CTL 3799H Second Language Classroom Research
Winter 2014
McKay (2006) reviews a number of quite distinct approaches to and foci of analyzing written discourse
in the second language classroom. This handout is an effort to summarize the main ideas of each.
Essential question: What is the overall goal of analyzing written discourse in a second language
classroom?
I. Guiding questions of syntactic analysis (Hyland, 2002)
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What features characterize the texts of this specific group of learners?
Do these features differ from those in texts produced by other writers?
Can these differences be explained by reference to language proficiency or L1 conventions? (p.
153)
Different ways to “slice” the text:
 By sentences
 By T-units (= “a main clause and all of the dependent modifying clauses” [McKay, 2006, can’t
give page # because Kindle])
 By clauses
 By total word count
Different ways to “measure” complexity and accuracy
 Hunt (1965)
o # words per T-unit
o # T-units per sentence
o # clauses per T-unit
o # words per clause
Ishikawa (1995, p. 60)
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Sentences per composition
T-units per composition
Error-free T-units per composition
Clauses per composition
Error-free clauses
Words per composition
Error-free T-units / total T-units
Clauses per T-units
Error-free clauses per T-unit
Words per T-unit
Words per error-free T-unit
Total words in T-units
Total words in error-free T-units
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T-units per sentence
Error-free T-units per sentence
Clauses per sentence
Error-free clauses per sentence
Words per sentence
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Error-free clauses / total clauses
Words per clause
Words per error-free clause
Total words in clauses
TOTAL WORDS IN ERROR-FREE CLAUSES
Words in error-free clauses / total words
in clauses
CTL 3799H Second Language Classroom Research
Winter 2014
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Kaplan (1996, pp. 44-45) – developmental, versus descriptive, i.e. presupposes a longitudinal or
cross-sectional approach
o Increased use of adjectives
o Increased nominal complexity
o Increased use of free modifiers
o Increased use of sentence adverbials
o Increased use of relative clauses
o Increased use of finite adverbial clauses
o Increased use of stylistic word-order variation (note error in book!)
o increased use passives
o increased use of complex NP subjects
o increased range of tense and modal usage, and
o decreased use of unmodified NPs
II. Contrastive rhetorical analysis (Kaplan 2001, p. ix)
1. What may be discussed?
2. Who has the authority to speak/write? Or: Who has the authority to write to whom under what
circumstance?
3. What form(s) may the writing take?
4. What is evidence?
5. What arrangement of evidence is likely to appeal (be convincing) to readers?
III. Typologies for analyzing teachers’ written discourse and/or curricular materials
Ferris (1997, p. 321) – investigating teachers’ written feedback on student writing
1. Ask for information/question
2. Make a request/ question
3. Make a request/statement
4. Make a request/imperative
IV. Corpus work and concordance
V. Critical discourse analysis
5. Give information/question
6. Give information/statement
7. Make a positive comment/statement or
exclamation
8. Make a grammar/mechanics
comment/question/statement/imperative