Linguistic features of opinion essays by chu van an high school gifted students and those by successful IELTS candidates

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY NGUYỄN PHI HỔ LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF OPINION ESSAYS BY CHU VAN AN HIGH SCHOOL GIFTED STUDENTS AND THOSE BY SUCCESSFUL IELTS CANDIDATES Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr NGUYỄN QUANG NGOẠN BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN NGUYỄN PHI HỔ ĐẶC TRƯNG NGÔN NGỮ TRONG CÁC BÀI LUẬN THỂ HIỆN QUAN ĐIỂM CỦA HỌC SINH CHUYÊN ANH TRƯỜNG CHUYÊN CHU VĂN AN SO VỚI BÀI VIẾT CỦA THÍ SINH THI IELTS THÀNH CƠNG Chun ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số: 8220201 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr NGUYỄN QUANG NGOẠN i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify my authorship of the master‟s thesis, entitled: “Linguistic features of opinion essays by Chu Van An High School gifted students and those by successful ielts candidates”, submitted for the degree of Master of Arts is the result of my own research and that this thesis has not been submitted for a higher degree at any other institutions To the best of my knowledge, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by other people except where the reference is made in the thesis itself Binh Dinh, 2020 Nguyễn Phi Hổ ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all the people for their support and contributions to the realization of this thesis First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Nguyễn Quang Ngoạn, whose brilliant ideas, unconditional support and encouragement from the very early day to the final steps have enabled me to develop a better understanding of the subject and to embrace the challenges in every step of the thesis I am greatly indebted for his invaluable contributions and substantial feedback Without him, this study would not have been accomplished I am indebted to the lecturers of Quy Nhon University who have wholeheartedly guided me through my MA course I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to the Master‟s Thesis Examiners for their valuable feedback, constructive detailed comments and tremendously helpful suggestions for my thesis I am grateful to the leaders of Chu Van An High School for the Gifted for their support and valuable help they have provided me during the course Finally and most importantly, my heart-felt gratitude goes to my family, for their unconditional love, infinite patience and enormous emotional support and care throughout this process iii ABSTRACT Presenting well on IELTS is an essential requirement for Vietnamese English learners who need to achieve a high band score in order to graduate from famous universities, go abroad for further studying or even get a good job in a particular field In academic IELTS writing the way in which an author engages with and positions him/herself in relation to different voices in the discourse, e.g with the examiners, is an integral part of producing a good essay This study investigates the linguistic features of opinion essays in response to Task of the Academic Writing Module of the International English Language Testing Systems (IELTS), by drawing on the collection of 30 opinion essays by Chu Van An High School gifted students and 30 opinion essays by successful IELTS candidates with an 8-upward band score in various IELTS Websites The data were compared for the frequencies of some linguistic features which had been previously found in significantly different frequencies at Chu Van An High School gifted students and successful IELTS candidates Also in this study, the different types of linguistic features and their interrelations as identified in the data are analyzed, the probabilities of these features being used, the frequencies of their occurrence, their distributions across the essays, and some of their typical realizations The findings show that there is considerable variation in the types of linguistic features employed as well as in their distributions, both across and within different sections of the band- 8IELTS essays and Chu Van An High School gifted students essays CHAPTER INTRODUCTION This chapter presents the rationale for choosing the area of studying, aims and objectives, research questions, scope of the study and significance of the study At the end of this chapter, the structure of the thesis is also included here to serve as an outline of the study 1.1 RATIONALE A long with the whirlpool of information technology and the demand of Vietnamese EFL learners who would like to study at national famous universities as well as international ones, English plays an important role in communication It is widely used around the world and is considered as the most common language of education and communication Writing is a language skill that is very difficult to master Thus, having the ability to express oneself in writing is very important in this global era Based on writing, the author should have the ability to process the ideas to form something meaningful and logical for the reader At Chu Van An High School for gifted students where I work, writing good opinion essays becomes necessary for many students This is because a number of students must take part in the provincial and national exams for the gifted students and apply to prestigious universities in the country and in the world Therefore, it is important for them to continually improve their ability to write opinion essays Among other writing types, opinion essay is one of the most essential writing type which is widely used for the gifted and college students To make a convincing argumentative essay, the author must present logical and valid opinion, which are supported by evidence of different types (Norbert Schomitt, 1984) Another distinguishing feature is that the opinion essay discusses an analysis and synthesis of an object/ subject in which it possesses the characteristics similar to a persuasive essay (Oshima and Huge, 1983, p 156) Opinion essays can be developed using different developmental patterns or combinations of patterns of paragraph development or for example, by order (sequence), comparing