"It is widely known" – dialogic features of undergraduate students' writing in Linguistics

Abstract

This paper presents the initial findings of a qualitative and longitudinal study of the dialogic features of the writing of two local undergraduate students in the discipline of Linguistics. It examines the degree to which the students introduced "expert" voices into their texts and the ways in which they engaged with these voices. The assignment tasks were analysed using Genre Theory (Martin & Rose, 2008), and Appraisal Theory (Martin & White, 2005). In particular, an analysis with reference to Engagement, that system identified by SFL theory as to do with negotiating multiple perspectives or voices in texts, was used to analyse the students‟ texts to discover how they positioned themselves dialogically with respect to material attributed to these expert sources. The Genre analysis revealed that it was not always possible to predict from the wordings of essay questions which genre would be employed by the students when they were constructing essays in response to the questions. Thus, for example, a question wording which asked the students to "explain", would not necessarily result in an Explanation genre being produced. Students employed a range of different generic structures, depending upon their interpretation of the task directives, but the primary focus of this analysis was on essays which were in some way argumentative or which presented some form of case. The Engagement analysis showed that the large proportion of the students' propositions were categorically asserted ('monoglossic'), without any form of justification or qualification, even though the majority of essay questions contained the directive "discuss". Where there were "heteroglossic formulations", that is statements which allowed for alternative points of view through citation or other rhetorical devices, there was a variation in the types and number used by each student. Noteworthy aspects of these heteroglossic formulations were that each student tended to favour certain types, irrespective of the content or directives of the assignment. For example, Student A had a tendency to use scare quotes, for example, like a 'sponge' (STA:P6), while Student B consistently used citation to define the terms used in the essay, for example, language acquisition is defined as "the gradual development of ability in a language by using it naturally in communicative situations with others who know the language." (Yule, 2006:163). (STB:P1). A further finding of the study was that at times the process of classification using the Engagement system was problematic. Some formulations were not easily classified into one category or another, while others, which were functionally different, were grouped. This would suggest that it may be appropriate to consider sub-categories or clines within the existing framework, to accommodate a wider range of formulations.