A Contrastive Study of Theme Types in Academic IELTS Essays Written by English-Majored Students and IELTS Candidates

Abstract

The present study was conducted to investigate theme types in academic IELTS essays written by successful test-takers and English-majored students at Quang Nam university, applying Halliday (2014)’s functional model of Theme-Rheme in English, and then making a comparison between two different levels of performance: one with 7-7.5 band scores and the other written by English-majored students to identify similarities and differences between two essay groups. In this study, the data were 60 IELTS essays collected from two domains: 30 IELTS essays written by English majored students at Quang Nam university, and 30 sample essays scored from 7.0 to 7.5. The findings of this study are expected to enable IELTS test-takers in general and English-majored students at Quang Nam university in particular to take into account the prominent theme types of academic IELTS sample essays in order to make good use of thematic strategies to produce an effective and coherent piece of writing.