A Developmental Study of Prepositional Phrases in English L1 Students' Academic Writing
英語本族語學習者學術寫作中介詞短語使用情況的發展性研究
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis
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| Award date | 17 Mar 2022 |
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| Permanent Link | https://scholars.cityu.edu.hk/en/theses/theses(0ed3467f-f6e8-40bc-b081-eb61da522662).html |
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| Other link(s) | Links |
Abstract
Following the research tradition of the phrasal-embedded discourse style of academic writing, most studies have investigated the use of phrasal features in student writing to explore writing development. Among them, however, only a few focused on prepositional phrases (PPs), with even fewer on the use of PPs in English L1 students’ writing, which is hypothesized to show a trend of development over school years (Biber & Gray, 2011).This study aims to test the hypotheses on the development of grammatical complexity in academic writing by examining the use of prepositional phrases in English L1 students’ writing. More specifically, this study. On the one hand, this study aims to trace the possible development stages of grammatical complexity by examining the use of PPs in English L1 students’ academic writing across the four study levels. On the other hand, this study aims to figure out the process of constructing disciplinary knowledge by investigating the use of PPs in English L1 students’ writing across four disciplines. Based on a corpus sampled from BAWE, this study explored the structural, functional and semantic complexity of PPs by using various corpus analysis tools, including tools for syntactic analysis (Stanford Parser 3.80), for syntactic features identification and extraction (Tregex 3.8.0), for concordancing (AntConc 3.2.2) and a wordlist tool (the NOMLEX_PLUS word list).
By using these tools, we found that 1) English native speaking learners’ use of PPs are different among different study levels and disciplines. For example, it is found that learners’ use of PPs did not present the trend of development across the four study levels, with learners at Level 2 (L2) using the highest frequency of PPs while learners at Level 3 (L3) using the lowest frequency of PPs. This finding did not in line with those findings in previous studies, which found a higher frequency of occurrence of PPs in learners’ writing at higher levels. However, by taking the findings of the syntactic functions of PPs into consideration, we found that learners at L2 use most PPs to function as Adverbials. However, this is not the same case for learners at L3. For learners at L3, PPs were mostly being used as noun phrase post-modifiers in their writing, which is claimed as one of the prominent characteristics of modern academic writing. Secondly, learners from four disciplinary groups used PPs differently in terms of frequency, with learners of Art and Humanities and Social Sciences using much more PPs than learners from Life Sciences and Physical Sciences. This finding is consistent with the findings in previous studies stating that learners from Art and Humanities and Social Sciences should be capable of delineating rather complicated historical events, social relationships and various opinions by using compressed grammatical features.
2) English L1 learners’ use of PPs in terms of the internal structures of PPs are different across study levels and disciplines. To be more specific, we found that learners used certain major types of head prepositions and prepositional complements across the four study levels, but they presented significant differences in the frequency of occurrence. In fact, this study has identified the most frequently used types of head prepositions and conducted further explorations of these head prepositions. It is found that learners at L1 and L2 demonstrated a heavy reliance on preposition of, while students at L3 and L4 tended to use prepositions other than of. With regard to the use of prepositional complements, we found that the most commonly used types of complements are noun phrases and non-finite complement clauses (shorted as ‘V-ing clauses’ in the following sections). Moreover, it is found that learners at L2 used the largest number of PPs complemented by noun phrases and the least number of PPs complemented by V-ing clauses compared with learners at other levels. However, this is not the case for learners at L3, who used the largest number of PPs complemented by V-ing clauses. In general, PPs complemented by noun phrases and V-ing clauses are most frequently used by learners at higher levels, with subsequent decreasing frequency as study level decreased. This finding is in keeping with the prior finding of the decreasing use of PPs along with the study level. Moreover, a further exploration of learners’ use of prepositional complement embedding structures found an increasing use of prepositional complement embedding structures along with study level, indicating that learners at higher levels showed a preference for longer or more complicated prepositional complement structures to construct PPs in their writing.
