Identifying Taxis and Logico-Semantic Relations in Chinese EFL Writing Samples

Abstract

In the context of EFL writing in China, there is a prevalent tendency among students to heavily rely on the provided model essays from teachers, leading to a phenomenon known as sameness. This overreliance often results in confusion when it comes to expressing ideas effectively in sentences. To address this issue, this paper adopts an analytical framework based on the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). SFL is a linguistic theory that emphasizes language’s social context and meaning (Halliday, 1985; 1994). Notably, SFL prioritizes meaning over form and examines the organization of texts as well as individual sentences. The theory has been widely applied in discourse analysis and language teaching. This paper offers a brief literature review on key SFL terms, such as language rank, clause, clause complex, taxis, and logico-semantic relation. Additionally, the paper presents examples of identifying taxis and logico-semantic relations using two types of EFL writing samples from SFL perspective. The analysis reveals that the first text, a comparison and contrast essay, predominantly employs the relation of extension, whereas the second text, an argumentative piece, prominently exhibits the logico-semantic relation of enhancement. The paper provides insight into the use of SFL as an analytical tool for analyzing variable text types. Students learning from these analytical tools may have more grammatical awareness in identifying clause boundaries and logico-semantic relations across different writing genres.