Discourse features of IELTS sample essays a functional grammar perspective TT TIENG ANH

THE UNIVERSITY OF DA NANG UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ TRUNG DISCOURSE FEATURES OF IELTS SAMPLE ESSAYS - A FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR PERSPECTIVE Major: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Code: 9.22.02.01 DOCTORAL THESIS IN SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES (SUMMARY) Danang, 2021 This thesis has been completed at University of Foreign Language Studies The University of Danang Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyễn Thị Quỳnh Hoa Examiner 1: Examiner 2: Examiner 3: The thesis was orally defended at the Examining Committee Time: Venue: University of Foreign Language Studies- The University of Danang This thesis is available for the purpose of reference at: - Library of University of Foreign Language Studies, The University of Da Nang - The Information Resources Center, The University of Da Nang - National Library of Viet Nam CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale Foreign language competence has been identified as essential for young Vietnamese graduates to be able to work effectively and make a significant contribution to the international integration of the country Recognising the importance of foreign languages in human resource, the Prime Minister has approved the document ‘The scheme on foreign language teaching and learning in the national education system in the 2008-2020 period’ (Decision No.1400/QD-TTg dated September 30, 2008) The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has implemented Vietnam’s National Foreign Language 2020 Project (NFL2020) and applied the Prime Minister’s Decision No.2080/QD-TTg dated December 22, 2017 on "Approving amendments and supplements to the scheme of teaching and learning foreign languages in the national education system for the period of 2017-2025" In tertiary education, graduates majoring in English language are required to achieve a minimum language competence at level C1 according to the Common European Framework for Reference (CEFR), a guideline used to describe achievements of learners of foreign languages, equivalent to an IELTS score of 7.0-7.5 Among the four English language skills assessed by IELTS, Academic Writing, especially Task of the Academic Module, which is given more weight than Task 1, is generally considered one of the most challenging skills for IELTS test-takers since it requires a higher level of productive language manipulation How to enhance IELTS writing outcomes, therefore, has been a matter of concern for language researchers and educators in different countries where English is taught as a foreign language or second language This thesis is aimed at identifying the linguistic features of IELTS sample essays, particularly the experiential meaning, interpersonal meaning and textual meaning in the light of functional grammar with a view to enabling test-takers to make good use of the salient linguistic features in order to formulate good quality IELTS Academic essays in response to the urgent need for IELTS test-takers in general and English majored students in Vietnam in particular to achieve the language competence required by the MOET 1.2 Aims and Objectives of the Study 1.2.1 Aims Investigating the linguistic features of IELTS Academic exposition and discussion essays written by successful test-takers on six common topics: education, environment, family, work, social issues, and health in terms of experiential, interpersonal and textual meanings, and then making a comparison between two groups of data: one with 7-7.5 band scores and the other with a band score of or prepared by examiners as very good models to identify similarities and differences between two band group essays in relation to the band descriptors, thereby providing non-native writers with a better understanding of the linguistic feature requirements of an IELTS Academic essay, thus making significant methodological and practical contributions in Academic writing success 1.2.2 Objectives The objectives of the study are to examine and compare the textual meaning of IELTS Academic sample essays with band scores of 7-7.5 and 9.0 from two perspectives, namely thematic structure and cohesion, the interpersonal meaning under the headings of mood and modality, the experiential meaning in terms of transitivity system and the logico-semantic relation in relation to the band descriptors 1.3 Research Questions The study will address the following research questions: (1) How is the textual meaning realised in IELTS Academic sample essays with band scores of 7-7.5 and 9.0 in relation to the band descriptors? (2) How is the interpersonal meaning realised in IELTS Academic sample essays with band scores of 7-7.5 and 9.0 in relation to the band descriptors? (3) How is the experiential meaning realised in IELTS Academic sample essays with band scores of 7-7.5 and 9.0 in relation to the band descriptors? 