Email this article Analysis of evaluative language in business English students’ writing
Abstract
The study aims to analyze how Business English Students (BES) express attitudes and opinions, engage readers, and measure attitudes in writing, in accordance with the Appraisal Model of Martin and White (2005). It also attempts to investigate BES’ linguistic deficiencies which affect the quality of evaluative writing in business contexts. Seventy- one students at College of Management and Technology, at AASTMT Alexandria, participated in the study. Following a mixed quantitative-qualitative design, the study reveals that BES are able to express attitudes with a remarkable preference of verbal forms in contrast to a slighter use of adjectives. Influenced by the direct technical nature of business discourse, BES minimize emotional and figurative expressions in attitudinal contexts. Among all the attitudinal sub-levels, appreciation is mostly realized thanks to the involvement of multiple non-human elements in their discussions. They contract their dialogues rather than expand them, with a nearly equivalent distribution of disclaiming and proclaiming lexis. They frequently personalize their authorial voices while minimally referencing others’ opinions, as notable in the minimization of reporting verbs and attribution devices. Vocabulary of higher intensity and scalability are preferred for measuring attitudes, thus disclosing BES’ tendency to amplify their attitudes imprecisely. For improving the quality of BES’ evaluative writing, the study recommends practicing reporting verbs and citation referencing, paraphrasing techniques, rhetoric questions, and figurative language. They should control their use of personal pronouns and avoid repetition and redundancy which hinder the readers’ interest in following the propositions, reflect imprecise assessments, and cause obscurity in negotiating the attitudinal meanings. It also recommends that BE instructors foster a meaning-based instruction, debate teaching methodology, and direct their learners to read on business journalism to develop an evaluative sense and aptitude for professional writing.
Keywords: appraisal model, Evaluative Language, Business English Students, attitude, engagement, graduation
Received: 02 August 2023
Accepted: 31 January 2024
Published: 28 February 2024
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Allwright, R. ‘Perceiving and Pursuing Learners’ Needs’. In Individualisation, edited by M. Geddes and G. Sturtridge, 24–31. Oxford: Modern English Publications, 1982.
Apple Grace L. Bonhoc, and Maico Demi B. Aperocho. ‘Needs assessment of office assistants’ business writing skills: basis for a training design’. EPRA International Journal of Environmental Economics, Commerce and Educational Management, 2023. https://doi.org/10.36713/epra12334.
Bailey, Stephen. Academic Writing. Routledge, 2006. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203087909.
Bernoff, Josh. ‘Proof That the Pronouns “I,” “We,” and “You” Improve Not Just Your Writing, But Your Stock Price’, 2017. https://bernoff.com/blog/proof-pronouns-improve-not-just-writing-stock-price.
Biber, Douglas, and Randi Reppen. The Cambridge Handbook of English Corpus Linguistics. Edited by Douglas Biber and Randi Reppen. Cambridge University Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139764377.
Fitriati, Sri Wuli, Yuni Awalaturrohmah Solihah, and Tusino Tusino. ‘Expressions of Attitudes in Students’ Narrative Writing: An Appraisal Analysis’. Lingua Cultura 12, no. 4 (30 October 2018): 333. https://doi.org/10.21512/lc.v12i4.4789.
Fowler, Elaine Danielson. ‘Improving Style in Students’ Written Compositions.” US: Educational Resources Information Centre’. 1999. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED435096.pdfabstracthttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/341362186_Corpus_Analysis_with_Antconc/citation/download.
Gaertner-Johnston, Lynn. ‘Business Writing with Heart. How to Get Results and Build Relationships One Message at a Time’, 2014. https://alasf.org/images/downloads/K2L/presentation_business_writing.pdf
Garner, Brayan. ‘Reviews’. Journal of Scholarly Publishing 45, no. 2 (January 2014): 197–207. https://doi.org/10.3138/jsp.45.2.197.
Gilling, Desmond A. ‘The Essential Handbook for Business Writing’. Toronto: Greenlink, n.d.
Greavu, Arina. ‘An Overview of Business Writing: Challenges and Solutions’. Studies in Business and Economics, 2019. https://doi.org/10.2478/sbe-2019-0005.
Hunston, Susan. Corpus Approaches to Evaluation: Phraseology and Evaluative Language. Corpus Approaches to Evaluation: Phraseology and Evaluative Language, 2010. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203841686.
———. ‘Evaluation and Organization in a Sample of Written Academic Discourse’. In Advances in Written Text Analysis, 1994.
Hunston, Susan, and Geoff Thompson. ‘Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse’. Oxford Linguistics, 2000.
