Students in required writing courses often fail to see the purpose of their writing and invest themselves in their writing. Many composition pedagogues have noticed that one solution to this problem is to help students publish their writing, and have reported the positive outcomes of their publication-focused courses. However, this practice has not been grounded in theory. My project connects the practice of publishing student writing to theory. I draw on Kenneth Burke's and other's ideas of text as action and show how the ancient cannon of delivery is a necessary means of experiencing and understanding text as action with consequence. I then argue that publishing is one of the most effective methods of delivery that can help students understand the implications of enacted texts. I then couch this theory in practice by presenting a variety of sources that report on the impact of publishing student texts; I include my own data collected while teaching two publication-focused, first-year writing courses at Brigham Young University during Fall 2012 and Winter 2013 semesters. This data suggests that in most cases, publishing student writing positively impacts student identity, motivation, process, and product. I explain the results of my own observations and those of various composition pedagogues with the theory of text as action being powerfully experienced by students as they work toward delivering their texts to public audiences via publication.

This study addressed the issue of struggling student writers in a K-5 rural elementary school. This phenomenological study, based on social constructivist theory, investigated elementary teachers' experiences to determine effective writing strategies. Six teachers who had taught writing in the elementary grades for 5 consecutive years volunteered to participate in the study. All teachers participated in a focus group, and 2 teachers provided additional data via individual interviews. Member-checking was used to ensure trustworthiness of data. The data were analyzed; emerging themes developed categories and, through horizonalization and triangulation, gaps in writing instruction were revealed. Analysis from the teachers' perspectives led to key factors which contribute to successful writing instruction, incorporate more writing instruction school-wide, promote unity of teachers for planning and discussion of writing instruction, and use curriculum plans in writing instruction that leads to enhanced student success. This study sought to provide teachers with strategies for developing efficient writing instruction for students using a 9-week curriculum writing guide. This study will improve teachers' skills and lead to enhanced writing instruction and student learning by making connections between enriched teacher experiences; this study will also provide insights into the design and delivery of more effective writing instruction that creates local-to-global changes in student writing success.

The subject of this study is student writing in its institutional setting, examining students’ texts, professional discourse and educational practices. Fieldwork for the study was conducted at the departments of History and Economics of Stockholm University. The general aim of the study is to increase our understanding of the relationships between student writing, educational settings and professional discourse. The theoretical framework is the sociocultural approach as outlined by Wertsch from Bakhtin and Vygotsky, and applied on writing research by above all Dysthe. The theoretical-methodological attempts are an operationalisation of the concept of dialogicity in different aspects and an application of the concept of mediational means at the linguistic level of text type or speech act. The type of dialogicity and epistemology of a setting is shown to have major influences on students’ writing. The epistemology of economics is defined as rationalistic, and that of history as critical-pluralistic. In economics, linear logical reasoning with clear-cut solutions is a key mediational means, while reasoning with a multitude of perspectives is given precedence in history. Students adjust their texts to the kind of dialogicity in the setting. However, in interviews, some students, mainly in economics, exhibit a resistance to the epistemology and mediational means of their discipline. This resistance seems not to influence their texts, but in all probability the depth of their learning. In addition, the socialisation seems to be a more prolonged process in economics. The reasons may be that the mediational means have a weak connection to students’ previous knowledge and that they are not collectively applied in economics to the same extent as in history. Thus, a pedagogical conclusion is that the important mediational means of a discipline should be collectively applied during study. Moreover, student writing should be considered in relation to students’ previous knowledge, their course of study and their future professional activity.

