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. Võ Đại Quang Hanoi - 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION……………………………………………………….iii TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………….iv LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………. Scope of the study ……………………………………………………2 3. Aims and objectives of the study ………………….
Design of the study……………………………………………………3 PART B. English study in Vietnam 1. English study in Vietnam and National Economics University…4 1. Issues in writing academic arguments………………………….
Studies related to the topic of the study………………………………. Definition and background information of terms 3. Definition of academic writing and argumentative essay …. Definition of discourse markers ……………….
Properties of discourse markers……………………………16 3. Morphological properties …………………………17 6 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Syntactic properties and classification ……………17 3. Semantic properties and classification ………….
Types of discourse markers ………………………………. Role of discourse markers in writing………………………. Background of the site for data collection…………. Data gathering technique………………………………………………21 3.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 1.1 Frequency of discourse markers ………………………….2 Frequency of type of discourse markers ………………….3 Correlation between the use of discourse markers and quality of argumentative writing essays………………………………. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 1.1 Concluding remark on objective 1 ………………………….2 Concluding remark on objective 2 …………………………. Recommendation for further research………………………….45 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………46 APPENDIX……………………………………………………………………I 7 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 1 essays………….28 Table 5: Frequency of use of discourse markers in group 2 essays……….28 Table 6: Frequency of use of discourse markers in group 3 essays……….……30 Table 7: Frequency and percentage of types of discourse markers in group 1 essays ……………………………………………………………….32 Table 8: Frequency and percentage of types of discourse markers in group 2 essays ……………………………………………………………….33 Table 9: Frequency and percentage of types of discourse markers in group 3 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 8 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. 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.
1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. 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. 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. 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. 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Research questions In this study the answers to the following research questions were of particular interest: 1. What is the usage frequency of English discourse markers in students‟ argumentative essays? 2.
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. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
English study in Vietnam and National Economics University and issues in writing academic argument 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. 4 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. 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 5 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com specific demands of the target domain (Dudley-Evans & John 1998). The main concern in EAP is assisting learners‟ study or research in English. According to Canale and Swain (1980), writers at least need grammatical competence (knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, and semantics), discourse competence (knowledge of genres and the rhetorical patterns that create them), sociolinguistic competence (the ability to use language appropriately in different contexts) and strategic competence (the ability to use a variety of communicative strategies). With respect to second language (L2) writers, Silva (1993) reviewed numerous studies comparing research into first and second language writing, and concluded that “L2 writing is strategically, rhetorically and linguistically different in important ways from L1 writing”.
The differences that were noted include the differences in the following writing and learning issues: - Linguistic proficiencies and intuitions about language; - Learning experience and classroom expectations; - Sense of audience and writer; - Preferences for ways of organizing texts; - Writing process; and - Understanding of text uses and the social value of different text types Over the past four decades, language learners have become increasingly aware the importance of an appropriate grammatical competence and sociolinguistic competence in communication. These competences play a significant role in producing a successful composition. To ensure communication success, it is vital to achieve sociolinguistic competence (the ability to use language appropriately and naturally in different contexts). Because of the increase in interest in the formal teaching of writing and language learners‟ needs to write properly in the target language, it is required that students are supplied adequate sociolinguistic competence to employ and function word choice in the most natural way.
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