1.4 Scope of the Study In pursuit of the goal of the study, based on the optimum access to related documentation, the thesis investigates IELTS Academic sample essays taken from the textbooks and relevant IELTS websites with band scores of 7-7.5 and those rated or prepared by examiners as very good models, focusing on experiential metafunction, interpersonal metafunction and textual metafunction The selected data are divided into two categories: Corpus 1, with a band score of or very good models, as comparable to CEFR Level C2, and Corpus 2, with 7-7.5 band scores, which are equivalent to level C1 on the CEFR The study is also restricted to two types of argumentative essays: exposition and discussion which are viewed as common types found in the IELTS Academic Module (Coffin, 2004; Nakamura, 2009; Riazi & Knox, 2013) and within the six most common topics namely education, environment, family, work, health and social issues 1.5 Significance of the Study Theoretically, the study confirms that Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), which views language as a resource for making meaning, is an effective tool for analysing and evaluating academic written discourse Pedagogically, the study sheds light on the salient discourse features of successful IELTS essays in terms of textual meaning, experiential meaning, and interpersonal meaning, in relation to the IELTS assessment criteria, which gives pedagogical implications to the teaching and learning process in improving learners’ academic writing Practically, how to enhance IELTS writing outcomes has been an ongoing question for language researchers and educators in Vietnam, where English is taught as a foreign language The research is in line with the aim of NFL2020 in particular, and of the education reform in Vietnam in general 1.6 Organization of the Thesis CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY CHAPTER FOUR: TEXTUAL MEANING IN IELTS ACADEMIC SAMPLE ESSAYS CHAPTER FIVE: INTERPERSONAL MEANING IN IELTS ACADEMIC SAMPLE ESSAYS CHAPTER SIX: EXPERENTIAL ACADEMIC SAMPLE ESSAYS CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION 1.7 Terminology MEANING IN IELTS CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 Literature Review 2.1.1 Review of Systemic Functional Linguistics 2.1.2 Review of Studies Related to Academic Writing in the light of Systemic Functional Linguistics Under the umbrella of academic writing, several studies on the textual meaning, particularly Theme-Rheme employment in Academic Writing have been conducted up to now (Belmonte & McCabe, 2001; Fang, 2015; Jalilifar, 2010; Kang, 2016; Lu, 2013; Nurdianingsih & Purnama, 2017; Witt & Faigley, 1981; Wang, 2007;) In terms of the interpersonal aspect in writing, a significant number of practical studies have been conducted (Hadiani, 2019; Liu, 2013; Xuan & Huang, 2017) With respect to the experiential meaning in writing, there is substantial amount of research investigating transitivity system and logico-semantic system (Alifereti, 2013; Jomaa & Bidin, 2019; Rukmini, 2010; Salsabila, 2016; Srinon & White, 2011) 2.1.3 Review of IELTS Academic Writing Studies 2.2 Theoretical Background 2.2.1 IELTS Writing as Academic Writing 2.2.1.1 Academic Writing 2.2.1.2 The IELTS Test 2.2.1.3 IELTS Writing as Academic Writing 2.2.2 Discourse Analysis through Systemic Functional Linguistics 2.2.3 Context: Culture and Situation 2.2.4 The Three Metafunctions 2.2.4.1 Textual Metafunction a Thematic Structure Types of Themes: marked and unmarked Theme; simple and multiple Theme; topical, textual and interpersonal Theme Thematic progression: linear pattern, constant pattern, derived pattern b Cohesion: Grammatical cohesion (reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction); Lexical cohesion (repetition, synonymy, super-ordinate, general words, collocation) 2.2.4.2 Interpersonal Metafunction a Mood: Mood Choices (declarative, imperative, or interrogative) and the Speech Function (statement, question, command or offer) b Modality: Modalization and Modulation Regarding modality analysis, modalization (probability and usuality) and modulation (obligation and inclination) with three values (high, median, low) are analysed In addition, four types of modality orientation: explicit subjective, implicit subjective, explicit objective and implicit objective are realised to determine how the writers show their opinions or attitudes 2.2.5.3 Experiential Metafunction a The System of Transitivity Types of process: material process, mental process, relational process, behavioural process, verbal process, existential process b Logico-Semantic Relation: Taxis system, Logico-semantic system 2.3 Summary CHAPTER THREE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research Design 3.2 Research Methods The thesis employs the descriptive and comparative research methods to conduct an in-depth analysis of three metafunctions employed the sample essays to disclose the prominent features in terms of thematic progression and cohesion; mood and modality; transitivity and logicosemantic relation in the light of Functional Grammar 3.3 Data Collection 3.3.1 Criteria for Collecting Data 3.3.2 Description of Sampling 3.4 Data Analysis 3.4.1 Clause and Above the Clause 3.4.2 The Coding Scheme 3.5 