Secondly, learners presented significant differences across four disciplines with regard to the use of head prepositions and prepositional complements. It is found that learners from Art and Humanities and Social Sciences showed a higher frequency of use of head prepositions and prepositional complements than learners from Life Sciences and Physical Sciences. In addition, learners of Art and Humanities and Social Sciences tended to use more various types of head prepositions to collocate with noun phrases or V-ing clauses, while learners of Life Sciences and Physical Sciences expressed interest in using some particular head prepositions, such as by, to collocate with V-ing clauses. This interest suggests that learners of Life Sciences and Physical Sciences are more inclined to highlight research methods or tools they adopt in their studies. In addition, considering the prepositional complement embedding structures within PPs, we found that learners from Art and Humanities and Social Sciences used more numerous embedding structures than learners from Life Sciences and Physical Sciences, indicating that learners from Art and Humanities and Social Sciences tended to use PPs with more complicated prepositional complement structures to express themselves in their academic writing.
3) English L1 learners’ use of PPs in terms of the syntactic functions of PPs showed differences across study levels and disciplines. Firstly, in this study, we found that learners’ use of PPs functioning as noun phrase post-modifiers and Adverbials did not present a linear increase in learners across study levels, with learners at L2 using the largest number of PPs functioning as Adverbials, while learners at L3 presented the greatest frequency of use of PPs functioning as noun phrase post-modifiers. A further consideration of the interactions between the internal structures and the syntactic functions of PPs found that learners at lower levels demonstrated a greater reliance on PPs with ‘of +noun phrases’ structure to function as noun phrase post-modifiers, while learners at higher levels are inclined to use PPs headed by prepositions other than of to function as noun phrase post-modifiers.
Secondly, learners’ use of PPs functioning as noun phrase post-modifiers and Adverbials showed differences across disciplines, with learners from Art and Humanities presenting a higher frequency of use of PPs with ‘of + noun phrases’ and ‘of + V-ing clauses’ structures to function as noun phrase post-modifiers and Adverbials, however, learners from Life Sciences and Physical Sciences used larger number of PPs headed by prepositions other than of and complemented by noun phrases to function as noun phrase post-modifiers.
4) English L1 learners’ use of PPs displayed differences across levels and disciplines pertaining to the semantic roles of PPs. Firstly, it is found in this study that learners at higher levels presented a higher frequency of use of deverbal nouns in their writing to express abstract meaning relations than learners at lower levels. Moreover, a closer look at the frequently used deverbal nouns at each level found that learners at higher levels used a larger number of deverbal nouns to denote the meaning of a process, while learners at lower levels tended to use deverbal nouns to express rather concrete or ordinary meaning relations. Apart from the differences across study levels, learners’ use of deverbal nouns also presented differences among four disciplinary groups. It is found that learners of Art and Humanities and Social Sciences used a larger number of deverbal nouns than learners of Life Sciences and Physical Sciences.
Based on these findings, we have provided a rather comprehensive picture of the use of PPs in English L1 learners’ academic writing across different levels and disciplines, which will serve as an important inspiration for future study of EAP instruction in the EFL/ESL environment.
By using these tools, we found that 1) English native speaking learners’ use of PPs are different among different study levels and disciplines. For example, it is found that learners’ use of PPs did not present the trend of development across the four study levels, with learners at Level 2 (L2) using the highest frequency of PPs while learners at Level 3 (L3) using the lowest frequency of PPs. This finding did not in line with those findings in previous studies, which found a higher frequency of occurrence of PPs in learners’ writing at higher levels. However, by taking the findings of the syntactic functions of PPs into consideration, we found that learners at L2 use most PPs to function as Adverbials. However, this is not the same case for learners at L3. For learners at L3, PPs were mostly being used as noun phrase post-modifiers in their writing, which is claimed as one of the prominent characteristics of modern academic writing. Secondly, learners from four disciplinary groups used PPs differently in terms of frequency, with learners of Art and Humanities and Social Sciences using much more PPs than learners from Life Sciences and Physical Sciences. This finding is consistent with the findings in previous studies stating that learners from Art and Humanities and Social Sciences should be capable of delineating rather complicated historical events, social relationships and various opinions by using compressed grammatical features.
