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언어과학연구 제83집 (2017년 12월) 253-73
The Journal of Linguistic Science 83‖Dec. 2017 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21296/jls.2017.12.83.253
Interactions in Persuasive Writing: Comparative Analysis of L2 Essays and L1 Columns Seongyong Lee(Hankuk University of Foreign Studies)
Lee, Seongyong. 2017. “Interactions in Persuasive Writing: Comparative Analysis of L2 Essays and L1 Columns.” The Journal of Linguistic Science 83:253-73. This study explores similarities and
differences in the use of stance and engagement markers between Korean students’ English essays (KSEE) and New York Times opinion columns (NYTOC). For this comparison, 79 KSEE and 50 NYTOC were used to build up two corpora. Based on Hyland’s (2005a, 2008) metadiscourse model, they were statistically compared with the MannWhitney U test to investigate how writers use interactional sources of metadiscourse to convey their authorial voice and engage readers in their texts. Findings suggest that while KSEE used significantly more interactional markers on average, NYTOC adopted more diverse types of hedges, boosters, and attitude markers. In addition, they showed a marked disparity in the distribution of engagement markers. Pedagogical implications, such as training for textual voice construction and register -based instruction, are suggested. (Hankuk University of Foreign
1. Introduction Metadiscourse has been studied as a primary way of interaction in academic writing (Hyland 2017). Researchers in academic writing have a kin interest in discoursal function of metadiscourse markers to understand how interaction between writers and readers take place in a written community (Hyland 2005b). Metadiscourse is considered to be rhetorical devices by which writers negotiate their language use to evaluate their texts and guide readers through their proposition (Hyland and Tse 2004). Thus, metadiscourse markers have been extensively studied in persuasive writing tasks (Yoon 2017; Zhao 2017). According to Hyland (2005), an appropriate understanding of persuasive writing is possible when considering what kind of rhetorical strategy writers use to articulate their voice in a text and how they engage readers in their argument. Based on an interpersonal source of metadiscourse, he suggested a binary model of metadiscourse features representing writers’ stance and engagement. Following studies on a writer voice show that an extensive use of interactional metadiscourse markers is closely linked to persuasive skills and construction of a strong voice in a written discourse in different contexts and genres (Yoon 2017; Zhang 2016; Zhao 2017). Although previous research has paid attention to language, culture, register, and genre as important factors for the use of metadiscourse markers to establish a credible persona (Dafouz-Milne 2008; Fu and Hyland 2004; Hyland 2017; Lee and Deakin 2016), no study has considered language level and register at the same time, with the exception of Kim (2009). However, Kim (2009) does not take register, which is similar to genre in its notion (Hyland 2017), into consideration for comparable analysis of second language (L2) student essays and newspaper columns. To be more specific, while other studies compared L2 students’ academic writing with that written
by first language (L1) students (e.g., Çandarli, Bayyurt, and Marti 2015) and columns written by L2 writers with those by L1 columnists (e.g., Noorian and Biria 2010), few research has compared L2 students’ texts with newspaper columns written by L1 writers when a column section may serve as a useful source to measure the quality of texts written by L2 writers (Kim 2009). 한국외국어대학교 | IP: 203.232.***.199 | Accessed 2018/03/30 18:01(KST)
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To fill the gap in previous research, this study compares Korean student essays with opinion columns in an elite newspaper published in an English-speaking country to understand how language proficiency and register have an influence on writers’ use of metadiscourse markers to create a social interaction with readers.