Analytic Framework Context of culture Band 7-7.5 Band Context of situation Textual Interpersonal Experiential • Thematic progression • Cohesion • Lexical grammatical realisation • Mood + Speech functions • Modality • Lexical grammatical realisation • Process • Logico-semantic relation • Lexical grammatical realisation Figure 3.2 Analytic framework 3.6 Reliability and Validity 3.7 Summary IELTS Task Writing band descriptors CHAPTER FOUR TEXTUAL MEANING IN IELTS ACADEMIC SAMPLE ESSAYS 4.1 Thematic Structure 4.1.1 Types of Themes 4.1.1.1 Marked and Unmarked Theme Marked 810; , 20% Unmarked ,3,240; 80% Marked Unmarked Figure 4.1 Distribution of marked and unmarked Themes Marked 361; 18.5% Marked 449,; 21.4% Unmarked 1,648; 78.6% Marked Unmarked 1,592; 81.5% Unmarked Marked Unmarked Figure 4.2 Distribution of marked Figure 4.3 Distribution of marked and unmarked Themes (Corpus 1) and unmarked Themes (Corpus 2) As shown in Figure 4.1, the writers prefer to place Themes in the subject position of the clause in order to make sure that their clauses are grammatically correct However, it is noticeable that marked topical Themes occupy about 20 per cent of the total topical Themes with 810 instances, which is high in comparison with those found by Ebrahimi and Ebrahimi (2012), and Gunawan and Aziza (2017) Particularly, the number of marked Themes employed in the essays scored or prepared by an examiner as good models is higher than that 11 up 38.6%; the linear pattern is the second most common one employed in the essays with 1,121 cases, equal to 29%, followed by the derived pattern (4.4%) However, it is noticeable that the number of cases of no thematic progression in Corpus is higher than that in Corpus 1, indicating that thematic progression patterns make a major contribution to the construal of meaning 4.2 Cohesion The findings reveal that grammatical ties (4,733 instances) are used slightly more than lexical ones (3,823), and there is a correlation between the number of appropriate grammatical and lexical ties and the proportion of inappropriate ones in the two corpora 4.2.1 Grammatical Ties With regard to grammatical cohesion, among the four sub-categories of grammatical ties, reference takes up the largest proportion (51.03%) with 2,415 instances, followed by conjunction (48.63%) with 2,302 instances Ellipsis and substitution account for a relatively small percentage with 0.23% and 0.11% respectively 4.2.1.1 The Use of Reference In the view of Halliday and Hasan (1976), items that have the property of reference are personal, demonstrative, or comparative The findings indicate that 1,386 instances of the appropriate use of personal reference and 666 instances of demonstrative reference are found in the IELTS sample essays Use of the comparative reference has the lowest percentage with 318 instances 4.2.1.2 The Use of Substitution Regarding substitution, only instances of substitution, of which one instance belongs to nominal substitution and four to verbal substitution, are employed in the sample essays 12 4.2.1.3 The Use of Ellipsis Few instances of ellipsis are found in the corpus, with only 11 out of 4,733 instances of grammatical ties 4.2.1.4 The Use of Conjunction Additive conjunctions are used most, with 862 appropriate instances Temporal conjunctions occupy the second largest proportion with 564 cases Among 2,295 appropriate conjunctions used in the samples, there are 500 and 369 instances of causal and adversative respectively 4.2.2 Lexical Ties 4.2.2.1 The Use of Reiteration The IELTS writers tend to use a lot of reiteration with 1,762 appropriate instances found in their essays It is worth mentioning here that almost all the lexical reiteration ties are repetitions of the same lexical items with 1,507 instances, taking up 39.4% followed by synonyms with 210 instances, accounting for 5.5%, super-ordinates with 0.7% and general words 0.5% 4.2.2.2 The Use of Collocation The use of collocation contributes the highest percentage (53.35%) of all appropriate lexical ties However, the findings also reveal that the IELTS writers still make some mistakes related to the use of cohesive ties, of which the errors in grammatical ties most committed are reference with 45 cases, followed by conjunctions with cases No errors are found in the use of ellipsis and substitution 4.3 Textual Meaning in Relation to the IELTS Band Descriptors The analysis of the textual meaning shows that a small minority of errors related to cohesive devices are found in the study, demonstrating greater linguistic accuracy and there are less inappropriate uses of cohesive devices in Corpus than in Corpus 2, which is in line with 13 the descriptors Another noticeable feature is that the number of cases of no thematic progression in Corpus is higher than that in Corpus Regarding types of Themes, test-takers with high scores employ more marked Themes as well as more multiple Themes making their writing more academic It is noted that the essays rated use slightly more interpersonal Themes and less textual Themes compared to the ones rated 7-7.5 The findings from the cohesion analysis also indicate that successful IELTS