ATTITUDINAL RESOURCES IN UNDERGRADUATE ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS: AN APPRAISAL ANALYSIS OF L2 WRITING

Abstract

Argumentative writing skills enable English language learners to produce and evaluate discourse, an authorial voice and build solidarity with target readers. The present study investigates the positive and negative use of attitudinal resources such as affect, judgement and appreciation along with their subtypes through the framework of Appraisal Theory by Martin and White (2005). The purpose of the study is to explore different types of attitudinal resources employed by Pakistani undergraduate learners, examine their frequency of distribution and interpret their evaluative meanings in academic argumentative undergraduate essays. A corpus-based approach is used to collect and analyze attitudinal resources. For this purpose, a small corpus of 85 undergraduate argumentative essays written by the students of BS English, Department of English, University of Gujrat has been compiled. A mixed method research design QUAN-QUAL by Cresswell and Clark (2018) along with Antconc (4.4.1) have been used to identify and analyze the frequencies of use of positive and negative instances of affect, judgement and appreciations along with their subtypes. The findings revealed that appreciation has been the most frequently (45%) used attitudinal resource, particularly Valuation showing that Pakistani L2 undergraduate learners tended to evaluate arguments and ideas rather than expressing personal feelings and biased opinions. Judgement has been used less frequently (42%) while affect has been the least employed (13%) attitudinal resource in the nonnative corpus of undergraduate essays. The analysis shows that Pakistani non-native undergraduate learners predominantly evaluate issues and ideas rather than emphasizing on personal emotions or making judgements about individuals. These findings contribute to a better comprehension of evaluative language in English as second language (ESL) academic writing.