2. Previous Research Although there has been a growing interest in studying identity construction in language learning for the past fifteen years, the significance of studying the process of identity construction in L2 learning remains controversial among scholars since some scholars questioned the role of a writer’s voice as part of identity in academic writing (Hyland 2002; Matsuda and Tardy 2009). Hyland (2005b) argues that writing always holds certain degree of writer voice as a means of self-representation whether it is overt or covert. Although a traditional approach to academic writing encourages students to efface their writer voice as part of a writer identity from their text, an interpersonal aspect of writing practice necessarily conveys who the writers are based on their choice of rhetorical strategies, words, and organizational patterns, one of which is the use of interactional metadiscourse (Hyland 2005b). Such voice construction allows them to engage in interaction with the audience in an effective way to evaluate their own argument in conscious of readers. Hyland (2004, 2005, 2010) proposes interpersonal model of metadiscourse to deal with the issue of “writing as a social and communicative engagement between writer and reader” (Hyland 2010: 127). An interpersonal aspect of metadiscourse allows writers to construct their own voice and display their attitude toward a proposition and readers (Hyland 2005b). Through such an ongoing process of negotiation, the writers not only evaluate their own arguments but also establish a credible writer identity in an interaction with the audience (Hyland 2010). Hyland (2005b) suggests the notion of stance and engagement as the subset of a writer voice based on an interpersonal model of interactive metadiscourse markers (
). In written academic discourse, stance refers to a writer’s textual voice 한국외국어대학교 | IP: 203.232.***.199 | Accessed 2018/03/30 18:01(KST)
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as to the writer’s of representation of the self to present his or her “judgements, opinions, and commitments” (Hyland 2008: 7). In comparison, engagement is relevant to a writer’s awareness of readers in alignment with readers by explicitly attracting them into his or her own evaluation of a proposition. Zhao (2013, 2017) points out the importance of the use of stance and engagement features to construct a strong authorial voice in a written context.
A Model of Written Academic Voice (Hyland 2008: 8) Interactive resources of stance and engagement markers have been considered to be important rhetorical devices to transmit a writer’s voice for the persuasive purposes (Dafouz-Milne 2008; Hyland 2005b; Lee and Deakin 2016; Yoon 2017; Zhao 2017). Lee and Deakin (2016) conducted comparable analysis of successful L2 essays, less- successful L2 essays, and successful L1 English essays. They found that the quality of written texts depend on the effective use of interactive resources. Fu and Hyland (2014) report that the use of interactional markers to build up a credible and authentic writer identity in the text is varied across different journalistic genres. The use of stance and engagement markers is affiliated with writers’ establishment of authorial voice in academic writing (Hyland 2008). Zhao (2017) developed an analytic rubric on which the strength of writers’ authorial voice in argumentative essays is properly measured the strength of a writer voice. He found a connection between the proper appropriation of international discourse markers and the strength 한국외국어대학교 | IP: 203.232.***.199 | Accessed 2018/03/30 18:01(KST)
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of authorial voice. Yoon (2017) developed an automatic tool of measuring an authorial voice strength based on Python programming. He input all interactional discourse markers in this program to conduct the text-based mining of linguistic data out of L2 argumentative essays. He found that not only the high frequency of voice features but the varied use of sub-sets of interactional metadiscourse items is positively correlated with the strength of an author voice and even with the high performance of writing. As Kim (2009) argues, newspaper opinion columns written by native Englishspeaking writers are a useful source to be compared with L2 student essays in terms of use of metadiscourse markers. Opinion columns are unique in that they attempt to target at a specific audience to provide subject information. Opinion columns in newspapers are written by experts in diverse subject areas to convince readers of their own viewpoint about a given topic (Dafouz-Milne 2008). Drawing upon previous research on the function of interactional metadiscourse in voice construction, this study aims to conduct analytic comparison between Korean students’ English essays and opinion columns in New York Times in the distribution of stance and engagement markers based on the following research questions. 1) Is there any difference in the use of stance and engagement markers between Korean students’ English essays and New York Times opinion columns? 2) Is there any difference in the distribution of most frequent stance and engagement markers between the two types of texts? 3) Is there any qualitative difference in the use of stance and engagement markers between the two types of texts?