writers use a greater number of collocations, thus displaying closer performance to native speakers, mapping onto the lexical resource criterion 4.4 Summary CHAPTER FIVE INTERPERSONAL MEANING IN IELTS ACADEMIC SAMPLE ESSAYS 5.1 Mood Structure Table 5.1 Mood types Mood Types Declaratives Imperatives Interrogative Total Number 5,258 5,263 Rate 99.9% 0.06% 0.04% 100% As can be seen from Table 5.1, declaratives represent over ninety-nine percent of the whole data This remarkably high percentage is apparent since the primary purpose of an essay is to give information especially to persuade readers to accept the proposition (Emilia & Hamied, 2015) While imperatives and interrogatives are rarely used with a very small percentage (0.06% and 0.04% respectively) in the total data Imperatives are found to have the lowest frequency in the essays because they may make the writing less convincing and persuasive 14 In terms of speech function, declarative mood is employed to give information and, as a result, statements take up the largest proportion (90.56%), followed by commands (8.45%) and offers (0.95%) Questions account for a relatively small percentage (0.04%) These statistics are very similar to those of Hadiani’s (2019) study that the prevailing proportion of students’ writings is in declarative form 5.2 Modality 2000 100.0% 67.0% 1,423 24.1% 5.5% 116 Probability 512 3.4% 72 0.0% Usuality Obligation Inclination Number Percentage Figure 5.1 Distribution of each type of modality 4000 100.0% 100.0% 52.3% 47.7% 2000 2,123 Modality 1,110 50.0% 1,013 0.0% Modality Corpus Modality Corpus Number Percentage Figure 5.2 Distribution of modality of Corpus & As indicated in Figure 5.1, probability is the most common with 1,423 instances, accounting for 67% in the total distribution of modality, followed by obligation with 512 instances, making up 24.1% Usuality and inclination are the least common, representing 5.5% and 3.4% respectively In particular, as shown in Figure 5.2, modality types are more frequently employed in essays with band score of 9, or ones prepared by examiners as good models, rather than in essays with band 15 scores ranging from 7.0 to 7.5 by IELTS writers to show their opinion or judgement Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, 2014) sated that modulation involves the expression of two kinds of meanings, namely obligation or inclination As can be seen from Figure 5.1, the use of obligation is more common with 512 instances (24.1%) compared to inclination with 72 cases (3.4%) in IELTS sample essays With reference to modal values, the analysis of the sample essays reveals that successful IELTS writers favour median degrees such as will, would, should, I think, be supposed to, it is probable, usually… with 1,020 instances, making up 48% to show the degrees of certainty about the truth value of a proposition or the range of possibilities Modality with a high degree of probability, obligation, inclination or usuality represented by must, have to, certainly, always, be required, I believe, etc accounts for only about 28.3% in the data However, linguistic resources denoting a low degree, namely can, could, be willing to, be allowed to, possibly… are relatively less common with 503 cases, equaling just under a quarter of the total data set 1,400 1,200 1,000 800 600 400 200 62.0% 61.7% 15.1% 14.5% 8.4% Total Corpus Implicitly Subjective 1,316 Implicitly Objective 308 Explicitly Subjective 320 Explicitly Objective 179 62.3% 16.1% 13.7% 8.5% 16.6% 12.7% 8.4% Corpus 685 179 152 94 Corpus 631 129 168 85 Figure 5.4 Distribution of modality orientation 16 Regarding orientation, among the four types of modality orientation, IELTS writers tend to employ more implicitly subjective (62%) rather than explicitly subjective (15.1%), implicitly objective (14.5%), or explicitly objective (8.4%) to show their opinions or attitudes In particular, higher scoring essays deploy more objective modality (24.6%) than subjective (21.1%) For example, ||| In addition, considering gifted students [[who not have money to pay for education]], I believe || that states should finance their education ||| Probability (H) (ES); Obligation (M), (IS) [Corpus 2-No.2.1] In referring to modality values, median values are more popular than low and high values, which shows an open attitude to negotiation to the issue they are arguing about 5.3 Interpersonal Meaning in Relation to the Band Descriptors In terms of interpersonal meaning, the results of the study reveal that declarative clauses are employed with a quite high proportion in the speech role Despite some minor differences in the proportion of modality orientation between the two corpora, the general findings show higher scoring essays deploy more objective modality than subjective one Particularly, modality types with median values are more frequently employed in band essays than in essays with band scores of 7.0-7.5 to show opinion or judgement Although there is no clear correlation between the IELTS band descriptors and interpersonal meaning, interpersonal expectations are widely recognised as contributing to the quality of IELTS essays as they