Emergent arguments: A functional approach to analyzing student challenges with the argument genre

• Published in: Journal of second language writing Vol. 38; pp. 42 - 55
• Main Authors: Pessoa, Silvia, Mitchell, Thomas D., Miller, Ryan T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 01.12.2017
• Subjects: Academic writing; Argument writing; History writing; SFL; History writing; SFL; Academic writing; Argument writing
• ISSN: 1060-3743; 1873-1422
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jslw.2017.10.013

•Emergent arguments are texts that meet some genre expectations but not others.•The analysis is grounded in an SFL 3×3 toolkit adapted to history arguments.•The analysis highlights how university student texts control SFL’s 3 metafunctions.•The findings indicate subtle ways writing does and does not meet genre expectations.•Implications for writing instruction are discussed. University students across disciplines are often expected to write argumentative texts. However, many students, particularly L2 writers, struggle writing arguments and teachers may not be prepared to effectively scaffold argument writing. Despite its importance, argumentative writing is still an underresearched area in second language writing. In this paper, we use a Systemic Functional Linguistics conceptualization of argumentation to examine emergent arguments, texts that meet some of the expectations for argumentative writing but not others. We adapt Humphrey et al. (2010) 3×3 professional learning toolkit to analyze student writing from a first-year university history class. The 3×3 allows us to highlight these texts’ mixed effectiveness in meeting genre expectations, based on how they control the resources of each of SFL’s three metafunctions (ideational, interpersonal, and textual) at the levels of whole-text, paragraph, and sentence/clause. Our analysis of three emergent arguments shows how each exhibits challenges controlling the resources of a particular metafunction. Our application of the 3×3 provides a theoretical conceptualization of argumentative writing that can help teachers uncover subtle ways that student writing does and does not meet genre expectations.