3. Methods 3.1 Participants and Data Source The data in this study is based on two comparable sources: 79 Korean students’ English essays (KSEE) and 50 New York Times opinion columns (NYTOC). The former 79 essays were written by Korean EFL students in the course Logical
Thinking and English Writing in the Fall 2016 semesters at a university in Korea. Participants majored in English and this was a mandatory course for them. 34 participants were male and the other 45 students were female. Their age ranged from 19 to 26 (mean: 23.4, SD: 1.75). The students were given 30 minutes for essaywriting. A native English-speaking professor and the other Korean professor at this university evaluated their essays based on a rubric of a writing section of TOEFL. The inter-rater reliability between them reached 0.93 based on the Spearman’s rho inter-rater correlation. The mean score was 4.31 (SD: 0.49), which means that the participants belonged to a upper-intermediate level on average. 50 NYTOC were extracted from a OP-ED section of New York Times circulated between August 2017 and September 2017. The columns covered diverse topics ranging from political issues to national economy to education. Since the opinion columns are usually selected through a rigorous process, these texts are considered to belong to the high level and thereby represents the newspaper’s opinion (Dafouz-Milne 2008; Fu and Hyland 2014).
3.2 Data Collection: Corpus Construction The corpus data were built up from 79 KSEE (24,396 tokens) and 50 NYTOC (48,050 tokens).
presents descriptions of the two corpora. These two texts were transformed and saved in a plain text file, which was then inserted into
AntConc 3.4.4 (Anthony 2016) for text analysis. A Concordance option was mainly used to confirm that specific linguistic features belonged to each section of 한국외국어대학교 | IP: 203.232.***.199 | Accessed 2018/03/30 18:01(KST)
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interactional metadiscourse. File View provided the contextual information to reach a final decision on which category specific features belong to, which was based on a list of interactional metadiscourse adopted and modified from Hyland (2005). The list includes 100 hedges, 55 boosters, 65 attitudes markers, 78 engagement markers, and 9 self-mentions. Words considered not to be part of any category of metadiscourse were excluded from the data. Also, how each metadiscourse was used in the texts was explored to compare them in a qualitative aspect.
Corpora of KSEE and NYTOC Type
Number
Tokens
Mean
SD
KSE
79
24,396
308.81
87.67
Range 138-521
NYT
50
48,050
961.00
205.75
560-1591
3.3 Data Analysis
presents features in stance and engagement used in this study, which is based on a list of interactional metadiscourse (Hyland 2005; Lee and Deakin 2016). The first four features in the list is associated with a writer’s stance from multiple aspects. Hedges are relevant to writers’ stance in terms of holding their assertive voice back in unfolding arguments. Boosters, in contrast, are linked to writers’ assertiveness to display a high level of their certainty about propositional content. Attitude markers reflect the writers’ idea, preference, astonishment, curiosity, and so on. Finally, self-mentions directly show their authorial voice with first person pronouns. Engagement markers engage readers in the writers’ propositions with diverse methods: reader mention, directives, questions, knowledge reference, and personal asides (Hyland 2008).
withhold a writer’s full commitment to proposition Hedges
Boosters Attitude Markers Self-mentions
Accuracy-oriented Writer-oriented Reader-oriented Emphasize a writer’s force and certainty in proposition Express a writer’s attitude toward proposition and affective values
could, likely, may, argue, assume, seem in my opinion in fact, it is clear that, really, believe
Adverbs, Adjectives
unfortunately, even
Explicitly indicate an author/idea
I, we (exclusive)
Explicitly refer to or build relationship with readers
Engagement Markers
Reader Mention Directives (imperatives, modals) Questions Knowledge Reference Personal Asides
we (inclusive), you have to, should, Suppose ? as you know, of course (I prefer not to do it)
To compare the two types of texts in terms of an overall use of interactional features and frequencies of each feature, I conducted statistical analysis using SPSS. First, the Shapiro-Wilk test was conducted to test normality of distributions of the features. The result shows that all of the features violated the assumption of normality with a p-value less than 0.05. Therefore, I adopted Mann-Whitney U test as a non-parametric method as in Lee and Subtirelu (2015). Due to a discrepancy in length between the two groups of texts, I calculated them per 100 words (phw).