construct the relationship between the writer and the examiner 5.4 Summary 17 CHAPTER SIX EXPERIENTIAL MEANING IN IELTS ACADEMIC SAMPLE ESSAYS 6.1 Logico-Semantic Relation Analysis 6.1.1 Taxis System The findings reveal that IELTS writers make use of more clause complexes than clause simplexes to show the type of interdependency in the texts The number of occurrences of clause complexes and clause simplexes is 1,567 and 1,373, representing 53.3% and 46.7% respectively The analysis also shows that in 1,567 clause complexes, there are 1,010 two-clause complexes, accounting for 34.4%, 402 three-clause complexes, making up 13.6% and 155 with more-thanthree complexes, representing 5.3% In terms of taxis, the clauses in the clause complexes are a mixture of both paratactic and hypotactic sequences, but there are far more clauses in hypotactic relationships, with 1,681 cases (72.5%) more than those in paratactic relation, with 638 instances (27.5%), demonstrating that the IELTS writers tend to support their arguments using unequal status Taking this one step further in detail, we can see that within the taxis system, there are similarities in the percentage of paratactic and hypotactic relations for each corpus although the writers tend to use hypotactic relation (29%) a little bit more in Corpus than in Corpus (26.1%) The findings of the study also show a slightly high percentage use of three-clause complexes and more than three-clause complexes with 13.6% and 5.3% respectively An implication of this, therefore, is that the writers have a tendency to use a combination of paratactic and hypotactic linkage to set up a semantic relation with what precedes 18 6.1.2 Logico-Semantic System With regard to the logico-semantic dimension, projection and expansion are used to show a very wide range of possible logicosemantic relationships between clauses While the percentage use of expansion, corresponding to relational clauses is quite high (78.3%), the low frequency of projection (21.7%) is found in the data to indicate that the other clauses are locutions or ideas being projected and they add contextual information to the projected locutions or ideas The findings reveal that there is no paratactic projection in the corpus as in academic written language, this kind of relation is uncommon All cases are hypotactically projected In particular, hypotactic projection is employed more in discussion essays with 46.5% than in exposition essays with 41.2% The reason for this is likely to result from the characteristics of each type of essay, of which an exposition is a one-sided argument text and a discussion is a two-sided argument text For example, ||| I claim || that states cannot pay all extra costs of education for students.||| α ‘‘β [Corpus 2-No 2.1] The findings of the study also indicate that the semantic relations are mainly of enhancement and extension at 46.7% and 27.6% respectively Also the use of elaboration is limited, representing only 4% 6.2 Transitivity The findings show that all the six process types classified by Halliday (2014) are found to have occurred in the IELTS sample essays On the whole, the material process is the most common process type in the corpus samples, with a total occurrence of 2,313 (44%), followed by 19 the relational process (1,713, 32.5%), the mental process (613, 11.7%), the verbal process (350, 6.7%), the existential process (234, 4.4%) and the behavioral process (38, 0.7%) in descending order of occurrence frequencies 6.3 Experiential Meaning in Relation to the IELTS Band Descriptors Under the investigation of experiential meaning, it is found that two corpora exhibit more similarities in the distribution of clause complexes and clause simplexes, of which more clause complexes than clause simplexes are employed in high-scoring essays It is also reported that more successful writers are more inclined to employ more clauses in hypotactic relation than in paratactic relations Besides, the analysis of experiential meaning raises issues related to the ‘Task achievement’ criterion 6.4 Summary CHAPTER SEVEN CONCLUSION 7.1 Conclusions In the current study, the textual meaning, interpersonal meaning and experiential meaning deployed in IELTS Academic sample essays are investigated in the light of Functional Grammar developed by Halliday (1994), and Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, 2014) In terms of the textual meaning, the study reveals that unmarked themes are the most popular in order to make the clauses in the IELTS essays grammatically correct However, it is interesting to find that more marked topical themes are employed in essays with band score of 9, or sample essays of very good models (Corpus 1) than in essays with band scores of 7-7.5 (Corpus 2), suggesting that successful IELTS 20 writers have a tendency to draw the reader’s attention to a particular group or phrase in order to build a coherent piece of writing It is noticeable that successful essay writers favour the selection of multiple Themes, indicating their academic level in conveying their points of view To form multiple Themes, a small number of interpersonal Themes are found