The academic writing of Japanese students of English : contrastive rhetoric and its implications for an integrated approach to composition pedagogy
This thesis begins with the assertion that there are serious inadequacies in the academic writing of Japanese students of English studying at the post-secondary level in Japan. To substantiate this claim, Chapter 1 presents a preliminary profile of student writing, based on a survey of the literature, the testimony of established authorities, and representative samples of student compositions, establishing baseline parameters of infelicity in their written work and identifying key features that characterize such writing. This survey also reveals numerous problems inherent in the research carried out to date, including the fact that terminological confusions are widespread and findings tend to be impressionistic and anecdotal. Chapter 1 concludes with a statement of the basic premise of this thesis, claiming that given effective instruction, based on an integrated approach to composition pedagogy, Japanese EL2 students are capable of making significant improvements in their academic writing skills. Although purely descriptive, taxonomic approaches to the analysis of written discourse, such as the profile of student writing presented in Chapter 1, are often a useful initial heuristic, they also have a number
Davies, Roger J.
Discourse linguistics; Language; Skills; Schools
The academic writing of Japanese students of English : contrastive rhetoric and its implications for an integrated approach to composition pedagogy. This thesis begins with the assertion that there are serious inadequacies in the academic writing of Japanese students of English studying at the post-secondary level in Japan. To substantiate this claim, Chapter 1 presents a preliminary profile of student writing, based on a survey of the literature, the testimony of established authorities, and representative samples of student compositions, establishing baseline parameters of infelicity in their written work and identifying key features that characterize such writing. This survey also reveals numerous problems inherent in the research carried out to date, including the fact that terminological confusions are widespread and findings tend to be impressionistic and anecdotal. Chapter 1 concludes with a statement of the basic premise of this thesis, claiming that given effective instruction, based on an integrated approach to composition pedagogy, Japanese EL2 students are capable of making significant improvements in their academic writing skills. Although purely descriptive, taxonomic approaches to the analysis of written discourse, such as the profile of student writing presented in Chapter 1, are often a useful initial heuristic, they also have a number
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