4. Results and Discussion 4.1 Overall Comparison of Interactional Features
shows the statistical description of the texts from 79 KSEE and 50 NYTOC. Interactional metadiscourse appeared 6.74 phw in KSEE, 5.06 phw in NYTOC, and 6.09 phw in total. In both groups, engagement markers were the most frequent features, followed by self-mentions and hedges, and the frequencies of boosters and attitude markers were relatively low. This reveals that both upperintermediate Korean students and L1 expert writers attempted to explicitly attract the audience to their argument. This corroborates Lee and Subtirelu’s (2015) finding for writers’ preference for interactivity and engagement with readers.
Descriptive Statistics of KSEE and NYTOC KSEE (n=79)
NYTOC (n=50)
Total (n=129)
Mean (phw)
SD
Mean (phw)
SD
Mean (phw)
SD
Hedges
1.61
0.86
1.27
0.81
1.48
0.85
Boosters
0.53
0.48
0.54
0.31
0.53
0.42
Attitude
0.71
0.48
0.25
0.18
0.53
0.45
Self-Mention
1.57
1.83
1.15
1.65
1.41
1.77
Engagement
2.32
2.48
1.85
1.38
1.77
2.13
Total
6.74
3.71
5.06
2.75
6.09
3.46
Note. The mean frequencies are counted one per 100 words (phw). Statistical comparison between the two texts (see
) shows that the total number of interactional features in KSEE was statistically higher than that in NYTOC (U=1425, p =. 008). In terms of sub-categories, KSEE used significantly more hedges (U = 1425.5, p = .008) and attitude markers (U = 746.5, p = .000) than NYTOC. No statistically significant difference was found in boosters and self-mentions. Given an assumption that the quality of NYTOC is higher than KSEE, this result presents 한국외국어대학교 | IP: 203.232.***.199 | Accessed 2018/03/30 18:01(KST)
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two potential suggestions. First, Korean EFL students seemed to be highly sensitive to the exhaustive use of stance markers to construct a credible authorship of their texts (Lee and Deakin 2016). Second, Korean students’ extensive use of hedges and attitude markers appear to be due to “developmental factors and/or cultural influence” (Çandarli, Bayyurt, and Marti 2015: 199). In other words, on the one hand, they might have retained limited knowledge of how to use these two features, and on other hand, they may have been educated to be less assertive by concealing a direct voice in an collectivist culture (Hyland 2002).
Statistical Comparison of KSEE and NYTOC n
Medians
Comparison of Medians
KSEE (phw)
NYTOC (phw)
M-W U
sig.
Hedges
129
1.47
1.11
1425.5
0.008*
Boosters
129
0.44
0.49
1797.5
0.390
Attitude
129
0.68
0.24
746.5
0.000*
Self-Mention
129
1.05
0.64
1619.5
0.083
Engagement
129
1.59
1.52
1927.5
0.818
Total
129
6.47
4.22
1425.0
0.008*
Note: * p < .01
4.2 Most Frequent Features in Each Category and Qualitative Analysis 4.2.1 Hedges Hedges are the most frequent feature among the four stance features in both KSEE and NYTOC (see
). This feature is to be considered an alternative choice by writers to negotiate “the degree of precision and reliability” with the audience (Hyland 2005b: 179). Therefore, it may be the case that not only L1 expert writers but L2 students in this study were likely to display their stance as being provisional, negotiable, moderate, and flexible, which is highly connected to their capacity of 한국외국어대학교 | IP: 203.232.***.199 | Accessed 2018/03/30 18:01(KST)
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interactions with their audience (Hyland 1998).