In this thesis the structure of the nominal group in Black South African English (BSAfE) is investigated by means of a comparison of data from the Tswana Learner English Corpus (TLEC) and the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS). Both corpora consist of student essays and are sub-corpora of the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE). The TLEC represents a non-native variety of English, namely BSAfE, while LOCNESS represents native English from the United States and the United Kingdom. In the existing literature there are observations about and examples of (non-standard) characterizing features of BSAfE pertaining to nouns, determiners and quantifiers (e.g. Gough 1996), but until now, no in-depth study of the grammar of the nominal group in BSAfE has been undertaken. This study is an attempt to fill that gap. I present a description of the grammatical features of BSAfE observed in the corpus data in terms of linguistic functions and without assuming that they are errors or evidence of deficiencies. Though the approach is comparative (in the sense that a control corpus is used), it is primarily descriptive and non-normative, and as such, function-based. This study is conducted within the theoretical framework of functional linguistics, drawing on systemic functional linguistics as well as other functional and cognitive approaches to language. The specifying functions that the nominal group and its elements may fulfill form the basis of the descriptive framework. These functions are (1) the type-specifying function of the noun, (2) the (referent-)specifying function of the determiner, (3) quantification and (4) quality specification by modifiers and complements. The type-specifying function of the noun is particularly relevant in Chapter 4, which deals with the grammatical patterns of the noun people, although it also informs analyses in Chapters 5 and 6 which deal with determiners and quantification respectively. Quality specification is especially relevant in the description of the grammatical patterns of the noun people. The noun people is the most frequent noun in each of the corpora, but is at the same time a positive keyword in the TLEC, which means that it occurs much more frequently in the TLEC than in LOCNESS. Analysis of the full corpus concordances of this noun provides much evidence of anti-deletion in BSAfE (as first postulated by Mesthrie, 2006) and also sheds some light on left dislocation patterns involving the noun people (cf. Mesthrie, 1997). This analysis also reveals unique uses of the definite article and certain quantifying constructions in the TLEC data, which are investigated in the next two analysis chapters. A comparison of concordance samples of the articles indicates that the definite/indefinite distinction is made in both corpora and that there is not enough corpus evidence to postulate that there is a different system underlying the choice of article in BSAfE, such as a system based principally on the specific/non-specific distinction, as postulated by Platt, Weber and Ho (1984) for New Englishes in general. Analysis of the concordances of demonstrative and possessive determiners indicate that these determiners are used proportionally more frequently in the TLEC than in LOCNESS. Concordances of the words that are normally classified as quantifiers indicate that there are many more partitive-of quantifying constructions in the TLEC than in LOCNESS. The words some and most are positive keywords in the TLEC. After analyses of their concordances, it is concluded that their relative frequency can be attributed to the fact that some is often used merely as an indefinite marker and that most is often used as a synonym for many. The study shows that BSAfE largely shares its general grammar of the nominal group with other (including native) varieties of English, but at a finer level of analysis, some characteristic constructions and uses are detected. The corpus data indicate that the unique constructions in the TLEC data are mostly functionally motivated. These constructions represent conventionalized innovations in the sense used by Van Rooy (2010), rather than mere language learning errors. / Thesis (PhD (Linguistics and Literary Theory))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

In this thesis the structure of the nominal group in Black South African English (BSAfE) is investigated by means of a comparison of data from the Tswana Learner English Corpus (TLEC) and the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS). Both corpora consist of student essays and are sub-corpora of the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE). The TLEC represents a non-native variety of English, namely BSAfE, while LOCNESS represents native English from the United States and the United Kingdom. In the existing literature there are observations about and examples of (non-standard) characterizing features of BSAfE pertaining to nouns, determiners and quantifiers (e.g. Gough 1996), but until now, no in-depth study of the grammar of the nominal group in BSAfE has been undertaken. This study is an attempt to fill that gap. I present a description of the grammatical features of BSAfE observed in the corpus data in terms of linguistic functions and without assuming that they are errors or evidence of deficiencies. Though the approach is comparative (in the sense that a control corpus is used), it is primarily descriptive and non-normative, and as such, function-based. This study is conducted within the theoretical framework of functional linguistics, drawing on systemic functional linguistics as well as other functional and cognitive approaches to language. The specifying functions that the nominal group and its elements may fulfill form the basis of the descriptive framework. These functions are (1) the type-specifying function of the noun, (2) the (referent-)specifying function of the determiner, (3) quantification and (4) quality specification by modifiers and complements. The type-specifying function of the noun is particularly relevant in Chapter 4, which deals with the grammatical patterns of the noun people, although it also informs analyses in Chapters 5 and 6 which deal with determiners and quantification respectively. Quality specification is especially relevant in the description of the grammatical patterns of the noun people. The noun people is the most frequent noun in each of the corpora, but is at the same time a positive keyword in the TLEC, which means that it occurs much more frequently in the TLEC than in LOCNESS. Analysis of the full corpus concordances of this noun provides much evidence of anti-deletion in BSAfE (as first postulated by Mesthrie, 2006) and also sheds some light on left dislocation patterns involving the noun people (cf. Mesthrie, 1997). This analysis also reveals unique uses of the definite article and certain quantifying constructions in the TLEC data, which are investigated in the next two analysis chapters. A comparison of concordance samples of the articles indicates that the definite/indefinite distinction is made in both corpora and that there is not enough corpus evidence to postulate that there is a different system underlying the choice of article in BSAfE, such as a system based principally on the specific/non-specific distinction, as postulated by Platt, Weber and Ho (1984) for New Englishes in general. Analysis of the concordances of demonstrative and possessive determiners indicate that these determiners are used proportionally more frequently in the TLEC than in LOCNESS. Concordances of the words that are normally classified as quantifiers indicate that there are many more partitive-of quantifying constructions in the TLEC than in LOCNESS. The words some and most are positive keywords in the TLEC. After analyses of their concordances, it is concluded that their relative frequency can be attributed to the fact that some is often used merely as an indefinite marker and that most is often used as a synonym for many. The study shows that BSAfE largely shares its general grammar of the nominal group with other (including native) varieties of English, but at a finer level of analysis, some characteristic constructions and uses are detected. The corpus data indicate that the unique constructions in the TLEC data are mostly functionally motivated. These constructions represent conventionalized innovations in the sense used by Van Rooy (2010), rather than mere language learning errors. / Thesis (PhD (Linguistics and Literary Theory))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