in the study due to the fact that Academic Writing is expected to be objective and formal in tone However, more interpersonal Themes are deployed in Corpus than in Corpus An implication of this, therefore, is that interpersonal Themes allow the authors to establish interaction with the readers to express their own angle on the matter Meanwhile, textual Themes are more frequently employed preceding topical Themes in Corpus than in Corpus with a view to providing a logical and clear connection between clauses in the writing IELTS writers in Corpus gravitate towards using less textual Themes, indicating their capability of using cohesion in such a skillful way that it does not draw attention as described in IELTS Writing Task Band Descriptors Regarding thematic progression in the sample essays, it is found that the constant pattern is the predominant thematic progression strategy in order to keep the writing focused, thus, producing a cohesive and coherent piece of writing However, the IELTS writers also apply such different thematic progression patterns as linear pattern and derived pattern to distribute information logically in the text The study also points out that the appropriate use of cohesive devices is of great importance to cohesion and coherence The findings gained from the IELTS Academic sample essays manifest that successful IELTS writers are good at utilising cohesive devices in spite of a small minority of inappropriate ones 21 From the perspective of interpersonal metafunction, the findings of the study indicate that declarative clauses are viewed as the most typical realization of the speech role in exposition and discussion essays In terms of modality, IELTS writers exhibit the most frequent use of probability to express their attitudes on the possibility of a certain topic On the other hand, implicitly subjective orientation is often used to establish relationship with the readers and express their judgements Regarding modality value, median values are more popular than low and high values, which denotes an open attitude to negotiation on the issue they are arguing about From an experiential perspective, it is apparent that IELTS writers make use of more clause complexes than clause simplexes in order to specify the type of interdependency in the texts Within the taxis system, a great amount of hypotaxis is employed, demonstrating that the writers are likely to present their arguments using unequal status The findings also show that the dominant type of taxis used in the sample essays is hypotaxis, indicating their dependency Moreover, the analysis of logico-semantic relation discloses that the prevalent relationship is expansion, by which IELTS test-takers can add some new elements, offer an alternative, comment, exemplify, or refer to some circumstantial features- e.g time, place, condition, cause, purpose or manner - to make their arguments more meaningful With regard to transitivity, material and relation processes are frequently used to depict the actions or states of being identified with their own experience with respect to the thoughts presented in the essays Mental processes are also used to project the writer’s opinion, beliefs or feelings In addition, verbal processes are occasionally 22 employed to quote sayings from other people in order to make the arguments more convincing, and to show the writer’s position From the findings, it is clear that functional grammar is proved to be a very useful analytic tool, enabling us to look at the whole text and its characteristic features It is hoped that the findings of this research can help to raise the awareness of prospective IELTS test-takers about prominent linguistic features of IELTS Academic sample essays; whereby they can adopt effective strategies to accomplish the IELTS Academic Writing Task successfully 7.2 Implications In order to gain high scores in the Academic essay writing, close attention should be paid to the following points relating to three kinds of meaning First, IELTS test-takers are encouraged to deploy more marked Themes in their writing as marked Themes make writing more persuasive and coherent In addition, more multiple Themes than simple Themes should be applied in the writing as multiple Themes can provide structural resources in order to establish logical connections between experiential events, and make the writing more appropriately academic IELTS test-takers should subtly employ a few interpersonal Themes such as modal adjuncts or mood marking elements in case they would like to make their opinion explicit on the content of the message, and create interaction between writers and readers IELTS test-takers are also recommended to use textual Themes to express the logical relationship between two clauses of equal structural status or to relate one clause to another in a modifying or dependency relationship, thus enhancing connectivity between the different parts of their writings 23 In addition to lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, the mastery of thematic progression, an essential component in composing a cohesive and coherent text is required in order to