Corpus-based analysis of thematic structure in L2 writing

Abstract

This paper reports an analysis of development in Korean students’ argumentative essays using a special analytical unit, Theme. Defined as the initial position of a sentence, Theme is where background information is condensed and connected to new arguments in a logical manner, and thus, can serve as a powerful method of development. Recognizing the lack of research on thematic progression in a Korean EFL context, this paper explores the pattern of thematic progression by comparing Korean students' argumentative essays (KSAE) collected from six different universities (200,469 words) to the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS), a 300,000-word collection of essays written by native speakers of English. The results show a significant difference between non-native and native speakers’ essays in all four key aspects of thematic structure: length, function, plurality, and semantic role. These findings indicate Korean students tend to overuse of highly formulaic and repetitive themes. Although the analysis is largely exploratory at this point, the approach taken in this paper shows the potential value of using Theme analysis for L2 writing pedagogy.