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. NGUYỄN QUANG NGOẠN e 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 CÔNG Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số: 8220201 Supervisor: Assoc. NGUYỄN QUANG NGOẠN e 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 e 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. 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. e 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. 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 2 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.
e iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AWL Academic Word List CALL Computer-Assisted Language Learning ESP English for Specific Purposes IDP International Development Program IELTS The International English Language Testing System IE- CVA IELTS Chu Van An High School Gifted students IE IELTS Candidates IEO IELTS opinion essays GSL General Service List NNSs Non-Native Students SFL Systemic Functional Linguistics SIC Successful IELTS Candidates SLA Second Language Acquisition TOEFL Test of English as a Foreign Language TOEIC Test of English for International Communication VFL Systemic Functional Linguistics e v TABLE OF CONTENT STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. AIM AND OBJECTIVES. SCOPE OF THE STUDY.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY. ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS. DEFINITION OF TERM. Previous Studies of IELTS.
Academic Style and Academic Words. Coherence and Cohesive Devices. Research Approaches and Research Methods. Data Analysis Procedures.
Reliability and Validity. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Lexical Features of Opinion Essays. Lexical Features of Opinion Essays by Successful IELTS Candidates.
Lexical Features of Opinion Essays by Chu Van An High School Gifted Students. Similarities and Differences in Lexical Features by Successful IELTS Candidates and Chu Van An Gifted Students. Effective Structures in Opinion Essays. Effective Structures of Opinion Essays by Successful IELTS Candidates.
Effective Structures of Opinion Essays by Chu Van An High School Gifted Students. Similarities and Differences in effective structures of opinion essays by Successful IELTS Candidates and Chu Van An High School Gifted Students. Cohesive Devices in Opinion Essays. Cohesive Devices in Opinion Essays by Successful IELTS Candidates.
Cohesive Devices in Opinion Essays by Chu Van An High School Gifted Students. Similarities and Differences in Cohesive Devices in Opinion Essays by Successful IELTS Candidates and Chu Van An High School Gifted Students. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH.
64 APPENDIX e viii LIST OF TABLES N0 Name of Tables Page Table 2.1 Parts of speech by Halliday and Hasan (1976) 17 Table 2.2 Classifications of lexical collocations by Hausmann 22 (1989) Table 2.3 Framework for the analysis of structures used in 28 IELTS essays Table 2.4 List of categories of connectives suggested by 33 Halliday and Hasan (1976) Table 4.1 Types of academic words in opinion essays 39 Table 4.2 Frequency of collocations in opinion essays 39 Table 4.3 Frequency of phrasal verbs in band-8 IELTS 40 opinion essays Table 4.4 Effective structures in successful IELTS 49 candidates‟ essays Table 4.5 Effective structures of Chu Van An High School 53 gifted students Table 4.6 Similarities and differences of effective structures in written essays by successful IELTS candidates 56 versus Chu Van An gifted students Table 4.7 Frequency of cohesive devices in written essays by 57 successful IELTS candidates Table 4.8 Frequency of cohesive devices in written essays by 58 Chu Van An High School gifted students e ix LIST OF FIGURES N0 Names of figures Pages Figure 4.1 Four general parts of speech in opinion essays 38 Figure 4.2 Frequency of academic words, collocations and phrasal verbs used in successful IELTS candidates‟ 41 essays Figure 4.3 Frequency of lexical features used in written essays 45 by Chu Van An gifted students Figure 4.4 Similarities and differences of lexical features by successful IELTS candidates and Chu Van An 48 gifted Students e 1 CHAPTER 1 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. 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 e 2 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. 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. AIM AND OBJECTIVES 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.
Objectives This study aims at the following objectives: e 3 - 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. 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.
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.