The notion of individual voice is an important aspect of functional grammar in student's academic writing, as taking a stance is one of the most important requirements of academic assignments at Australian universities. Jalilifar (2009), for instance, demarcated thematic development as an element which plays a crucial role in the message function of language. This raises an important question as to how postgraduate students as academic writers deal with the function of thematic development in terms of individual voice in demonstrating a critical argument. Unfortunately, few studies have focused on this aspect in relation to Iraqi postgraduate students in the Australian context of writing. To this end, four academic assignments were selected and analysed to uncover the similarities and differences in the function of the thematic development, and to determine whether and how students of different cultures stamp their individual voice on the text through the thematic development elements of their academic arguments. Using Eggin's (2004) model of thematic development, this paper concerns a corpus of four academic assignments from four Masters Students (two Iraqi and two Australian students). The data analysis revealed marked differences in these four academic assignments regarding the functions of thematic development as a starting point for their academic argument. The findings showed that the Iraqi postgraduate students struggled both in expressing their individual voice through the function of thematic development, and in supporting their claims with evidence from what they had read. The study presents a critique of Kaplan's claims (1966) that the zig-zag pattern is a characteristic of Arab students' writing, in contrast to the linearity of English writers. Instead it found that the Iraqi non-native writers of English were writing their assignments by copying and writing what they read from their texts and one reason for this was that the element of individual International Journal of English Language Education
This study investigated the manifestation of Textual Themes in argumentative English assignments written by Iraqi and Australian postgraduate students. Textual structure is a core component of argumentation in academic writing. How the themes in a text are organized as a message component constructs voice and authority. An important question is how novice writers and in particular international students are able to handle these textual devices when they write their English academic assignments. To this end, four academic assignments were selected and analysed to uncover the similarities and differences in textual features, and how students of different cultures stamp their authorial voice on the text through the element of theme and rheme in their academic arguments. The data were analysed based on Halliday's (2004) model of thematic organization. The findings showed that the failure to use theme appropriately in constructing a voice and authority in academic writing may have disadvantaged the non-native writers. The paper argues that this has occurred because critical thinking requires a clear self-voice in forming an academic argument. This has not been explicitly emphasized in the writers' Iraqi curriculum for writing. In contrast, these elements are more explicitly emphasized in the Australian writing curriculum.
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