Revisiting transfer in the literacy journey of Chinese English-major students: from the perspectives of genre and adaptive transfer

This paper revisited the issue of transfer in an unexplored context: the transition from instruction-based writing to the bachelor’s theses by English-major students in one university in China. To explore the extent to which the writing instruction prepared the students for thesis writing practice,...

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Autores principales: Yimin Zhang, Issra Pramoolsook
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Group 2021
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/6fda0e43781c460ebd6177aeacc769e5
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:6fda0e43781c460ebd6177aeacc769e52021-11-04T15:00:45ZRevisiting transfer in the literacy journey of Chinese English-major students: from the perspectives of genre and adaptive transfer2331-186X10.1080/2331186X.2021.1978625https://doaj.org/article/6fda0e43781c460ebd6177aeacc769e52021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2021.1978625https://doaj.org/toc/2331-186XThis paper revisited the issue of transfer in an unexplored context: the transition from instruction-based writing to the bachelor’s theses by English-major students in one university in China. To explore the extent to which the writing instruction prepared the students for thesis writing practice, we created two corpora of student writing: 591 assignments produced by 40 students in 3 writing-related courses offered in the curriculum and 40 bachelor’s theses produced between 2014–2018. Based on the taxonomy of elemental genres in the Systemic Functional Linguistics, we compared the genre distribution in the two corpora via log-likelihood tests. Results revealed that two patterns of continuity and two patterns of discontinuity existed in the students’ literacy journey. Also, framed within the theory of adaptive transfer, a focus-group interview was conducted with four thesis writers in an attempt to trace their transfer of rhetorical knowledge between the two rhetorical contexts. Findings demonstrated that the students consciously reused and reshaped a pool of rhetorical knowledge acquired from the writing courses to navigate the complex task of thesis writing. This paper then concludes with implications for L2 writing research, curriculum, and pedagogy.Yimin ZhangIssra PramoolsookTaylor & Francis Grouparticlegenresystemic functional linguisticsadaptive transferrhetorical knowledgeliteracy journeyEducation (General)L7-991ENCogent Education, Vol 8, Iss 1 (2021)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
topic genre
systemic functional linguistics
adaptive transfer
rhetorical knowledge
literacy journey
Education (General)
L7-991
spellingShingle genre
systemic functional linguistics
adaptive transfer
rhetorical knowledge
literacy journey
Education (General)
L7-991
Yimin Zhang
Issra Pramoolsook
Revisiting transfer in the literacy journey of Chinese English-major students: from the perspectives of genre and adaptive transfer
description This paper revisited the issue of transfer in an unexplored context: the transition from instruction-based writing to the bachelor’s theses by English-major students in one university in China. To explore the extent to which the writing instruction prepared the students for thesis writing practice, we created two corpora of student writing: 591 assignments produced by 40 students in 3 writing-related courses offered in the curriculum and 40 bachelor’s theses produced between 2014–2018. Based on the taxonomy of elemental genres in the Systemic Functional Linguistics, we compared the genre distribution in the two corpora via log-likelihood tests. Results revealed that two patterns of continuity and two patterns of discontinuity existed in the students’ literacy journey. Also, framed within the theory of adaptive transfer, a focus-group interview was conducted with four thesis writers in an attempt to trace their transfer of rhetorical knowledge between the two rhetorical contexts. Findings demonstrated that the students consciously reused and reshaped a pool of rhetorical knowledge acquired from the writing courses to navigate the complex task of thesis writing. This paper then concludes with implications for L2 writing research, curriculum, and pedagogy.
format article
author Yimin Zhang
Issra Pramoolsook
author_facet Yimin Zhang
Issra Pramoolsook
author_sort Yimin Zhang
title Revisiting transfer in the literacy journey of Chinese English-major students: from the perspectives of genre and adaptive transfer
title_short Revisiting transfer in the literacy journey of Chinese English-major students: from the perspectives of genre and adaptive transfer
title_full Revisiting transfer in the literacy journey of Chinese English-major students: from the perspectives of genre and adaptive transfer
title_fullStr Revisiting transfer in the literacy journey of Chinese English-major students: from the perspectives of genre and adaptive transfer
title_full_unstemmed Revisiting transfer in the literacy journey of Chinese English-major students: from the perspectives of genre and adaptive transfer
title_sort revisiting transfer in the literacy journey of chinese english-major students: from the perspectives of genre and adaptive transfer
publisher Taylor & Francis Group
publishDate 2021
url https://doaj.org/article/6fda0e43781c460ebd6177aeacc769e5
work_keys_str_mv AT yiminzhang revisitingtransferintheliteracyjourneyofchineseenglishmajorstudentsfromtheperspectivesofgenreandadaptivetransfer
AT issrapramoolsook revisitingtransferintheliteracyjourneyofchineseenglishmajorstudentsfromtheperspectivesofgenreandadaptivetransfer
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