Most Frequent Hedges in KSEE and NYTOC Rank
KSEE
NYTOC
Marker
Token
phw
Marker
Token
phw
1
think
93
0.38
would
125
0.26
2
could
39
0.16
could
62
0.13
3
would
25
0.10
should
30
0.06
4
may
22
0.09
often
28
0.06
5
might
18
0.07
might
26
0.05
6
should
18
0.07
seem
24
0.05
7
feel
14
0.06
think
21
0.04
0.06
may
19
0.04
8
in my opinion
14
shows that the two texts show a discrepancy in the most frequent hedging features. While think was the most frequent item in KSEE, in NYTOC would was used the most frequently. Although the frequencies of modal verbs were similar between KSEE (0.49 phw) and NYTOC (0.54 phw), would was the most preferred in NYTOC whereas could occurred the most frequently in KSEE. This imbalanced use of modal verbs between them might stem from their difference in language proficiency and culture. Modal verbs “are among the more difficult structures” to Korean EFL students because there is no such grammatical structure in the Korean language (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman 1999: 137). Therefore, a lower frequency of this modal in KSEE than in NYTOC may partly show Korean students’ limited capability to deal with modal verbs in an efficient way (Back and Lee 2017). In examples (1) and (2) below, the epistemic modal verb would is to mark probability of the given proposition. While a native English-speaking expert in (2) managed to show his or her negotiable stance, a Korean student in (1) attempted hedge his or risky position with a probability marker would but in an ungrammatical way.
(1) I think any of other methods can’t take a role of the standardized test. But if we solve the problem of just one chance of standardized test, then this test would be a better way than now. (KSEE 53) (2) For middle-income families, the plan would not provide first-dollar coverage, but it would be much more affordable than plans now offered on the Affordable Care Act exchanges. (NYTOC 2)
Example (3) and (4) reveal how should was used in a different way to show writers’ stance. While A Korean student in (3) tried to use a less assertive voice by using a third person pronoun people, a native speaker in (4) used inclusive-we to articulate more assertive stance (see Yoon 2017). (3) People who are used to taking advantages of the modern technology should spend their time without such devices. (KSEE 10) (4) If we are serious about growth, competitiveness and job creation, we should look elsewhere besides the tax code for answers. (NYTOC 3)
Another important issue is that while 41 types of hedges were used in KSEE, 60
types appeared in NYTOC. This result supports previous research (Çandarli, Bayyurt,
and Marti 2015) in which Turkish students used less interactional features than American students in their writing due to their limited language proficiency.
4.2.2 Boosters Boosters occurred significantly less frequently than other features in the two types of texts (see
), supporting previous research in both student and newspaper persuasive writing (Dafouz-Milne 2008; Fu and Hyland 2014; Lee and Deakin 2016). In addition, KSEE and NYTOC were exactly the same in terms of a general frequency of boosters: 0.53 phw in KSEE and 0.54 phw in NYTOC. The result in this study supports Lee and Deakin (2016) on academic writing in which advanced non-native English writers showed the similar behavioral pattern with native English writers. 한국외국어대학교 | IP: 203.232.***.199 | Accessed 2018/03/30 18:01(KST)
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Most Frequent Boosters in KSEE and NYTOC KSEE
Rank
NYTOC
Marker
Token
phw
Marker
Token
phw
1
know
21
2
always
18
0.09
find
30
0.06
0.07
never
29
0.06
3
show
18
0.07
know
25
0.05
4 5
actually
14
0.06
true(ly)
21
0.04
really
10
0.04
always
20
0.04
6
In fact
9
0.04
really
20
0.04
7
find
8
0.03
clear(ly)
18
0.04
8
true(ly)
7
0.03
show
17
0.04
shows that despite some differences in the rank of each feature, 6 out of the 8 most frequent features are shared by the two text types: know, always, show,
really, find, true(ly). For instance, both show, always, clear in sentences (5) and (6) display the writers’ articulation of certainty and emphasis about their proposition. (5) This two examples show that using electronic device in our life is always a doubleedged sword. (KSEE 3) (6) It was always clear that the path to reaching a nuclear deal meant setting aside other geopolitical concerns. (NYTOC 6)
4.2.3 Attitude markers While attitude markers were ranked second to last in KSEE and ranked last in NYTOC, KSEE used significantly more attitude markers than NYTOC (U = 746.5, p = .000). This result implies that Korea EFL students significantly more focused on attitude markers than native English-speaking experts to articulate their authorial voice.
Çandarli
et al. (2015) argue that an overuse of attitude markers by EFL students
reflects the characteristics of their interlanguage and cultural transfer.
