Attitudinal Evaluation In Chinese University Students English Writing

This book offers up-to-date insights into the long-standing controversy of whether or not Chinese learners of English adequately express their attitudes in written English. It compares four writing datasets from three groups of student writers (e.g., English-speaking students’ English texts, Chinese-speaking students’ Chinese texts, and both English and Chinese texts produced by the same group of Chinese-speaking students majoring in English), and applies the appraisal framework, an analytical tool developed in the field of Systemic Functional Linguistics. The book provides a nuanced view of the deployment of attitudinal patterns and the linguistic resources used for attitudinal evaluation in Chinese students’ English writing. Accordingly, it offers a valuable resource for all those interested in second language writing, contrastive rhetoric, second language acquisition and systemic functional linguistics.

This book brings together the work of established scholars from around the world to celebrate and honor the many ways in which Steve Graham has contributed to the advancement of teaching and researching writing. Focusing on writing development and writing instruction in different contexts of education, original contributions in this book critically engage with theoretical and empirical issues raised in Steve Graham’s influential body of work and significantly extend our understandings of the importance of writing in developing learners’ literacy and the roles of writing in teaching and learning processes. This book is organized around themes central to Steve Graham's work, including theories and models of writing, effective instructional methods in teaching writing, surveys on teaching and learning writing, and systematic review studies on writing. Apart from regular chapters, the book also features personal and scholarly reflections revealing the powerful ways in which Steve Graham’s work has influenced our thinking in the field of writing research and continues to open up new avenues for future research endeavors.

This edited collection addresses the link between second language pragmatics (including interlanguage and intercultural) research and English language education. The chapters use different contemporary research methods and theoretical frameworks such as conversation analysis, language-learners-as-ethnographers, discourse and interactional approaches and data in contexts (either in the region or overseas). The content explores and discusses the significance of learning and teaching of second language (L2) pragmatics in language education for learners who use English as a lingua franca for academic and intercultural communication purposes with native and non-native speakers of English, focusing on pragmatic actions, social behaviours, perceptions and awareness levels in three regions in East Asia – China, Japan and South Korea. It is an important contribution to the area of second language pragmatics in language education for East Asian learners. It recommends research-informed pedagogies for the learning and teaching of interlanguage or intercultural pragmatics in regions and places where similar cultural beliefs or practices are found. This is an essential read for researchers, language educators, classroom teachers, readers who are interested in second language pragmatics research and those interested in second language acquisition and English language education in the East Asian context.

This volume explores the implications of Chinese for linguistic theory building and for the field of second language acquisition. Bringing together selected papers from the first International Symposium on Chinese Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, it sheds light upon under-documented topics in a variety of areas within theoretical and applied research. The topics covered here include competing approaches within optimality theory to phonological opacity, formal solutions to puzzles in Shanghainese morphosyntax, and different approaches to polarity items and presentational sentences in Chinese. With regard to applied linguistics, the contributions in this volume address challenges in the acquisition of Chinese phonology by L1 Danish speakers as well as the acquisition of the Mandarin ba construction by Cantonese learners, and the expression of social judgements in the L1 and L2. Taken together, the papers in this volume contribute to the empirical documentation of aspects of the Chinese language and its acquisition, as well as helping to unpack the significance of Chinese for mainstream linguistic theory.

This book addresses the transfer of rhetorical knowledge from a first language (L1) to a second language (L1-to-L2 rhetorical transfer), a common cognitive phenomenon in the L2 writing of students in foreign language learning environments. It investigates L1-to-L2 rhetorical transfer from a cognitive perspective and examines a specific component of L2 writers’ agency in this transfer, namely metacognition. The book’s ultimate goal is to enhance our understanding of the cognitive mechanism of rhetorical transfer across languages. This goal is in turn connected to the need to determine how L1 rhetorical knowledge can be steered and oriented toward successful L2 writing. To this end, this book proposes a theoretical framework for transfer studies, encompassing the dimensions of text, transfer agency, and L2 essay raters. It facilitates an in-depth exploration of the intricacies involved in L1-to-L2 rhetorical transfer. It then presents empirical studies on this transfer. Embracing a dynamic perspective, this book furthers our understanding of interlingual rhetorical transfer as a conscious or intuitive process for making meaning, one that can be monitored and steered. Moreover, it discusses the pedagogical implications for L2 writing instruction that guides students to use metacognition to transfer L1 rhetorical knowledge during L2 writing.

This volume offers a comprehensive account of language development from a Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) perspective, integrating theory and data from a wide range of research studies. The book begins by taking an in-depth look at SFL theory and its focus on texts, highlighting the metafunctional nature of language and the ways in which individuals’ repertoires of meaning-making resources develop as they interact with the world and with others. Grounded in an SFL approach, the successive chapters consider in turn the key stages of language development, from infancy to school settings to additional, second, and foreign language learning contexts. Each chapter incorporates a range of SFL studies to demonstrate shifts in language development across these stages, but also the discussion of other functional perspectives to examine the ways in which these different approaches inform one another. A concluding chapter considers the implications of these studies for future research as well as for pedagogical practices in literacy teaching. In its consideration of the relationship between SFL theory and its application to language development, this book will be key reading for students and scholars in Systemic Functional Linguistics, language and education, and literacy studies.

This book offers a range of personal and engaging stories that highlight the diverse voices of doctoral students as they explore their own learning journeys. Through these stories, doctoral students call for an academic environment in which the discipline-specific knowledge gained during their PhD is developed in concert with the skills needed to maintain personal wellbeing, purposely reflect on experiences, and build intercultural competence. In recent years, wellbeing has been increasingly recognised as an important aspect of doctoral education. Yet, few resources exist to help those who support doctoral students. Wellbeing in Doctoral Education provides a voice for doctoral students to advocate for improvements to their own educational environment. Both the struggles and the strategies for success highlighted by the students are, therefore, invaluable not only for the students themselves, but also their families, their social networks, and academia more broadly. Importantly, the doctoral students’ stories should be a clarion call for those in decision-making positions in academia. These narratives demonstrate that it is imperative that academic institutions invest in providing the skills and support that doctoral students need to succeed academically and flourish emotionally.

Language and Society is the fifth volume of the Readings in Language Studies series published by the International Society for Language Studies, Inc. Edited by Paul Chamness Miller, Hidehiro Endo, John L. Watzke, and Miguel Mantero, volume five sustains the society's mission to organize and disseminate the work of its contributing members through peer-reviewed publications. The book presents international perspectives on language and society in three thematic sections: teaching practices & pedagogy, policy, and culture. A resource for scholars and students, Language and Society represents the latest scholarship in new and emergent areas of inquiry.