English L2 connectives in academic bilingual discoursea longitudinal computerised analysis of a learner corpus

  1. Granados, Adrián 1
  2. Lorenzo, Francisco 2
  1. 1 Universidad Pablo de Olavide, España
  2. 2 Pablo de Olavide University, España
Aldizkaria:
Revista signos: estudios de lingüística

ISSN: 0035-0451 0718-0934

Argitalpen urtea: 2021

Alea: 54

Zenbakia: 106

Orrialdeak: 626-644

Mota: Artikulua

DOI: 10.4067/S0718-09342021000200626 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openSarbide irekia editor

Beste argitalpen batzuk: Revista signos: estudios de lingüística

Laburpena

This paper aims to describe the longitudinal evolution in the use of English L2 connectives made by students enrolled in a bilingual CLIL programme in the Andalusian secondary education system (Southern Spain) over three years of formal tuition. The automated tool Coh-Metrix has been used to approach a learner corpus produced by students as part of the school subject of bilingual history, which is taught in English as an L2. The overall evolution of connectives has been analysed, as well as the evolution of each of the connectives’ categories measured by Coh-Metrix (causal, logical, adversative/contrastive, temporal, extended temporal and additive connectives). Results have then been interpreted in order to pinpoint the developmental stage of students’ L2 written proficiency and analyse their degree of historical literacy. Over the three years of our study, the students have been found to increase their overall use of connectives in 15‰, indicating that they are becoming more proficient L2 writers. Furthermore, there is a particular increase in their use of causal and adversative/contrastive connectives, and a decrease in extended temporal connectives, which points to the development of their historical literacy and their transition from narrative to expository texts.