Most Frequent Attitude Markers in KSEE and NYTOC Rank
KSEE
NYTOC
Marker
Token
phw
Marker
Token
phw
1
important
43
0.18
even
32
0.07
2
even
37
0.15
important
15
0.03
3
necessary
30
0.12
require
14
0.03
4
(dis)agree
23
0.09
expect
12
0.02
5
prefer
11
0.05
essential
6
0.01
6
appropriate
4
0.02
(un)usual
5
0.01
7
interesting
3
0.02
4
0.01
8
surprising
3
0.02
fortunately (dis)agree interesting necessary
4
0.01
shows that two texts are similar in terms of the most frequent attitude markers: important and even take up the largest proportion of all attitude features. However, as discussed above, KSEE used significantly more attitude markers including the most frequent five words. While important and even appeared 0.18 phw and 0.15 phw respectively in KSEE, they were shown only 0.07 and 0.03 phw in NYTOC. Given that attitude markers display writers’ emotional stance rather than epistemic one (Hyland 2005b), this result shows that Korean student writers are more sensitive to explicit display of their emotion to build up a credible writer identity than native English writers, who are rather likely to efface a visible identity relevant to their attitude (Hyland 2002). In examples (7) and (8), despite a difference in their grammatical structure, both KSEE and NYTOC used important to convey the writers’ attitude toward the given issue. (7) Therefore, I think modern technology is very important component in our life and its’ not easy to go back to the nature. (KSEE 11) (8) It is important to remember that this kind of headline-grabbing mass shooting constitutes only a tiny fraction of the gun murders. (NYTOC 19)
4.2.4 Self-Mentions Self-mentions have been considered to be a way to provide a visible embodiment of a writer identity in texts, displaying the writer’s ownership of the text to readers (Hyland 2002). Self-mentions is the second most frequent feature in KSEE and the third most frequent one in NYTOC. Research on academic writing (Hyland 2002, 2004; Lee and Deakin 2016; Uhm et al. 2009) shows that while self-mentions is among the least frequent stance features, opinion columns in newspapers use more of first-person singular pronouns (Dafous-Milne 2008; Fu and Hyland 2014). Unlike newspaper editorials, opinion columns are more likely to present writers’ personal but yet professional expertise in a text, which further encourages them to adopt more self-mentions (Le 2004). This corroborates Back and Lee (2017) arguing that Korean EFL students take “a more assertive and direct tone” in a academic writing discourse (147). Examples (9) and (10) show how the first person pronoun is used to mark the writers’ position in their argument. (9) I suggest that colleges develop their own aptitude test. (KSEE 49) (10) I hope that dialogue will prevail to improve our democratic system (NYTOC 43)
4.2.5 Engagement markers Although there is no significant difference between the two text types, engagement markers are the most frequent features in both texts (see
). According to Dafouz-Milne (2008), engagement markers accounted for a large proportion of all voice resources in the genre of newspaper opinion columns. This result shows that the writers of opinion columns tend to make it visible to engage readers in their proposition, which is not the case in newspaper editorials.
Most Frequent Engagement Markers in KSEE and NYTOC Rank
KSEE
NYTOC
Marker
Token
phw
Marker
Token
phw
1
we/our/us
298
1.22
we/our/us
431
0.87
2
you
78
0.32
you
108
0.22
3
need
38
0.16
?
87
0.18
4
should
31
0.13
people
73
0.14
5
it is...
22
0.09
American
58
0.12
6
?
