Article |
| Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 57-72 |
| Abbreviation: APJCR |
| e-ISSN: 2733-8096 |
| Publication date: 31 December 2020 |
| Received: 15 July 2020 / Received in Revised Form: 4 December 2020 / Accepted: 17 December 2020 |
| DOI: https://doi.org/10.22925/apjcr.2020.1.2.57
|
In My Opinion: Modality in Japanese EFL Learners’ Argumentative Essays |
| Christine Pemberton (Kanda University of International Studies) |
| Copyright 2020 APJCR
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Abstract |
| This study seeks to add to the current understanding of learners’ use of modality in argumentative writing. A learner corpus of argumentative essays on four topics was created and compared to native English speaker data from the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English (ICNALE). The relationship between learners’ use of modal devices (MDs) and the devices’ appearance in the school’s curriculum was also examined. The results showed that learners relied on a very narrow range of MDs compared to those in previous studies. The frequency of use of MDs varied based on the topic and did not seem to be driven by cultural factors as has been previously suggested. Learners used more hedges than boosters on all topics, contradicting most previous studies. Curriculum was determined to have a direct correlation with MD use, and other important factors may include perception of topic and overreliance on certain MDs over others (the One-to-One principal). This research implies that learners’ perception of topic should be explored further as a variable affecting MD use. Curricula should be designed based on frequency of MD use by English native speakers, and learners should receive instruction that teaches the norms of MD use in academic writing. The methodology used in the study to determine correlations between MD use and the curriculum has a wide range of potential applications in the field of Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis. |
Keywords |
| Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis, Corpus Linguistics, Modality, Argumentative Writing, Curriculum |
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The Authors’ Addresses |
| First and Corresponding Author Christine Pemberton Lecturer English Language Institute Kanda University of International Studies 1 Chome-4-1 Wakaba, Mihama Ward, Chiba, 261-0014, JAPAN E-mail: pemberton-c@kanda.kuis.ac.jp |
