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Document Details : Title: Investigating the Clause Complex Subtitle: An Analysis of Exposition-type Essays Written by Secondary School Students in Singapore Author(s): PING, Leong , GEOK, Wee Bee Journal: ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics Volume: 150 Date: 2005 Pages: 47-76 DOI: 10.2143/ITL.150.0.2004372 Abstract : The situation in many composition classes in Signapore is characterized by scaffolding (Vygotsky, 1962; Bruner, 1985), where students are given explicit guidance, particularly concerning the organizational structure on the essay. With scaffolding, there is a concern that the students will produce similarly-structured essays. How then does one differentiate a good essay from a less-written one? Using Halliday's clause-complex framework (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004), our analysis shows tha twhile the better writers display a greater mastery of clause-complex structures, the weaker writers rely on simplex constructions. In addition to scaffolding, we argue that the appropriate use of clause-complex structures should be incorporated as part of the writing lesson. |
