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A move analysis of literary critical commentaries
Author
Yong, Mee Lian
Supervisor
Skuja-Steele, Rita
Abstract
This thesis reports on the application of the techniques of move analysis to a corpus of commentaries on unseen literary passages for Literature Paper 8. Move analysis, as devised primarily by Swales (1990), refers to a study of texts as a series of moves, comprising segments that are determined by specific communicative functions. This analysis of the move structure of literary critical commentaries was motivated by a desire to understand the factors contributing to the mediocre performance of students in the writing of such commentaries. Literature Paper 8, a paper that is offered in the Cambridge GCE 'A' level examination, requires students to write a personal response to unseen literary passages. This investigation is based on the hypothesis that these personal responses comprise a genre called the critical commentary and that the successful writing of this genre requires a knowledge of its communicative functions within the literary discourse community. In order to arrive at some insights into the students' writing problem, this study conducted a comparative move analysis of exemplars provided by UCLES and the students' texts written in their first year examination. The communicative categories defined as moves are described in terms of function and linguistic features. The strategies for executing these moves are also identified.
The research approach was descriptive and the corpus comprised a total of thirty six texts. Five of these texts were exemplars provided by UCLES; twenty seven were examination essays that twenty students wrote in the promotional examination at the end of their first year in a junior college. Four of the texts were samples of the students' regular classroom assignments. The analysis of the corpus resulted in the classification of sixteen types moves made in a literary critical commentary. The lexical signals associated with the moves were identified. The findings suggest that the literary critical commentary has a three-part structure and that certain moves appear to be obligatory. The students' inability to write critical commentaries that are considered well written by the specialist examiners seems to be due to the omission of certain moves or the poor execution of the moves. However, the data seem to indicate that there are no clear patterns of recurring moves that may be deemed as move cycles.
This study is exploratory due to the limitations of the subjectivity in the demarcation and labelling of moves and the narrow scope of the data. Nonetheless, this thesis suggests that its findings should be of particular interest to Literature teachers who teach the writing of a critical commentary to students who need to be initiated into the discourse community related to Literature Paper 8.
The research approach was descriptive and the corpus comprised a total of thirty six texts. Five of these texts were exemplars provided by UCLES; twenty seven were examination essays that twenty students wrote in the promotional examination at the end of their first year in a junior college. Four of the texts were samples of the students' regular classroom assignments. The analysis of the corpus resulted in the classification of sixteen types moves made in a literary critical commentary. The lexical signals associated with the moves were identified. The findings suggest that the literary critical commentary has a three-part structure and that certain moves appear to be obligatory. The students' inability to write critical commentaries that are considered well written by the specialist examiners seems to be due to the omission of certain moves or the poor execution of the moves. However, the data seem to indicate that there are no clear patterns of recurring moves that may be deemed as move cycles.
This study is exploratory due to the limitations of the subjectivity in the demarcation and labelling of moves and the narrow scope of the data. Nonetheless, this thesis suggests that its findings should be of particular interest to Literature teachers who teach the writing of a critical commentary to students who need to be initiated into the discourse community related to Literature Paper 8.
Date Issued
2001
Call Number
PN59 Yon
Date Submitted
2001