Erreferentzia bibliografikoak

  • Achugar, M. & Carpenter, B. (2014). Tracking movement toward academic language in multilingual classrooms. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 14, 60-71.
  • Achugar, M. & Schleppegrell, M. J. (2005). Beyond connectors: The construction of cause in history textbooks. Linguistics and Education, 16(3), 298-318.
  • Akiguet, S. & Piolat, A. (1996). Insertion of connectives by 9- to 11-year-old children in an argumentative text. Argumentation, 10, 253-270.
  • Asención-Delaney, Y. & Collentine, Y. (2011). A multidimensional analysis of a written L2 Spanish corpus. Applied Linguistics, 32, 299-322.
  • Beacco, J. D. (2010). Items for a description of linguistic competence in the language of schooling necessary for teaching/learning history (end of obligatory education) [on line]. Retrieved from: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/Source2010_ForumGeneva/1_ LIS-History2010_en.pdf
  • Bernstein, B. (1990). The structuring of pedagogic discourse Volume IV: Class, codes and control. London: Routledge.
  • Biber, D. (1992). The multi-dimensional approach to linguistic analyses of genre variation: An overview of methodology and findings. Computers and the Humanities, 26(5/6), 331-345.
  • Blommaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Bourdieu, P. (1992). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Polity Press.
  • Cain, K. & Nash, H. M. (2011). The influence of connectives on young readers’ processing and comprehension of text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 103(2), 429-441.
  • Cenoz, J., Genesee, F. & Gorter, D. (2014). Critical analysis of CLIL: Taking stock and looking forward. Applied Linguistics, 35, 243-262.
  • Christie, F. (2012). Language education: A functional perspective. Language learning monograph series. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
  • Christie, F. & Maton, K. (2011). Disciplinarity: Functional linguistic and sociological perspectives. London: Continuum.
  • Coffin, C. (2006). ‘Reconstructing personal time as collective time: Learning the discourse of history.’ In R. Whittaker, M. O’Donnell & A. McCabe (Eds.), Language and literacy: Functional approaches (pp. 15-45). London: Continuum.
  • Coffin, C. (2009). Historical discourse. London: Continuum.
  • Crismore, A., Markkanen, R. & Steffensen, M. S. (1993). Metadiscourse in persuasive writing: A study of texts written by American and Finnish university students. Written Communication, 10, 39-71.
  • Crossley, S. A. & McNamara, D. S. (2010). Cohesion, coherence, and expert evaluations of writing proficiency. In S. Ohlsson & R. Catrambone (Eds.), Proceedings of the 32nd annual conference of the cognitive science society (pp. 984-989). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
  • Crossley, S. A. & McNamara, D. S. (2011). Text coherence and judgments of essay quality: Models of quality and coherence. In L. Carlson, C. Hoelscher & T. F. Shipley (Eds.), Proceedings of the 29th annual conference of the cognitive science society (pp. 1236-1241). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
  • Crossley, S. A. & McNamara, D. S. (2012). Predicting second language writing proficiency: The roles of cohesion and linguistic sophistication. Journal of Research in Reading, 35, 115-135.
  • Crossley, S. A., Kyle, K. & McNamara, D.S. (2016). The development and use of cohesive devices in L2 writing and their relations to judgments of essay quality. Journal of Second Language Writing, 32, 1-16.
  • Crossley, S. A., Roscoe, R. D., McNamara, D. S. & Graesser, A. (2011). Predicting human scores of essay quality using computational indices of linguistic and textual features. In G. Biswas, S. Bull, J. Kay & A. Mitrovic (Eds.), Proceedings of the 15th international conference on artificial intelligence in education (pp. 438-440). New York, NY: Springer.
  • Crossley, S. A., Salsbury, T. & McNamara, D. S. (2010a). The development of polysemy and frequency use in English second language speakers. Language Learning, 60, 573-605.
  • Crossley, S. A., Salsbury, T. & McNamara, D. S. (2010b). The development of semantic relations in second language speakers: A case for Latent Semantic Analysis. Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7, 55-74.
  • Cummins, J. (2008). BICS and CALP: Empirical and theoretical status of the distinction. In B. Street & N. H. Hornberger (Eds.), Encyclopaedia of language and education: Vol. 2. Literacy (pp. 71-83). New York: Springer.
  • Dressen-Hammouda, D. (2008). From novice to disciplinary expert: Disciplinary identity and genre mastery. English for Specific Purposes, 27(2), 233-252.
  • Duff, P. (2008). Case study research in applied linguistics. New York/London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Evola, J., Mamer, E. & Lentz, B. (1980). Discrete point versus global scoring for cohesive devices. In J. Oller Jr. & K. Perkins (Eds.), Research in language testing (pp. 177-181). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
  • Freedman, A. & Pringle, I. (1980). Writing in the college years: Some indices of growth. College Composition and Communication, 31, 311-324.
  • Gené-Gil, M., Juan-Garau, M. & Salazar-Noguera J. (2015). Development of EFL writing over three years in secondary education: CLIL and non-CLIL settings. Language Learning Journal, 43, 286-303.
  • Halliday, M. A. K. & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman.
  • Harwood, N. & Hadley, G. (2004). Demystifying institutional practices: Critical pragmatism and the teaching of academic writing. English for Specific Purposes, 23(4), 355-377.
  • Haswell, R. H. (1986). Change in undergraduate and post-graduate writing performance: Quantified findings (Technical Report). Retrieved from: ERIC database. (ED269780)
  • Heine, L. (2014). Models of the bilingual lexicon and their theoretical implications for CLIL. The Language Learning Journal, 42(2), 225-237.
  • Hornberger, N. (2004). The Continua of biliteracy and the bilingual educator: Educational linguistics in practice. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 7(2), 155-171.
