Integrated instruction of Appraisal Theory and rhetorical moves in literature reviews: an exploratory study
-
Jun Zhao
and
Mimi Li
Abstract
An effective literature review (LR) should evaluate relevant sources to justify the author argument; this important sub-genre has challenged many graduate students. Appraisal Theory has been applied to examine evaluations in academic writing, but seldom have studies probed into its pedagogical benefits. To improve graduate students’ competence of source evaluation in LRs, we integrated Attitude, an essential component of Appraisal Theory, with instruction of rhetorical moves in LRs. We offered asynchronous workshops on how Attitude is realized across various LR rhetorical moves and provided high frequency evaluative lexis and sentences to scaffold students’ learning. Analyses of the participants’ reflection posts and their original and revised LR papers revealed multiple benefits and some challenges and suggestions regarding this novel instructional approach. This SFL-informed, genre-based pedagogical exploration showcases the value of integrating Appraisal Theory-Attitude and rhetorical moves in LR instruction to help novice academic writers compose stronger LRs with meaningful source evaluation.
Appendix A: Some Appraisal-Attitude examples explained in the study
They reported that vocabulary (word type and token) and fluency measures (unfiled pauses, total pause time, speech rate) had an important impact on overall spoken performances.
From this sentence, we can easily get the importance of vocabulary and fluency measures in spoken performance. What is being evaluated is vocabulary and fluency measures, and they are deemed important for spoken performance.
Appreciation, Positive, Inscribed; Rhetorical moves: specific studies.
In order to establish an empirical profile of L2 speaking proficiency, one approach that researchers have employed is to analyze various features of language test data at varying performance levels.
A research approach is the focus here and it is used by researchers to establish empirical profile of L2 speaking proficiency. The author did not tell us explicitly whether this approach is useful, valuable or not. That is, the author did not express his/her evaluation of this approach explicitly, but what do you think of it? Is the approach useful or not? My answer is yes, this approach is useful because it can be used to establish an empirical profile, and it is also a good approach as it analyzes various language features at varying performance levels. Our training tells us multiple features from multiple times are stronger indicator of one’s language proficiency level.
Appreciation, Positive, Invoked; Rhetorical moves: general research field.
Higher level learners use more diverse prefacing devices to prepare the grounds for an upcoming story than lower level learners.
This sentence tells us what some learners do. So the evaluation is on people’s behavior, which is Judgement. But the author did not tell us explicitly whether this is good or not. However, readers trained in this discipline can infer from this part “more diverse prefacing devices to prepare the grounds for an upcoming story” that higher level learners show better story telling skills than lower level learners, which is good.
Judgement, Positive, Invoked; Rhetorical moves: specific studies.
However, what is underrepresented in this line of research is interactional features of L2 pragmatic performance.
The meaning of this sentence is very clear- some features are not studied enough, and that is a problem. The word “underrepresented” clearly shows this evaluation.
Appreciation, Negative, Inscribed; Rhetorical moves: research gap.
Appendix B: Coding scheme
Coding scheme
| Benefits | ||
|---|---|---|
| Code | Definition | Example |
| Critical reader | Participants critically judge sources to be included in their writing based on relevance, strength, weakness, bias, etc. of the selected source. | “The knowledge reminds me to ponder the value of one academic article with specific evaluations, from its content analysis, to the judgment of the behavior of certain groups, and to the scholar’s own general attitude toward it” |
| Genre awareness/knowledge | Participants demonstrate awareness and/or knowledge of genre features of literature review. | “Literature review was not just objective presentation of the field” or “a mere summary or synthesis of others’ work” |
| Applying Appraisal to comprehend and evaluate sources | Participants demonstrate knowledge of appraisal and express how they specifically apply appraisal to comprehend and evaluate sources. | “This allows me to make better sense of the literature, allowing me to provide stronger and more specific and more varied feedback and reactions” |
| Language expression | Participants use various words or structures they learned from the workshop to evaluate sources in their writing. | “This knowledge also provides standard vocabulary, such as adjectives, adverbs, verbs, for me to simulate and enrich my wording when reviewing other scholars’ articles or books” |
| Challenges | ||
|---|---|---|
| Code | Definition | Example |
| Complex theory | Participants express difficulties to fully understand the Appraisal Theory and/or terminologies. | “I find … Appraisal Theory interesting while also complicated.” “Appraisal Theory uses terms that are ‘ordinary’ words but with different connotations.” |
| Difficulty with invoked Attitude | Participants express difficulties to identify invoked attitude. | “It will take me a little while to be able to recognize the different categories, especially being able to notice invoked (implicit) evaluation.” |
| How to apply Appraisal in writing | Participants express difficulties of applying appraisal to evaluate sources in their writing. | “One of the challenges I met during the application process was how to evaluate other scholars’ papers in a comprehensible way.” |
| Suggestions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Code | Definition | Example |
| More instruction on various aspects of Appraisal | Participants wish to receive more instruction and discussions on appraisal and more examples of how scholars evaluate sources in academic writing. | “I would appreciate seeing more specific examples of literature reviews and Appraisal Theory… It would be nice to see various examples and have the opportunity to dissect the structures and format a little more.” |
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Unpacking the positioning of being “disengaged” and “disrespectful” in class through nexus analysis: an international student’s navigation of institutional and interactional university norms
- Assessing English language learners’ collocation knowledge: a systematic review of receptive and productive measurements
- The role of awareness in implicit and explicit knowledge
- Intensity of CLIL exposure and L2 motivation in primary school: evidence from Spanish EFL learners in non-CLIL, low-CLIL and high-CLIL programmes
- Promoting young EFL learners’ oral production through storytelling: coursebook adaptation in the Vietnamese classroom
- Applying embodied meaning of spatial prepositions and the Principled Polysemy model to teaching English as a second language: the case of to and on
- The impact of guessing and retrieval strategies for learning phrasal verbs
- Unraveling the differential effects of task rehearsal and task repetition on L2 task performance: the mediating role of task modality
- Examining L2 studentsʼ development of global cohesion and its relationship with their argumentative essay quality
- The construct of integrated group discussion (IGD) among undergraduate students: to what extent does group discussion performance reflect performance on IGD tasks?
