Estudio comparativo de la competencia gramatical y metadiscursiva en la escritura en inglés en estudiantes españoles con niveles lingüísticos B2 y C1 del MCER

Abstract

This doctoral thesis aims to analyse both the grammar competence and the metadiscurse competence in the written production in English made by Spanish learners with B2 and C1 English levels of language of the Common European Framework for Languages (2001). Thus, the main objective is to identify and compare the students' grammar competence and metadiscourse grammar in levels B2 and C1 of English in order to be able to analyse and differentiate the knowledge features existing in every language level. The motivation behind this work was the lack of research which studies these competences simultaneously. In order to meet this objective, a corpus of 120 essays was manually compiled, all of them having a total of 26,998 words written by 120 Spanish learners, aged between 18 and 46, who are studying English as a foreign language in Spain. The methodology used to achieve the stated objective was a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis of the corpus. Each piece of writing was examined so as to be able to manually label the students' grammar and metadiscourse competences. Within the analysis of grammar competence, a distinction between two typologies was made, the analysis of the morphological elements and that of the syntactical elements, following the differentiation between the morphological and the syntactical level included in the Common European Framework of References for Languages (CEFRL, 2001). With respect to the metadiscourse level, a distinction was made between the analysis of the textual metadiscourse strategies and the analysis of the interpersonal metadiscourse strategies, taking as a reference Hyland's (2005) classification. Both the morphosyntax and the metadiscourse elements were labelled manually, and a computer recount was subsequently made. The overall results from the analysis of the essays made by Spanish students having B2 and C1 CFRL levels showed that the students of both levels have, in grammar competence, a higher knowledge of the morphological elements and processes than that of syntax. As for the metadiscourse level, the study also found that the students have a higher competence in interpersonal rather than in textual skills. The interpretation of the results allowed us to identify the characteristic features in grammar and metadiscourse competences. Likewise, the elements that students master at B2 and C1 levels were identified, as well as the students' specific needs in every language level.; Esta tesis doctoral se centra en analizar la competencia gramatical y la competencia metadiscursiva en la produccion escrita en ingles realizada por aprendientes espanoles con niveles de conocimiento de lengua inglesa B2 y C1 del Marco Comun Europeo de Referencia para las Lenguas (2001). Asi pues, el objetivo principal es identificar y comparar la competencia gramatical y del metadiscurso de estudiantes con niveles de conocimiento del ingles B2 y C1 con el fin de analizar y diferenciar los rasgos de conocimiento de cada uno de los niveles linguisticos. La razon por la que se llevo a…