gain higher scores in the IELTS writing exam Although it may be quite easy to produce a grammatically accurate text, it will be more challenging to create a text that has logical sequencing To convey information effectively, IELTS test-takers should employ different thematic progression patterns, namely linear patterns, constant patterns, and derived patterns to organize the information in a text, particularly, high employment of linear patterns would be more appropriate as argumentative texts are characterized with high proportions of cross references from the Rheme of one sentence to the Theme of the next, providing more dynamic effect (Belmonte & McCabe, 1998) From a pedagogical point of view, it is particularly desirable for EFL learners to be instructed on how to develop appropriate choices of Theme-Rheme progression as suggested by Gunawan and Aziza’s (2017) and Nurdianingsih and Purnama’s (2017) As for cohesion, successful IELTS writers should be able to use cohesive devices effectively to connect ideas in an essay As shown in the findings, poor cohesion creates hindrances to the creation and interpretation of text In spite of the fact that embedded clauses not form clause complexes, it is recommended to utilise embedding in order to pack more meaning into clause simplexes as embedding is connected with more formal, carefully crafted text In addition, by examining the transitivity patterns and the logical relations of the clauses, particularly the study of taxis and logico- 24 semantics employed in IELTS sample essays, we can explain how logical manifestations of the clause complexes are displayed in a wellwritten text It is, therefore, suggested that IELTS test-takers should choose clause complexes over clause simplexes as clause complex systems supply them with the structural resources to establish logical connections between states of affairs As shown in the findings, the IELTS test-takers are advised to make use of different types of interdependency, namely paratactic interdependency to describe the logical relationship between two similar elements of equal structural status, and hypotaxis interdependency to state the relationship between two elements of unequal status As far as interpersonal metafunction is concerned, it is obvious that knowing how to make good use of modality and mood choice enables academic IELTS writers to establish relationships with readers, take a position on people, things and situations IELTS writers should be cognizant of modalization and modulation use to indicate their attitudes to or assessment of the proposition In particular, probability should be frequently employed to express the writers’ attitudes, judgements, and median values, to show an open attitude towards negotiation regarding the issue they are arguing about It is clear that writing with better awareness of the three kinds of meaning namely textual meaning, interpersonal meaning and experiential meaning may enable non-native English speaking IELTS test-takers to produce stylistically appropriate essays, thus gaining higher scores in their IELTS Academic Writing test 7.3 Limitations 7.4 Suggestions for Further Research 25 PUBLICATION LISTS Nguyen Thi Trung, Nguyen Thi Quynh Hoa (2017) Ideational Meaning in IELTS Sample Essay Introductions in light of Systemic Functional Grammar Journal of Science and Technology of Danang University, 12 (121), 63-67 (ISSN 1859-1531) Nguyen Thi Trung (2017) Cohesive Device Errors in Academic Writing Task The VietTesol International Conference (ISBN: 978-604-968552-1) Nguyen Thi Trung, Nguyen Thi Quynh Hoa (2018) An Analysis of Thematic Progression Strategies in Academic IELTS Sample Essays International Journal of Humanities, Philosophy and Language, 1(4), 85-93 (eISSN: 2600-8270) Nguyen Thi Trung (2019) The Senior English Major Students’ Perception of Cohesion in Academic IELTS Writing Task Quang Nam University Journal of Science, 14, 114-123 (ISSN 0866 – 7586) Nguyen Thi Trung (2019) An Analysis of Themes in Academic IELTS Essays Journal of Science and Technology of Danang University, 17 (8), 41-46 (ISSN 1859-1531) Nguyen Thi Trung, Nguyen Thi Quynh Hoa (2020) An Analysis of Logical Relations in Academic IELTS Sample Essays International Journal of Systemic Functional Linguistics, (1), 37-43 (E-ISSN 26144255) Nguyen Thi Trung, Nguyen Thi Quynh Hoa (2020) A Systemic Functional Analysis of Parataxis and Hypotaxis in Academic IELTS Sample Essays Journal of Science and Technology of Danang University, 18 (12.1), 43-46 (ISSN 1859-1531) ... textual meaning, interpersonal meaning and experiential meaning deployed in IELTS Academic sample essays are investigated in the light of Functional Grammar developed by Halliday (1994), and Halliday... CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY CHAPTER FOUR: TEXTUAL MEANING IN IELTS ACADEMIC SAMPLE ESSAYS CHAPTER FIVE: INTERPERSONAL MEANING IN IELTS ACADEMIC SAMPLE ESSAYS CHAPTER SIX: EXPERENTIAL ACADEMIC... Trung, Nguyen Thi Quynh Hoa (2020) A Systemic Functional Analysis of Parataxis and Hypotaxis in Academic IELTS Sample Essays Journal of Science and Technology of Danang University, 18 (12.1),