Abstract
This study employed Kamimura and Oi (1996)’s classification of the organizational patterns of the argumentative essay structure: Thesis Statement (TS), Background Information (BI), Reservation (R), Hesitation (H), Rational Appeals (RA), Affective Appeals (AA) and Conclusion (C). 178 essays, 84 written by Chinese EFL learners, 84 written by Korean EFL learners, and 10 written by English native speakers, were coded and analyzed via NVivo. The results show that Chinese and Korean EFL learners prefer the direct deductive expressions in their English argumentative writings, which is different from Kaplan’s (1966) findings. No significant difference exists in the essay structure among Chinese and Korean EFL writers’ writing and the English native speakers’ writings. The only difference lies in the contents of the rational and affective appeals, which are still strongly influenced by the cultural and social background. The results indicate that Chinese and Korean EFL writers, especially most of the university students are able to handle the structure of English argumentative writings with plenty of writing practice and teachers’ instruction.
Highlights
Kaplan’s theory came into existence almost fifty years ago
The title is “Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: ‘Always telling the truth is the most important consideration in any relationship’?” a total number of 178 essays were collected for the structure analysis, 84 essays written by Chinese EFL learners (CE), 84 essays written by Korean EFL learners (KE) and 10 essays written by English native writers (EE)
No big difference is found between CE, KE and EE in terms of rational and affective appeals based on the Table 1 shown above
Summary
This study is intended to analyze and compare the English essay structure written by Chinese and Korean EFL learners and English native writers in order to check out whether they have different rhetorical structures among Chinese and Korean EFL learners and English native writers as well
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