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Learning to 'thing' : adolescents developing control of nominal groups in theme position
Author
Toh-Tay, Lucy Sui Leng
Supervisor
Teo, Peter
Abstract
The ability to argue is recognized as a higher order language and thinking skill. Arguments, because they involve commenting on experience, are necessarily more abstract than experience itself. Not all students successfully make the transition from the more concrete genres of Primary School that merely document experience to the more abstract ones of Secondary School that require them to comment on this experience, all the more so when they have to do so in a language with which they are still grappling. Drawing on the theories and research of Systemic Functional Linguistics, this study proposes that a key feature of argumentative writing is control of nominal groups and, in particular, nominalization, in Theme position. These features are the means by which skilled writers foreground critical information and ideas in the form of phenomena to be defined, examined, supported, refuted and logically related to other phenomena. By analyzing drafts of essays written by 14-15 year olds in a Singapore Secondary School, the study aimed to observe how well these students controlled the process of nominalization and the process of constructing nominal groups in Theme position when writing argumentative essays. The study found that students struggled to control these features of abstract writing with few succeeding in improving their drafts through more carefully constructed themes. The reasons for this included the dominance of spoken language as opposed to written language in the students experience as well as a lack of understanding of the audience, purpose and context of the texts they were to write. Finally, on the evidence that control of the Theme is critical to advance literacy and on the basis of these students' difficulties with it, a chase is made for model of developing language use in the written mode. This model aims to integrate a functional approach to grammar more fully and systematically into Singapore's English Language Syllabus.
Date Issued
2005
Call Number
PE1068.S55 Toh
Date Submitted
2005