20
0.08
P. Asides
31
0.06
7
have to
19
0.08
must
17
0.04
8
as
15
0.06
should
16
0.03
According to
, although inclusive-we and you are the most frequent lexical items in both texts, the distribution of other features is remarkably discrepant between the two groups of essays. While need, should, it is..., and rhetorical questions were highly frequent in KSEE, NYTOC used more of rhetorical questions, people,
American, and personal asides. Such disparity appears to be due to their different register. In a journalistic writing, writers of opinion columns tend to provide their readers with an official opinion of the newspaper. Thus, they attempt to make their arguments reach the target audience by specifying them. In this study, such an audience-centered stance was realized in the use of people and American. This feature along with rhetorical questions and personal asides is intended to attract more of reader participation by letting the audience aware of the writer’s presence in the texts (Hyland 1998, 2005b). Rhetorical questions in (11) and (12) encourage readers to participate in evaluation of writers’ proposition. Many Americans in (13) reminds readers of their identity as American. Finally, personal asides in (14) mark the writer’s position in a proposition by interrupting his or her argument. (11) Do you agree standardized test is necessary for a college admission? (KSEE 43) (12) Is helpless outrage the only choice gun-control advocates have after Las Vegas? (NYTOC 32) 한국외국어대학교 | IP: 203.232.***.199 | Accessed 2018/03/30 18:01(KST)
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(13) In the wake of the election, many Americans have taken to the streets. Me? I’m cooking. (NYTOC 36) (14) Our school is fortunate to have as a student a young man (whose name I can’t mention) who has published a book (whose title I can’t cite). (NYTOC 37)
5. Conclusion The present study investigated how English essays written by Korean EFL students and New York Times opinions columns differ in their use of interactional metadiscourse. The comparative analysis shows that both similarities and differences were found between the two texts in terms of the frequency and the usage of metadiscourse markers. Supporting previous research (Dafouz-Milne 2008; Fu and Hyland 2014; Hyland and Tse 2004), this result suggests that language proficiency and register are important factors for rhetorical features of persuasive writing. First, although previous research argues that the frequency of interactional metadiscourse markers is closely associated with the strength of a writer voice and authorship within a text (Yoon 2017; Zhao 2017), the present study suggests that this is not necessarily interpreted as the quality of the texts. Given that Korean EFL students used substantially more hedges, attitude markers than native English-speaking writers in this study, it is still in question whether the number of metadiscourse markers is exactly correlated with the text quality. Mahmood, Javaid, and Mahmood’s (2017) error analysis shows that L2 students’ argumentative writing contains a wide range of inappropriate metadiscourse markers along with grammatical errors. Thus, as Zhang (2016) argues, a multidimentional analysis of metadiscourse markers is needed to understand the nature of metadiscourse in written register. Second, in terms of methodology of analyzing metadiscourse markers, it is suggestive to consider how many types of metadiscourse features have been used in texts as well as the simple frequency of metadiscourse markers. In this study, expert writers in NYTOC employed more diverse types of metadiscourse features in hedges, boosters and attitude markers than Korean student writers. As Yoon (2017) suggests, using a 한국외국어대학교 | IP: 203.232.***.199 | Accessed 2018/03/30 18:01(KST)
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wide range of metadiscourse features across all recourses is obviously more effective in establishing a writer’s strong voice than an overuse of certain features. Finally, written register need to be considered to understand the varied strategies of using engagement markers. Analysis of sub-categories of metadiscourse shows that the use of engagement markers vary across two different registers. Although Korean students’ essays and New York Times opinion columns are similar with persuasive features, the latter register more specifies readers to engage them directly in the texts. It is also suggestive that while Korean writers’ overuse of inclusive-we, need, and
should reflects their consciousness of social and/or cultural expectations in Korea (Hyland 2002), native writers of English are likely to objectify their readers from themselves to appeal to the audience by using more of rhetorical questions marks, a reader-engagement marker people and American, and personal asides. Some pedagogical implications should be suggested in the discipline of L2 writing. First, newspaper opinion columns can be used as a source of reading/writing by which L2 students improve their writing skills. Second, register-based writing instruction should be adopted in L2 writing classrooms because the norms and expectations against successful writing can be different across different registers. A few limitations may be pointed out in the present research. First, since the number of participants in this study was limited, the further study is needed to attest the result discussed in the current study. Second, unlike Hyland (2004), this study did not include interviews with the student writers. Thus, future studies may fill this gap by conducting further research including interviews and/or survey to hear the writers’ direct voice.
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Seongyong Lee Foreign Language Education Center Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Oedae-ro 81, Mohyeon-myeon, Cheoin-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do Republic of Korea, 17035 [email protected] Received Reviewed Accepted