  • Jafarpur, A. (1991). Cohesiveness as a basis for evaluating compositions. System, 19, 459-465.
  • Just, M. A. & Carpenter, P. A. (1980). A theory of reading: From eye fixations to comprehension. Psychological Review, 87, 329-354.
  • King, M. & Rentel, V. (1979). Toward a theory of early writing development. Research in the Teaching of English, 13, 243-253.
  • Llinares, A., Morton, T. & Whittaker, R. (2012). The roles of language in CLIL. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Longo, B. (1994). Current research in technical communication: The role of metadiscourse in persuasion. Technical Communication, 41, 348-352.
  • Lorenzo, F. (2013). Genre-based curricula: Multilingual academic literacy in content and language integrated learning. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 16(3), 375-388.
  • Lorenzo, F. (2017). Historical Literacy in bilingual settings: Cognitive academic language in L2 History Narratives. Linguistics and Education, 37, 32-41.
  • Lorenzo, F. & Dalton-Puffer, C. (2016). Historical literacy in CLIL: Telling the past in a second language. In T. Nikula, E. Dafouz, P. Moore & U. Smit (Eds.), Conceptualising Integration in CLIL and Multilingual Education (pp. 55-72). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
  • Lorenzo, F., Casal, S. & Moore, P. (2010). The effects of content and language integrated learning in European education: Key findings from the Andalusian bilingual sections evaluation project. Applied Linguistics, 31(3), 418-442.
  • Lorenzo, F., Granados, A. & Ávila, I. (2019). The development of cognitive academic language proficiency in multilingual education: Evidence of a longitudinal study on the language of history. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 41, 100767.
  • Lorenzo, F., Granados, A. & Rico, N. (2020). Equity in bilingual education: Socioeconomic status and content and language integrated learning in monolingual Southern Europe. Applied Linguistics, amaa037.
  • Louwerse, M. (2000). From cohesion in text to coherence in comprehension. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
  • Louwerse, M. (2001). An analytic and cognitive parameterization of coherence relations. Cognitive Linguistics, 12, 291-315.
  • Lu, X. (2010). Automatic analysis of syntactic complexity in second language writing. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 15(4), 474-496.
  • Macaro, E. (2018). English medium instruction: Content and language in policy and practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Martin, J. R. & White, P. R. R. (2005). The language of evaluation. Appraisal in English. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • McCulley, G. A. (1985). Writing quality, coherence, and cohesion. Research in the Teaching of English, 19, 269-282.
  • McCutchen, D. & Perfetti, C. A. (1982). Coherence and connectedness in the development of discourse production. Text-Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse, 2(1–3), 113-140.
  • McNamara, D. S., Louwerse, M., Cai, Z. & Graesser, A. (2014). Automated evaluation of text and discourse with Coh-Metrix. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Nikula, T., Dalton-Puffer, C., Llinares, A. & Lorenzo, F. (2016). More than content and language: The complexity of integration in CLIL and Bilingual Education. In T. Nikula, E. Dafouz, P. Moore & U. Smit (Eds.), Conceptualising Integration in CLIL and Multilingual Education. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 1-26.
  • Nokes, J. D. (2013). Building students’ historical literacies: Learning to read and reason with historical texts and evidence. New York: Routledge.
  • Ortega, L. & Byrnes, H. (Eds.). (2008). The longitudinal study of advanced L2 capacities. New York: Routledge.
  • Pérez, A., Lorenzo, F. & Pavón, V. (2016). European bilingual models beyond linguafranca: Key findings from CLIL French programs. Language Policy, 15(4), 485-504.
  • Polio, C. & Yoon, H. J. (2018). The reliability and validity of automated tools for examining variation in syntactic complexity across genres. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 28(1), 165-188.
  • Rayner, K. & Pollatsek, A. (1994). The psychology of reading. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
  • Sanders, T. J. M. & Noordman L. G. M. (2000). The role of coherence relations and their linguistic markers in processing. Discourse Processes, 29(1), 37-60.
  • Schleppegrell, M. J. & Colombi, M. C. (2002). Developing advanced literacy in first and second languages. Mawhaw: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Shanahan, T. & Shanahan, C. (2008). Teaching disciplinary literacy to adolescents. Rethinking content-area literacy. Harvard Educational Review, 78, 40-59.
  • Spoelman, M. & Verspoor, M. (2010). Dynamic patterns in development of accuracy and complexity: A longitudinal case study in the acquisition of finnish. Applied Linguistics, 31(4), 532-553.
  • Vande Kopple, W. J. (1985). Some exploratory discourse on metadiscourse. College Composition and Communication, 36, 82-93.
  • Vollmer, H. J. (2006). Language across the curriculum. Brussels: Language Policy Division, Council of Europe.
  • Wagner, S. (2011). Concessives and contrastives in student writing: L1, L2 and genre differences. In J. Schmied (Ed.), Academic Writing in Europe: Empirical Perspectives (pp. 23-49). Göttingen: Cuvillier.
  • White, H. (2010). The fiction of narrative: Essays on History, Literature, and Theory, 1957- 2007. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • Wolfe-Quintero, K., Inagaki, S. & Hae-Youn, K. (1998). Second language development in writing: Measures of fluency, accuracy, and complexity. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.
  • Yang, W. & Sun, Y. (2012). The use of cohesive devices in argumentative writing by Chinese EFL learners at different proficiency levels. Linguistics and Education, 23, 31-48.
  • Yin, R. K. (2014). Case study research design and methods (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.