PREPONDERANT MODALITY IN STUDENTS’ ENGAGING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS

Marwito Wihadi, Eva Tuckyta Sari Sujatna

Abstract


Expressing modality in Appraisal is cordially expected to be prevalent in argumentative writings in that writers in the Engagement System set up negotiation or alternative points of views. Three conveniently selected student-writers’ hortatory argumentative essays in English in which they were course-instructed in an accredited language institution were linguistically analyzed as to pinpoint their aptness to employ particular modality, furthermore to discuss the feasible resource factors on their employment. It was found out that they were prone to be lack of commitment as they delivered their stances, therefore attempting the readers to be engaged in an argumentative discourse to construe the meanings. Subsequently, they had difficulty in manipulating epistemic and deontic modality, owning mundane syntactic constructions and imparting limited device ranges. Therefore, applicably explicit genre-based instructions are in the need, bearing in mind the factual functions of modality in arguability of the utterances as well the resourceful linguistic features of modality.

Keywords


appraisal; engagement; modality; argumentative; essays

Full Text:

PDF

References


Biber, D., Johanssson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. London: Longman.

Coates, J. (1983). Semantics of the modal auxiliaries. London: Croom Helm.

Coffin, C. (2004). Arguing about how the world is or how the world should be: The role of arguments in IELTS tests. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 3(3), 229-246.

Creswell, J. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods approach. London: SAGE Publication, Inc.

Devrim, D. Y. (2015). Grammatical metaphor: What do we mean? What exactly are we researching? Functional Linguistics, 2(3), 1-15.

Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis. London: Longman.

Fraenkel, J. R., & Wallen, N. E. (2009). How to design and evaluate research in education (7thed). New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Gales, T. (2015). Identifying interpersonal stance in threatening discourse: An appraisal analysis. Discourse Studies, 13(1), 27-46. doi:10.1177/146/445610387735.

Gass, S. M., & Selinker, L. (2001). Second language acquisition: An introductory course (2nd ed.). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Ngula, R. S. (2017). Epistemic modal verbs in research articles written by Ghanaian and international scholars: A corpus-based study of three disciplines. Brno Studies in English, 43(2), 1-24. doi:10.5817/BSE2017-2-1.

Halliday, M. A. K. (2000). An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold.

He, Y., & Wang, H. (2013). A corpus-based study of epistemic modality markers in Chinese research articles. Chinese Lexical Semantics, 7717, 199–208.

Hyland, K. (1990). A genre description of the argumentative essay. RELC Journal, 21(1), 6678.

Hyland, K. (2007). Genre and second language writing. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press.

Janks, H. (1997). Critical discourse analysis as a research tool. Accessed on May 22nd, 2017 from www.uv.es/gimenes/Recursor/criticaldiscourse.pdf.

Khojasteh, L., & Reinders, H. (2013). How textbooks (and learners) get it wrong: A corpus study of modal auxiliary verbs. Applied Research on English Language, 2(1) 33-44.

Kong, C. K. M. (2006). Modality in appraisal in students’ essay: A study of the effect of genre-based instruction. Accessed on April 2nd, 2017 from http://hdl.handle.net/10497/495.

Long, E. (1995). Negotiating competing voices to construct claims and evidence: Urban America teenagers rivalling anti-drug literature. In P. Costello & S. Mitchel (Eds), Competing and consensual voices: The theory and practice of argument (pp. 35-49). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Martin, J. R. (1989). Factual writing: Exploring and challenging social reality (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Martin, J. R. (2000). Beyond exchange: Appraisal system in English. In S. Hunston & G. Thompson (Eds), Evaluation in text: Authorial stance and the construction of discourse (pp. 142-175). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Martin, J. R., & White, P. R. R. (2005). The language of evaluation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Martin, J. R., & Rose, D. (2003). Working with discourse: Meaning beyond the clause. New York: Continuum.

McEnery, T., & Kifle, N. A. (2002). Epistemic modality in argumentative essays of second language writers. Accessed on June 21st, 2017 from http: www.reserachgate.net/publication/3.pdf.

Martin, J. R., Matthiessen, C. M. I. M., & Painter, C. (1997). Working with functional grammar. New York: Arnold.

Palmer, F. R. (2007). Mood and modality. New York: World Book Publishing Company.

Paltridge, B. (2006). Discourse analysis: An introduction. London: Continuum.

Promwinai, P. (2010). The demand of argumentative essay writing: Experiences of Thai tertiary students. Accessed on July, 20th, 2016 from http://www.ro.uow.edu.au/theses/3298.

Qun, Z. (2010). Modality and generic features in Chinese EFL writings. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, 33(5), 40-51.

Reid, J. (1990). Responding to different topic types: A quantitative analysis from contrastive perspective. In B. Krol (Eds), Second language writing: Research insights for the classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Swan, M. (2006). Practical English usage. Oxford: Oxford United Press.

Torabiardakani, N., Khojasteh, L., & Shokrpour, N. (2015). Modal auxiliaries and their semantic functions used by advanced EFL learners. Acta Didactica Napocensia, 8(2), 51-60.

Voloshinov, V. N. (1995). Marxism and the philosophy of the language. Translated by L. Matejka & I. R. Titunik, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.25134/erjee.v8i1.1930

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2019 English Review: Journal of English Education