Investigating Cohesion and Coherence Discourse Strategies of Chinese Students with Varied Lengths of Residence in Canada

Abstract

This study examines how three age-on-arrival (AOA) groups of Chinese-background ESL students use two types of cohesive devices on a standardized essay exam. A discourse analysis of 90 first-year students' expository writing samples was conducted to ascertain how factors such as first language (L1) and length of residence (LOR) in Canada influence a student's ability to create cohesive and coherent writing. The study uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to explore how Canadian-born Chinese (CBC) students use lexical and referential discourse markers. Twelve essay features of this group of Generation 1.5 students are compared with those of two other cohorts of Chinese students with a shorter LOR. Key writing variables that measure academic writing proficiency were quantitatively analyzed to compare the expository writings of the CBC cohort with those of the later AOAs. Results indicate that synonymy and content words distinguish the writings of the CBC students from those of their later-arriving peers. A qualitative analysis of one CBC essay reveals that a more flexible and contextualized approach to evaluating writing by longterm Generation 1.5 students is required to acknowledge fully the productive lexical and discoursal strengths of these students. Cette étude porte sur l'emploi de deux types de marqueurs de relation dans un examen à développement standardisé par des étudiants en ALS d'origine chinoise et regroupés en fonction de leur âge à l'arrivée. À partir d'échantillons de rédactions descriptives écrites par 90 étudiants de première année, nous avons fait une analyse du discours pour déterminer dans quelle mesure des facteurs tels la langue première et la durée du séjour au Canada influencent la capacité d'un étudiant à écrire un texte cohérent. L'étude a recours à des méthodes quantitatives et qualitatives pour explorer l'emploi des marqueurs discursifs lexicaux et référentiels chez les étudiants chinois nés au Canada. Nous comparons 12 éléments des rédactions Overview and Background to the ProblemIn recent years, the significant changes to the demographic student populations in mainstream high schools and postsecondary institutions have led to a surge in the research on academic literacy. One area of particular concern is how ESL teachers and practitioners prepare non-native English-speaker students (NNES) to fulfill the requirements of higher education. With increasing numbers of these students entering colleges and universities in Canada and the United States, the field of second-language (L2)/ESL writing research that emerged in the 1960s has flourished. Today it is an urgent priority because familiarity with academic written discourse and North American rhetorical conventions are fundamental to ensuring students' success in university. As a result, substantial research is focused on L2 writing pedagogy for international and immigrant English-language learner (ELL) students. Yet the problem of inadequate attention being paid to a rapidly growing population of students who are either native-...

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