- Discipline-specific attitudinal differences of EMI students towards translanguaging
- Relationship between second language vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary learning strategy use: a meta-analysis of correlational studies
- Evaluative language in undergraduate academic writing: expressions of attitude as sources of text effectiveness in English as a Foreign Language
- Investigating optimal spacing schedules for incidental acquisition of L2 collocations
- The association between socioeconomic status and Chinese secondary students’ English achievement: mediation of self-efficacy and moderation of gender
- Integrated instruction of Appraisal Theory and rhetorical moves in literature reviews: an exploratory study
- Scaffolding in genre-based L2 writing classes: Vietnamese EFL teachers’ beliefs and practices
- Exploring the professional role identities of English for academic purposes practitioners: a qualitative study
- The combined effects of task repetition and post-task teacher-corrected transcribing on complexity, accuracy and fluency of L2 oral performance
- Teacher behaviour and student engagement with L2 writing feedback: a case study
- The effect of an intervention focused on academic language on CAF measures in the multilingual writing of secondary students
- Which approach best promoted low-proficiency learners’ listening performance: metacognitive, bottom-up or a combination of both?
- Enhancing young EFL learners’ written skills: the role of repeated pre-task planning
- The mediating roles of resilience and motivation in the relationship between students’ English learning burnout and engagement: a conservation-of-resources perspective
- Student and teacher beliefs about oral corrective feedback in junior secondary English classrooms
- The effects of context, story-type, and language proficiency on EFL word learning and retention from reading
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Unpacking the positioning of being “disengaged” and “disrespectful” in class through nexus analysis: an international student’s navigation of institutional and interactional university norms
- Assessing English language learners’ collocation knowledge: a systematic review of receptive and productive measurements
- The role of awareness in implicit and explicit knowledge
- Intensity of CLIL exposure and L2 motivation in primary school: evidence from Spanish EFL learners in non-CLIL, low-CLIL and high-CLIL programmes
- Promoting young EFL learners’ oral production through storytelling: coursebook adaptation in the Vietnamese classroom
- Applying embodied meaning of spatial prepositions and the Principled Polysemy model to teaching English as a second language: the case of to and on
- The impact of guessing and retrieval strategies for learning phrasal verbs
- Unraveling the differential effects of task rehearsal and task repetition on L2 task performance: the mediating role of task modality
- Examining L2 studentsʼ development of global cohesion and its relationship with their argumentative essay quality
- The construct of integrated group discussion (IGD) among undergraduate students: to what extent does group discussion performance reflect performance on IGD tasks?
- Discipline-specific attitudinal differences of EMI students towards translanguaging
- Relationship between second language vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary learning strategy use: a meta-analysis of correlational studies
- Evaluative language in undergraduate academic writing: expressions of attitude as sources of text effectiveness in English as a Foreign Language
- Investigating optimal spacing schedules for incidental acquisition of L2 collocations
- The association between socioeconomic status and Chinese secondary students’ English achievement: mediation of self-efficacy and moderation of gender
- Integrated instruction of Appraisal Theory and rhetorical moves in literature reviews: an exploratory study
- Scaffolding in genre-based L2 writing classes: Vietnamese EFL teachers’ beliefs and practices
- Exploring the professional role identities of English for academic purposes practitioners: a qualitative study
- The combined effects of task repetition and post-task teacher-corrected transcribing on complexity, accuracy and fluency of L2 oral performance
- Teacher behaviour and student engagement with L2 writing feedback: a case study
- The effect of an intervention focused on academic language on CAF measures in the multilingual writing of secondary students
- Which approach best promoted low-proficiency learners’ listening performance: metacognitive, bottom-up or a combination of both?
- Enhancing young EFL learners’ written skills: the role of repeated pre-task planning
- The mediating roles of resilience and motivation in the relationship between students’ English learning burnout and engagement: a conservation-of-resources perspective
- Student and teacher beliefs about oral corrective feedback in junior secondary English classrooms
- The effects of context, story-type, and language proficiency on EFL word learning and retention from reading