This study aimed to examine the relationship between teacher written feedback and change in the writing of tertiary students in their final year of undergraduate study through investigating: (i) the characteristics of final year undergraduate tertiary students’ texts prior to receiving feedback; (ii) the way these characteristics change after written feedback is given; and (iii) the relationship between the changes made and the types of feedback given. The study examined student texts and teacher written feedback that arose naturally out of a third year disciplinary-based unit in which the students each submitted a text three times over the course of a semester, each time receiving feedback and a mark prior to rewriting and resubmitting. Two in-depth non-quantitative analyses were conducted: one analysing the characteristics of each of the students’ texts and how these changed over the course of the process, the other analysing the relationship between the different types of feedback and the changes that occurred in the subsequent text. The analysis of the students’ texts and their changes covered: (i) coherence; (ii) the sources used and the manner in which these were cited and referenced; (iii) academic expression and mechanics; and (iv) additional expectations and requirements of the writing task. These characteristics and their changes were related to the instructional approaches to which all the students had been exposed in their first, second and third year studies. The analysis shows that, on their own accord, the third year students were able to produce a range of generalisable characteristics reflecting the “basics” in writing and demands specific to the tertiary context that had been revealed through the instructional approaches used. The problems in the students’ texts were mainly related to (i) executing and expressing the specific requirements of the task and (ii) their reading of the social context. Most of the changes in the texts were related to the feedback given. Some of these changes directly resolved problems, however, others did not. Some changes occurred to accommodate other changes in the text and some were made to satisfy a demand of the lecturer sometimes resulting in a problem that did not present in the previous text. These findings enabled insights to be drawn on two major views of tertiary student writing: the deficit view in which the problems in student’s texts are seen to be due to a lack of “basic skills”; and the view that students’ problems arise due to the new demands of the tertiary context. The study found that the deficit view and the “new demands” view were unable to explain all the characteristics of the students’ texts and their changes. Arising out of these findings, this study proposes that the characteristics of a student’s text show the end result of how that student negotiated and integrated his/her understanding of form, content and contextual demands at the time of writing. In analysing the relationship between the different types of feedback and the changes that occurred, the feedback was categorised according to the issue that was being addressed, the manner in which it was given, and its scope. The different types of feedback were directly related to the changes that occurred in the students’ subsequent rewrites. The analysis shows that clear direct feedback on which students can act is strongly related to change where it (i) addresses characteristics that could be readily integrated into the existing text without the need to renegotiate the integration of form, content and contextual demands OR (ii) addresses characteristics and indicates to students how to negotiate the integration between form, content and contextual demands where integration in the text needs to change. In addition, the analysis shows that change is further influenced by the balance between the various individual points of feedback and the degree to which they reinforced each other. The findings from both analyses in this study show that the use of feedback that is strongly related to change can improve the writing of all students beyond what they learn through other instructional approaches to writing.

This study investigates Swedish students’ texts from two time periods: 1999 and 2009, in search of cohesive evidence indicating a change of quality influenced by the development of the Internet. The method used in this study is the application of a computational tool that provides measures of language and discourse called Coh-Metrix, which provides measures along several cohesion variables, including word concreteness, deep cohesion, verb cohesion and lexical diversity. The results showed that the student texts from 2009 had higher lexical diversity, suggesting a larger vocabulary, which is closely connected to text quality. The results also showed a higher use of deep cohesion in the texts from 2009, which suggest that the writers know how to use connectives. In contrast, the student texts from 1999 showed a higher use of verb cohesion, suggesting the texts being written in a more narrative style, which is often connected to younger students. By using Coh-Metrix to study evidence of cohesion, this study could contribute with relevant findings about how students’ written English has changed over a period of time.

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