse markers category, as well as an almost symbolic incidence of other discourse markers in the same category, seems to be a distinctive feature of the participants‟ essays Discourse markers having appreciably the highest frequencies were: and, but, because, when and however I believe that such frequencies can be primarily attributed to the interference from Vietnamese as participants‟ L1 42 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART C: CONCLUSION Recapitulation Discourse markers are lexical expressions which signal the relationship of the basic message to the foregoing discourse In the other word, discourse markers establish the logical relationship between ideas within a sentence or between sentences They also improve the flow and coherence of writing that is a smooth movement from one idea or piece of information in a text to the next Discourse markers are, thus, guideposts for readers that help them to better follow the text, promote written communication, and reader‟s comprehension of coherent discourse In order to reach the aim of the research, the development of the research is divided into three main parts Part A provides readers with aims and objectives of research Then Part B Development carrying the main content contains three chapters Chapter I provide readers with theoretical knowledge about discourse markers and the main types of discourse markers Chapter II is supplied with methodology used in the research including the information about participants, the instrument and procedure of the research Chapter supplies readers with findings and discussions of the research and aims at answering two research questions concerning the link between the frequency of use of discourse markers and quality of writing essays Concluding remarks 2.1 Concluding remark on objective The study aims at exploring the two research questions concerning the number of discourse markers employed in students‟ argumentative writing at Business English Department, National Economics University and the link between the frequency of use of discourse markers and quality of writing After categorizing the essays into three group basing on the overall score of each essay with the ratio of 26.31, 36.84 and 36.84 in total of 38 essays, the frequency of use of discourse markers among three groups were calculated manually The results showed that number of 43 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com discourse markers in group was 174 accounting for 5.55% Although group included students who got the lowest mark, employed the most number of discourse markers in their writing- 247 equal to 7.21% 14 essays of group ranked the second in the number of discourse markers used in writings, 221 and making up 5.79% in the total of 18.55% Thus, the frequency and percentage of use of discourse markers in students‟ writing made up smaller part in the writing essays and did not play a significant role in the writing 2.2 Concluding remark on objective When classifying discourse markers according to four main types, the data showed that the number of Elaborative markers were used most frequently This kind of discourse markers ranged from the low of 88 in group essays to the high of 120 in group essays The second frequently used type was Contrastive markers and Inferential and Temporal markers took the last stand Therefore, the results presented that there was no correlation between the number of discourse markers and the quality of writing because the highest essays employed the least number and the lowest essays used the most number of discourse markers Implication for teaching Writing at NEU The present study can have a number of pedagogical implications The findings of the present study showed that students at Business English Department not use the high frequency of discourse markers and that they used some particular Elaborative markers like and in a significantly higher manner than other markers This overuse can be a sign of weakness on the part of these learners in their writings This implies that teachers can work more on incorporating the use of discourse markers in their teaching In other words, teachers need to raise the awareness of variety of vocabulary that students are encouraged to use when writing 44 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com In addition, the lack of the relationship between writing quality and frequency of discourse markers use can imply that the use of discourse markers has not been done appropriately and purposefully by undergraduate EFL learners Thus, teachers can work not only on the quantity of cohesive devices but also on their quality They would need to raise the students‟ awareness of the appropriate use of individual categories of discourse markers and how they can be used in creating a coherent text They would also need to let the learners realize that discourse markers are not only the textual devices which can add to the quality of a text Rather there are other elements in addition to discourse markers (like the use of noun phrase, ellipsis, substitution, etc) that can make a text more cohesive and thus, add to the quality of the writing essays Recommendation for further study I would like to suggest that further research be undertaken to throw more light on the use of discourse markers in academic argumentative and discursive composition to analyze the frequency of use of discourse markers and effect of using discourse markers on the quality of two types of writings This direction would help educators gain clear look about the features of discourse markers in two most important kinds of essay at university and modify teaching procedures and incorporate a more precise plan for teaching writing 45 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com REFERENCES Bell, D M (2010) Nevertheless, still, and yet: Cohesive cancellative discourse markers Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 1912-1927 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2009.12.010 Chung, J.S.L (2000) Signals and reading comprehension: Theory and practice System, 28, 247–259 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0346-251X(00)00010-5 Fraser, Bruce 1990 An Approach to Discourse Markers, Journal of Pragmatics, 14,pp.385-395 Field, Y & Yip, L (1992) A comparison of internal conjunctive cohesion in the English essay writing of Cantonese speakers and native speakers of English RELC Journal 