Hyland, Ken. ‘Activity and Evaluation: Reporting Practices in Academic Writing’. In Academic Discourse, 2014.
———. ‘Disciplinary Interactions: Metadiscourse in L2 Postgraduate Writing’. Journal of Second Language Writing 13, no. 2 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2004.02.001.
Jabbour, Georgette N., and R. R. Jordan. ‘English for Academic Purposes: A Guide and Resource Book for Teachers’. TESOL Quarterly 33, no. 4 (1999). https://doi.org/10.2307/3587892.
Jitpanich, Tanassanee, Lai Mei Leong, and Shaik Abdul Malik Mohamed Ismail. ‘Assessing the English Writing Needs of Undergraduate Business Administration Students for ESP Writing Course Development: A Case Study in Thailand’. LEARN Journal: Language Education and Acquisition Research Network 15, no. 2 (2022).
Jun, Zhao. ‘Teaching Reporting Verbs to English as a Second Language Undergraduate Writers in the Academic Context’. TESOL International Journal 15, no. 2 (2020).
Kassem, Mohamed Ali Mohamed. ‘Developing Business Writing Skills and Reducing Writing Anxiety of EFL Learners through Wikis’. English Language Teaching 10, no. 3 (18 February 2017): 151. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v10n3p151.
Kellogg, Ronald T., and Alison P. Whiteford. ‘Training Advanced Writing Skills: The Case for Deliberate Practice’. Educational Psychologist 44, no. 4 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520903213600.
Kiiskilä, Hanna. ‘Evaluative Language in the Early 19th Century’, 2020. Https://Review.Gale.Com/2021/06/22/Nineteenth-Century-Theatre.
Łuczak, Anna. ‘Figurative Language in Business English: Health, Sports, and Marriage Metaphors’. Beyond Philology , 2011.
Martin, J. R., and P. R.R. White. The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230511910.
Mehdi Haseli Songhori. ‘Introduction to Needs Analysis’. English for Specific Purposes World 7, no. 20 (2008).
Nelson, Michael. ‘A Corpus-Based Study of the Lexis of Business English and Business English Materials’. PhD Diss, University of Manchester, 2000.
Pounds, Gabrina. ‘Evaluative Language.” In International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction’. Wiley-Blackwell. New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015.
Pratumtong, Rungkarn, Paweena Channuan, and Wannaprapha Suksawas. ‘Investigating EFL Learners’ Engagement in Writing Research Papers’. Theory and Practice in Language Studies 11, no. 11 (2 November 2021): 1396–1404. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1111.06.
Ranaut, Bindu. ‘Importance of Good Business Writing Skills’. International Journal of Language & Linguistics 5, no. 2 (2018). https://doi.org/10.30845/ijll.v5n2a5.
Richards, Jack C. Curriculum Development in Language Teaching. Curriculum Development in Language Teaching, 2001. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511667220.
Rinder, Jamie. ‘An Investigation into STEM Students’ Uses and Perceptions of Lexical Repetition in Their Own Writing’. MA thesis, Stockholm University, 2022.
Talbot, Fiona. ‘How to Write Effective Business English: The Essential Toolkit for Composing Powerful Letters, Emails and More’, 2009. https://vulms.vu.edu.pk/Courses/ENG001/Downloads/how%20to%20write%20effective%20business%20english.pdf.
Vogel, Radek. ‘Persuasion in Business Discourse: Strategic Use of Evaluative Lexical Means in Corporate Annual Reports’. In Persuasion in Specialised Discourses, 159–95. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58163-3_4.
Wang, Min. ‘A Study on College English Majors’ Writings from the Perspective of Appraisal Theory’. Theory and Practice in Language Studies 7, no. 1 (1 January 2017): 65. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0701.08.
West, Richard. ‘Needs Analysis in Language Teaching’. Language Teaching, 1994. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444800007527.
White, Peter. ‘Appraisal Theory" in The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction’. New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015.
Zinukova, Nataliia V. ‘LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF BUSINESS ENGLISH DISCOURSE THESAURUS’. Alfred Nobel University Journal of Philology 1, no. 21 (2021). https://doi.org/10.32342/2523-4463-2021-1-21-18.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21622/ILCC.2024.04.1.703
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2024 Nader Mohamed Mostafa, Inas Hussein Hassan, Nashwa Elyamany
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Insights into Language, Culture and Communication
E-ISSN: 2812-491X
P-ISSN: 2812-4901
Published by:
Academy Publishing Center (APC)
Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT)
Alexandria, Egypt
ilcc@aast.edu
