A Longitudinal study of linguistic and rhetorical development in the academic writing of a Japanese ESL student
Date
1997
Authors
Harama, Hitomi
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Abstract
The general methodology of this research is a longitudinal text analysis of writing samples written by one Japanese ESL student. By examining the subject student's writings, the Japanese ESL writing features and the developmental features of acquiring proficiency in written English as a second language will be analyzed.
Seven writing samples from a three year period were selected from the subject's collection of academic writing. Two of the writing samples include both the first and the final versions and the other five are only the final versions of academic papers. Two sets of first and final versions were analyzed to examine the qualitative difference of texts before and after revision. The seven final versions were analyzed to examine the developmental process of academic composition over a three year period.
This study is conducted at two levels of analysis: 1) a linguistic level and 2) a rhetorical level. At the linguistic level, two types of cohesive ties, pronominals and conjunctions, are examined. At the rhetorical level, the topical organization of the text is examined by analyzing the topic of each sentence and plotting the topical structure. This study highlights problem areas caused by transferring the first language (Japanese) rhetorical patterns, ki-shoo-ten-ketsu, into English. By analyzing the features of development of Japanese ESL writings in detail, this study also suggests an effective method of instruction to guide Oriental ESL students in writing for academic purposes.