2) English L1 learners’ use of PPs in terms of the internal structures of PPs are different across study levels and disciplines. To be more specific, we found that learners used certain major types of head prepositions and prepositional complements across the four study levels, but they presented significant differences in the frequency of occurrence. In fact, this study has identified the most frequently used types of head prepositions and conducted further explorations of these head prepositions. It is found that learners at L1 and L2 demonstrated a heavy reliance on preposition of, while students at L3 and L4 tended to use prepositions other than of. With regard to the use of prepositional complements, we found that the most commonly used types of complements are noun phrases and non-finite complement clauses (shorted as ‘V-ing clauses’ in the following sections). Moreover, it is found that learners at L2 used the largest number of PPs complemented by noun phrases and the least number of PPs complemented by V-ing clauses compared with learners at other levels. However, this is not the case for learners at L3, who used the largest number of PPs complemented by V-ing clauses. In general, PPs complemented by noun phrases and V-ing clauses are most frequently used by learners at higher levels, with subsequent decreasing frequency as study level decreased. This finding is in keeping with the prior finding of the decreasing use of PPs along with the study level. Moreover, a further exploration of learners’ use of prepositional complement embedding structures found an increasing use of prepositional complement embedding structures along with study level, indicating that learners at higher levels showed a preference for longer or more complicated prepositional complement structures to construct PPs in their writing.
Secondly, learners presented significant differences across four disciplines with regard to the use of head prepositions and prepositional complements. It is found that learners from Art and Humanities and Social Sciences showed a higher frequency of use of head prepositions and prepositional complements than learners from Life Sciences and Physical Sciences. In addition, learners of Art and Humanities and Social Sciences tended to use more various types of head prepositions to collocate with noun phrases or V-ing clauses, while learners of Life Sciences and Physical Sciences expressed interest in using some particular head prepositions, such as by, to collocate with V-ing clauses. This interest suggests that learners of Life Sciences and Physical Sciences are more inclined to highlight research methods or tools they adopt in their studies. In addition, considering the prepositional complement embedding structures within PPs, we found that learners from Art and Humanities and Social Sciences used more numerous embedding structures than learners from Life Sciences and Physical Sciences, indicating that learners from Art and Humanities and Social Sciences tended to use PPs with more complicated prepositional complement structures to express themselves in their academic writing.
3) English L1 learners’ use of PPs in terms of the syntactic functions of PPs showed differences across study levels and disciplines. Firstly, in this study, we found that learners’ use of PPs functioning as noun phrase post-modifiers and Adverbials did not present a linear increase in learners across study levels, with learners at L2 using the largest number of PPs functioning as Adverbials, while learners at L3 presented the greatest frequency of use of PPs functioning as noun phrase post-modifiers. A further consideration of the interactions between the internal structures and the syntactic functions of PPs found that learners at lower levels demonstrated a greater reliance on PPs with ‘of +noun phrases’ structure to function as noun phrase post-modifiers, while learners at higher levels are inclined to use PPs headed by prepositions other than of to function as noun phrase post-modifiers.
Secondly, learners’ use of PPs functioning as noun phrase post-modifiers and Adverbials showed differences across disciplines, with learners from Art and Humanities presenting a higher frequency of use of PPs with ‘of + noun phrases’ and ‘of + V-ing clauses’ structures to function as noun phrase post-modifiers and Adverbials, however, learners from Life Sciences and Physical Sciences used larger number of PPs headed by prepositions other than of and complemented by noun phrases to function as noun phrase post-modifiers.
4) English L1 learners’ use of PPs displayed differences across levels and disciplines pertaining to the semantic roles of PPs. Firstly, it is found in this study that learners at higher levels presented a higher frequency of use of deverbal nouns in their writing to express abstract meaning relations than learners at lower levels. Moreover, a closer look at the frequently used deverbal nouns at each level found that learners at higher levels used a larger number of deverbal nouns to denote the meaning of a process, while learners at lower levels tended to use deverbal nouns to express rather concrete or ordinary meaning relations. Apart from the differences across study levels, learners’ use of deverbal nouns also presented differences among four disciplinary groups. It is found that learners of Art and Humanities and Social Sciences used a larger number of deverbal nouns than learners of Life Sciences and Physical Sciences.
Based on these findings, we have provided a rather comprehensive picture of the use of PPs in English L1 learners’ academic writing across different levels and disciplines, which will serve as an important inspiration for future study of EAP instruction in the EFL/ESL environment.
- prepositional phrases, grammatical complexity, writing development, disciplinary variation, English L1 writing