and contrasting, cause and effect relation, problem solving, and description (Granger, 1998) With the experience of teaching English for the gifted students and many English sources today, I have seen that the sample writing opinion essays can be easily found in the IELTS practice books and on the Internet From those, I have more evidence to present and compare the opinion essays by the gifted students at Chu Van An High School with successful IELTS ones However, the linguistic features of opinion essays from the framework of Halliday and Hasan (1976) have not been given adequate attention For the above reasons, I choose the topic: “Linguistic Features of Opinion Essays by Chu Van An High School Gifted Students and Those by Successful IELTS Candidates” to help my students understand how to write opinion essays in different types to improve the effectiveness of teaching English, particularly the English quality of the gifted students at Chu Van An High School 1.2 AIM AND OBJECTIVES 1.2.1 Aim This study aims to compare and contrast the linguistic features of opinion essays by gifted students at Chu Van An High School with those by successful IELTS candidates 1.2.2 Objectives This study aims at the following objectives: - To identify and compare the lexical features of opinion essays by Chu Van An High School gifted students and those by successful IELTS candidates - To identify and compare the structural features of opinion essays by Chu Van An High School gifted students and those by successful IELTS candidates - To identify and compare cohesive features of opinion essays by Chu Van An High School gifted students and those by successful IELTS candidates 1.3 RESEACH QUESTIONS In order to achieve the above aim and objectives, the researcher aims to answer the following questions: 1) What are the similarities and differences in lexical features of opinion essays written by Chu Van An High School gifted students and those written by successful IELTS candidates? 2) What are the similarities and differences in effective structures of opinion essays by Chu Van An High School gifted students and those written by successful IELTS candidates? 3) What are the similarities and differences in cohesive devices of opinion essays by Chu Van An High School gifted students and those written by successful IELTS candidates? 1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY The data of this study are limited to 60 opinion essays in which thirty ones are written by Chu Van An High School gifted students and 30 opinion essays selected from successful IELTS candidates with an 8-upward band score The study is theoretically based on Halliday and Hasan (1976) The topics comprise of five themes, including education, environment, health, social activities and technology Halliday and Hasan (1976) and Celce-Murcia and Larsen- Freeman (1983) linguistic features are classified into linguistic features including academic words, structures and cohesive devices 1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY I choose “Linguistic Features of Opinion Essays by Chu Van An High School Gifted Students and Those by Successful IELTS Candidates” as my study with the hope that the findings of the study will contribute the data to the field of discourse analysis, which can be a foundation for further research on the analysis of this genre Besides, this study is expected to be of great significance to the practical concern of teaching and learning the English language To teachers, it will improve their awareness of the importance of opinion essays that will be of use and value to them, and then they will use them as a helpful teaching aid to diversify their teaching activities To English learners, the findings will provide them with a specific understanding of opinion essays so that they can select this kind of material to improve their English writing skill Finally, the study is hoped to bring some useful opinion essays to Chu Van An High School gifted students who want to write the best products to compare with successful IELTS candidates 1.6 DEFINITION OF TERM The opinion essay is one which is used to present an argument surrounding two side of any particular issue The essay can be written as a way of presenting both sides of the opinion as equal or it might be written with one side taking preference over the other 1.7 ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS The study consists of five chapters: Chapter 1- Introduction- presents the rationale, the aim and objectives, research questions, the scope of the study, the significance of the study and organization Chapter 2- Literature Review - presents brief accounts on the literature of Opinion Essays, Academic Style and Academic Words, Effective Structures and Cohesive Devices related to opinion essays by Chu Van An gifted students and those by successful IELTS candidates, and a review of previous studies on IELTS essays Chapter 3- Methods and Procedures - mentions the research methods, data collection and analysis procedures Chapter 4- Findings and Discussion - presents the findings, illustrations, interpretations and comments based on Halliday and Hasan (1976) mentioned in Chapter and Chapter It includes the analysis of academic words, effective structures and cohesive devices in opinion essays by Chu Van An gifted students and those by successful IELTS candidates Chapter 5- Conclusion and Implications - summarizes the major findings of the study and the main points discussed throughout the study and provides pedagogical implications, limitations and suggestions for further research ... lexical features of opinion essays by Chu Van An High School gifted students and those by successful IELTS candidates - To identify and compare the structural features of opinion essays by Chu Van An. .. An High School gifted students and those by successful IELTS candidates - To identify and compare cohesive features of opinion essays by Chu Van An High School gifted students and those by successful. .. topic: ? ?Linguistic Features of Opinion Essays by Chu Van An High School Gifted Students and Those by Successful IELTS Candidates? ?? to help my students understand how to write opinion essays in