23, 15-28 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/003368829202300102 Fraser, Bruce 1996 Pragmatic markers, Pragmatics, 6,pp.167-190 Fraser, Bruce 1998 Contrastive Discourse Markers in English, Discourse Markers Description and Theory(ed.by Jucker, Andreas H and Ziv, Yael), Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp.301-326 Fraser, Bruce 1999 What are Discourse Markers?, Journal of Pragmatics, 31, pp931-952 Hays, P (1992) Discourse markers and L2 acquisition Papers in Applied Linguistics, 7, 24-34 46 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Hu, Z., Brown, D., & Brown, L (1982) Some linguistic differences in the written English of Chinese and Australian students Language Learning and Communication, 1, 39- 49 Intarparawat, P., & Steffensen, M S (1995) The use of meta-discourse in good and poor ESL essays Journal of Second Language Writing, 4, 253-272 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/1060-3743(95)90012-8 Jalilifar, A R (2008) Discourse markers in composition writings: The cae of Iranian learners of English as a foreign language English Language Teaching, 1, 114-127 Karasi, M (1994) Cohesive features in the expository essays of Secondary Four (Express) and Secondary Five (Normal) students in Singapore Unpublished master dissertation, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Liu, M., & Braine, G (2005) Cohesive features in argumentative writing produced by Chinese undergraduates SYSTEM, 33, 623-635 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2005.02.002 Muller, S (2004) „Well, you know that type of person: Function of „well‟ in the speech of American and German students Journal of Pragmatics, 36, 1157-1182 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2004.01.008 Schiffrin, Deborah 1987 Discourse Markers (Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics 5), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Schorup, Lawrence 1985 Common Discourse Particles in English Conversation, New York: Garland 47 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Steffensen, M & Cheng, X (1996) Meta-discourse and text pragmatics: How students write after learning about meta-discourse ERIC Document Reproduction Service, No ED400709 Swan, Michael 1980 Practical English Usage, Oxford: Oxford University Press 48 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com APPENDIX A: INVITATION LETTER AND PARTICIPANT INFORMATION LETTER To whom it may concern: I am a researcher student for a Master of Linguistics, working under the supervision of Prof Dr Vo Dai Quang, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University As a lecturer who has been teaching writing in Business English Department, Faculty of Foreign Languages, National Economics University, I am interested in conducting research related to Business English students‟ writing activities, in particular the link between discourse markers and their argumentative writing quality For my study, I would like to investigate the frequency of use of discourse markers in argumentative essays written by second year students at Business English Department as this kind of writing represents a significant challenge for many of them My goal is to understand whether there is a correlation between the number of discourse markers and students‟ writing quality to assist them in this kind of writing Therefore, I would like to invite you to participate in this study However, the participation is entirely voluntary Further details are as in participant information sheet Best regards, Do Kieu lan I LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Participant Information Letter This research project is being conducted by Do Kieu Lan as part of Master thesis supervised by Prof Dr Vo Dai Quang Writing argumentative essays in English represents a significant challenge for many students at National Economics University Many students of Business English Department later pursue their further studies in a country which values argumentation need to adapt their writing considerably in order to be successful This study seeks to investigate the frequency of use of discourse markers employed in students‟ argumentative writing Then it analyzes the correlation between the quality of writing and number of discourse markers used in students‟ writing essays The result will provide some possible directions for the teaching writing to Business English Department students, as well as other students majored in English or from similar background Educator may draw on the insights gained to design materials to help the students improve their writing in an effective and efficient manner I am inviting you to participate in this study and you will be asked to: - complete a writing test in 40 minutes and - allow that your essays be analyzed for the study Participation in the study is entirely voluntary You are free to withdraw your consent at any time during the course of the study The research will not affect the assessment in your normal class Students‟ anonymity will be preserved by giving pseudonyms Information collected will be presented without identifying individual students Any question about the research can be addressed to me: Do Kieu Lan Email: dokieulan@gmail.com Tel: 0904869092 II LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com APPENDIX B: STUDENT INFORMATION SHEET General Information Name: _ Sex Age: _ Student ID: Course: _ Intake: _ Contact telephone number: _ Email address: General Education (1) Level (2) School/institution (3) Major/minor (4) Number of years studing in English (5) Primary (6) (7) (8) (9) Secondary (11) (12) (13) (15) (16) (17) (20) (21) (22) (24) (25) (26) (10) Junior (14) Senior (18) Tertiary (19) Bachelor’s (23) Master’s III LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ... hereby designed to examine the relationship between the frequency usage of discourse markers and argumentative writing skills by students at Business English Department, National Economics University. ..VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ĐỖ THỊ KIỀU LAN AN INVESTIGATION INTO CORRELATION BETWEEN DISCOURSE MARKERS USAGE. .. USAGE FREQUENCY AND ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING SKILLS BY STUDENTS AT BUSINESS ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY NGHIÊN CỨU MỐI QUAN HỆ GIỮA SỬ DỤNG DẤU HIỆU DIỄN NGÔN VÀ KĨ NĂNG VIẾT VĂN
Ngày đăng: 05/12/2022, 22:35
Xem thêm:
