[Note: Christine Meloni and Kenneth Stratton collaborated with Weasenforth and Lucas on the research study that culminated in this preliminary paper. The paper itself was prepared solely, however, by Weasenforth and Lucas and they, therefore, deserve full credit for it. The research continues, and a final report is anticipated for the end of 1997.]
In the course of adapting to new pedagogical approaches and new technologies, language educators typically go through an initial stage during which the new approach or technology is investigated to determine how it can be best exploited to promote language acquisition. Those pioneers bold enough to take on such ventures may discover that a new technology--take the Internet as a prominent current example--provides a number of benefits to language learning. Few educators would question that the vast amount of information available on the World Wide Web or that the ability provided by e-mail to communicate globally has greatly benefited the field of language teaching. With the advent of Internet 2, we are reminded of the great amount of work yet needed to investigate the usefulness of a technology that continues to change and grow.
As pioneers may experience, however, investigations of new technologies turn up failed as well as successful means of exploiting the technology. The intractable nature of the Web, including the elusiveness of Web sites, have turned meticulously prepared lesson plans into temporarily useless ideas. Other failures in the exploitation of the Internet occur when the technology may be misapplied to serve purposes which contrast with pedagogical objectives.
Perhaps an example of such misapplication would be some uses of e-mail facilities in the instruction of writing academic essays. That is, having students write essays in e-mail editors (i.e., on-line) rather than in word-processing programs (i.e., off-line) may not benefit students as hoped. More generally, it is questionable that--given observed and assumed differences between writing on-line and off-line--students' writing on-line in general will improve their academic writing abilities. If so, it is not clear how it might do so.
E-mail editors, such as Pine, offer rudimentary editing options compared to word processing software, such as Word Perfect. The provision of limited editing facilities seems consistent with the immediate spontaneous nature of e-mail. That is, since the level of accuracy expected in formal academic writing is often not expected in e-mail messages (Lepeintre 1995; Murray 1985; Yates and Orlikowski 1993), a full array of editing facilities is not necessary. The question, as raised earlier, is whether on-line writing--given the smaller concern for accuracy--is useful in promoting proficiency in academic writing for which accuracy is highly valued.
Whether associated with limited editing facilities or some other aspect of e-mail, the nature of on-line writing has been found to differ from off-line writing (Lepeintre 1995; Murray 1995, 1996; Yates and Orlikowski 1993) in various ways. On-line writing has been seen as a hybrid of formal written texts and informal conversational texts (Marcus 1995; Murray 1996; Yates and Orlikowski 1993). E-mail texts have been distinguished in terms of discourse management, including turn taking strategies (Murray 1991, 1995, 1996; Chapelle 1990). Murray (1995, 1996) also distinguishes on-line texts with regard to rhetorical aspects, including aspects associated with audience address.
Using a multilevel discourse analytic approach, Tella (1992) investigated the salience and deployment of cohesive structures, lexicon and rhetorical features (i.e., style, organization and phatic features) in the e-mail texts of Finish secondary students. The results of this investigation suggest that e-mail texts resemble "oral communication" in that ellipsis and colloquialisms were more prominent in on-line than in off-line texts. The e-mail messages were more casual in style, whereas a greater occurrence of cohesive lexical items and hierarchical rhetorical organization were observed in off-line texts. Tella also found that in general the off-line texts were longer than on-line texts.
In a similar, but smaller study, Lepeintre (1995) investigated the salience and deployment of textual features which Ochs (1979) associated with "planned/unplanned" speech.1 She found that phrase structures were more common in e-mail messages than in in-class essays. Consistent with Murray (1996), she suggests that closer investigation of cohesive lexical items and of syntactic features may yield interesting results which may distinguish students' on-line and off-line writing.
With an interest in determining to what extent students' use of e-mail might be beneficial in developing their proficiency in writing academic essays--this determination being based on text type differences--a multi-level discourse study was designed to contrast students' on-line and off-line texts. The expected distinction was based on analyses of three general textual characteristics. The first of these characteristics was the relative frequency of occurrence of selected cohesive features. Variation in the length of students' texts and in the inclusion of contextual material in their texts were also analyzed. These textual characteristics are identified and discussed along with the hypotheses in 2.1.
Twelve linguistic features associated with providing textual cohesion were selected for analysis in the present study. Since cohesion in texts rarely depends on only one type of device, it was decided to examine how frequently non-native speakers use different types of cohesive devices in their e-mail messages and their word-processed essays. Based on previous findings that on-line writing exhibits characteristics of both informal spoken discourse and formal written discourse, it was expected that those features typically associated with spoken discourse would also be used more frequently in the writers' on-line writing rather than in their off-line writing. The following features were investigated:
Demonstrative pronouns
This/these/that/those refer to a previous referent in the text, either a single entity or an entire concept (Kurzon, 1985) and help create referential cohesion in a text (Halliday & Hasan, 1976). Chafe (1985) has found that directly recoverable nominal referents of demonstrative pronouns are often missing in spoken discourse, but not in written discourse, due to the faster production and the lack of editing associated with speech. However, Ochs (1979) has noticed that demonstrative pronouns often replace articles in unplanned discourse. Therefore, demonstrative pronouns might be slightly more frequent in students' on-line writing than in their off-line writing. Biesenbach-Lucas (1994) has found that demonstrative pronouns occur infrequently in formal academic discourse; therefore, they might occur infrequently in the students' off-line writing, particularly when compared to other devices that also contribute to textual cohesion.
Demonstrative noun phrases
These are demonstrative pronouns followed by a noun phrase, such as these new policies. They create cohesion in similar ways to demonstrative pronouns as they also refer back to a previously mentioned entity or concept in the text. Demonstrative noun phrases have been found to be preferred to demonstrative pronouns in academic writing (Biesenbach-Lucas 1994). Research into differences in the use of demonstrative noun phrases with respect to spoken and written discourse yet needs to be conducted. Given the relationship between this feature and other demonstrative pronouns and given Tella's (1992) and Murray's (1996) recommendation for investigation of such features, we have included this feature in our analysis.
Inter- and Intrasentential Linking
Four types of cohesive devices are subsumed under this category. The devices investigated in this study are based on those identified by Master (1986).
A. Sentence connectors
These are lexical items which connect two independent sentences/clauses, such as however, therefore, moreover (they are often called "conjuncts").They explicitly mark logical relations between sentences/clauses and are associated with discourse with a highly informational focus, such as academic prose (Biber, 1988). Morrow (1989) suggests that cohesive ties marking relationships between ideas tend to be more explicitly marked through sentence connectors in formal academic discourse, and Ochs (1979) notes that sentence connectors are associated with planned rather than unplanned discourse. Thus, sentence connectors could be expected to be more frequent in the students' off-line writing than in their on-line writing.
B. Clause coordinators
These lexical items connect two independent clauses: and, or, but, yet , so, for. Considered "general purpose connective[s]" (Biber, 1988 , p.245), they were expected to be the most frequently used connecting device in both on-line and off-line essays; Biesenbach-Lucas (1994) found clause coordinators to occur most frequently in two different written genres she examined. In addition, clause coordinators were also expected to be more frequent in on-line than off- line writing since the simple chaining of ideas in coordinating fashion has been found to be more typical of spoken than written discourse (Chafe 1982, 1985). In the present analysis, only those coordinators connecting clauses were included in our frequency counts; those simply connecting phrasal material were not counted.
C. Clause Subordinators
These lexical items connect an independent clause and a dependent clause. such as when, because, while, even though, if. Similar to sentence connectors, they explicitly indicate informational relations in texts. Biber (1988) reports that research investigating the use of subordinate clauses has been inconclusive. Some studies suggest that certain subordinators are more frequent in written than in spoken discourse (Altenberg, 1986; Tottie, 1986) while other studies suggest the opposite (Beaman, 1984; Biber 1986; Tottie, 1986). It was hoped that the present study would shed light on the potentially differential use of this feature.
D. Phrase Subordinators
These lexical items connect phrasal material with an independent clause, such as because of, according to, in spite of. Biesenbach-Lucas (1994) found phrase subordinators to be infrequently used in written academic discourse. Thus, among the sentence/clause connecting devices, they were expected to be used least frequently in both on-line and off-line essays, but they could be expected to be more frequently used in the students' off-line writing since phrase subordinators require the dense integration of information typically associated with planned, written discourse. No research on phrase subordinators to date is known.
Discourse ParticlesDiscourse particles, or discourse markers, are typically found in spoken discourse: well, anyways, you know. Schiffrin (1987) has shown that they serve to establish cohesion in conversation. Biber concludes that they are "rare outside of the conversational genres" (1988, p.24 1). If on-line writing is indeed more conversational than off-line writing, occurrences of discourse particles might be expected to occur with greater frequency in the students' on-line responses than in their off-line essays.
Devices That Indicate Information Distribution/Topic Development in Discourse
This last group of cohesive devices subsumes five categories. It is based on research conducted by Clark and Haviland (1977), Thompson (1985), Halliday and Hasan (1976), and Weissberg (1984) and implies that writers provide connections in texts by supplying direct antecedents for information they assume as given. Writers typically do this by connecting previously unfamiliar, or new, information to known, or given, information. To our knowledge, there is no research investigating writers' use of these features in studies comparing written and spoken discourse.
A. Lexical repetition
In the present study, lexical repetition is defined as the repetition of the exact same noun, or noun phrase, in the subject position of the following sentence/clause. Weissberg (1984) found lexical repetition to be the most frequently used cohesive device in this category for the written academic texts he examined. Similarly, this type of cohesion has been found to be favored in written academic discourse by native speaker writers in order to avoid ambiguity (Biesenbach-Lucas, 1994). Howe ver, avoiding ambiguity may not be the main objective of non-native speaker writers. It was assumed that lexical repetition might be a strategy that is readily available to intermediate level students of English since lexical items can simply be repeated and a substitute does not have to be produced. Therefore, it was considered possible that lexical repetition could be more frequent in the non-native students' on-line responses than in their off-line essays.
B. Synonyms
Synonyms are defined as the use of an equivalent noun, or noun phrase, in the subject position of the following sentence/clause. Weissberg (1984) found far fewer synonyms than lexical repetition in the academic writing he examined, but synonyms were the second most frequently used cohesive device in this category. Since non-native students of English may not have the lexical flexibility necessary to select appropriate synonymous nouns or noun phrases, synonyms could be expected to occur infrequently in both the students' on-line and off-line writing. No research comparing the use of synonyms in spoken and written discourse in known to us.
C. Pronouns
Third person personal pronouns in the subject position of the following s entence/clause refer to a directly recoverable item in the previous sentence/clause. Pronouns fulfilling this function considered in the present study were he, she, it,they, one of them, some of them, most of them. Biber (1988) notices that in speech these pronouns are often used imprecisely, making it difficult to recover the referent. Weissberg (1984) found them to be the third most frequently used cohesive device in this category. The present study may show whether this feature is used differently in on-line and off-line writing.
D. Ellipsis
Ellipsis is defined as the omission of any implied lexical item which would be in the subject position of the following clause. Although omitted, the implied referent is directly recoverable in the preceding clause. The effect of ellipsis is that it compacts the surface structure without disrupting clarity. Biesenbach-Lucas (1994) found ellipsis to occur infrequently in formal academic texts. Tella (1992) found ellipsis to be more prominent in on-line than in off-line texts. Therefore, ellipsis was expected to be more frequent in students' on-line responses than in their off-line essays.
E. Summative Expressions
These are phrases used to sum up longer segments of preceding text, such as based on the above reasons. Both Biesenbach-Lucas (1994) and Weissberg (1984) found summative expressions to be an infrequently used device by native speaker writers in academic writing. No research is known to us which compares the use of summative expressions for spoken and written genres.
2.1.2. Text Length
It was assumed that the length of the texts2 produced by the students would differ depending on on-line or off-line writing mode. Tella (1992) has suggested that on-line writing tends to be in general shorter than off-line writing.. Therefore, it was expected that for all essay pairs, students' on-line responses composed on Pine would be shorter than the corresponding essays written in the off-line condition on the word-processor.
2.1.3. Contextualization
Tella (1992) has suggested that on-line writing appears to be less contextualized and organized than off-line writing. In the present study, it was assumed that the students might contextualize on-line and off-line writing differently based on their assumptions of the immediate readership of their essays. In other words, since e-mail is a rather private medium of communication between sender and recipient/s, and since the students in our study knew that their teachers were imminently familiar with the text given as a prompt for their on-line response, students might also be expected to take this awareness for granted and not perceive a necessity to provide background information on the topic. In contrast, even though the off-line essays were written for the same two teachers, the fact that a printed version of the essay, which potentially could be read by a much wider audience, was given to the teachers may account for writers' concerns for providing topic background for readers potentially unfamiliar with the topic as well as the text prompt.
Therefore, each on-line response and off-line essay was examined for evidence of writers' attempts at providing context initially in their writing for the reader. For the purposes of this study, we restricted our investigation to basic contextualization clues although it became apparent that essay-initial contextualization is much more complex than what the present analysis suggests, and we will redefine our definition for a further, in-depth analysis. In the present investigation, we defined those cases as a lack of text-initial contextualization in which the writer immediately responded to the essay prompt question by providing a personal opinion. In contrast, contextualization was achieved if the writer made some attempt at letting the reader know something about the topic or the text to which he/she referred to in the essay.
2.2. Data Collection
The present study was conducted over the course of one semester at the George Washington University. It involved two intermediate, intensive EFL classes and two teachers from each of these classes. Students were asked to write one assignment on-line (using Pine) and one assignment off-line (using Word Perfect 6.1) on each of three topics: immigration, religion, and multiculturalism, which coincided with topics covered in the students' textbooks used in their classes. For each assignment, students were first given an authentic text on that topic and were asked to write as a homework assignment on-line a response to a prompt provided by one of the teachers (see Appendix 1). Students then sent their written responses to both teachers. Since writing e-mail is typically a more private activity, it was felt that in this way task authenticity was maintained. A few days later, students received another authentic text on the same topic and were asked to write a response to a similar prompt off-line during class time, thus retaining task authenticity (see Appendix 1). Again, it was made clear that the essays would be read by both teachers. In this way, it was assured that the target audience was the same in both on-line and off-line situations, and divergent results would not be due to divergent audiences. For the purposes of the analysis, only the first drafts of both types of writing samples were considered.
2.3. Subjects
Fourteen students from two EFL classes participated in the study; five students were from Thailand, three from Taiwan, two from China, two from Korea, one from Indonesia, and one from Saudi-Arabia. If all students had been present on all occasions for on-line as well as off-line writing for the three topics, a total of 42 essay pairs (14 on-line and off-line pairs for each topic) should have been obtained. However, due to student absences, essay pairs could not be collected in all instances. A total of 25 essay pairs were finally obtained. In the analysis, all essays were considered; however, in cases where direct comparison of writers' on-line and off-line essays was required, only the paired essays were examined.
Information questionnaires were given to the students at the beginning of the semester to assess their familiarity with on-line and off-line writing and the extent of their experience in general.
2.4. Analysis
The analysis involved establishing raw frequency counts and normalized counts for each of the features. First, to obtain the raw count numbers, the actual occurrences of each feature were identified - at least two analysts per essay to guarantee reliability - and tallied for each individual essay. The tallies were then added and averaged for each group of e-mail and word-processing texts (per topic), then for all on-line responses and off-line essays together. Next, the raw counts were normalized to arrive at comparable frequencies.3 It was decided to normalize text length to 100 words since all essays, with the exception of two, were at least 100 words long. Normalized frequencies were determined for the features of each individual essay; then averages were determined for each group of essays (per topic), then for on-line responses and off-line essays as a whole.
3. Results
3.1.Cohesive Features
The analysis of the target features of this research, the cohesive devices, leaves many of the hypotheses with respect to the expected different frequencies in the students' on-line responses and their off-line essays unconfirmed. No obvious differences between on-line and off-line writing can be observed when the normalized averages for each feature are considered. (See Appendix 2) Overall, all features occur with slightly greater frequency in the students' on-line responses than in their off-line essays, but since the frequencies involved are so small (between 1 and 3 times per 100 words), these differences are almost negligible. The only notable exception in this trend are demonstrative noun phrases, which in our study are used slightly more frequently in the off-line
FIGURE 1: Normalized Averages for Features
than in the on-line writing condition. This feature is the only one for which the frequency trend is reversed. But again, the difference between 1.35 (the mean frequency for demonstrative noun phrases in all off-line essays) and 0.92 (the mean frequency for demonstrative noun phrases in all on-line responses) is insignificant (see Figure 1).
These average frequencies, however, erroneously give the impression as if all twelve features were used by all writers in their on-line writing as well as their off-line writing to similar extents. Yet, this is not the case. It was found that some writers exhibit very individual preferences for certain features while ignoring other features. This means that a writer may show a distinct preference for demonstrative pronouns in his off-line essays but may not at all - or only infrequently - choose this feature in his on-line responses. Similarly, a writer may opt for sentence connectors in his on-line responses but never--or rarely--in his off-line essays. Other writers were found to have still other preferences. These individual differences become obviously conflated when average frequencies for all writers are considered (see Figures 2 and 3).
Nevertheless, four of the cohesive devices under investigation are in fact used by all writers in both on-line and off-line writing: sentence connectors, clause coordinators, clause subordinators, and pronouns. These particular devices are apparently not so much a matter of personal preference as a matter of what all these non-native writers felt was essential for making relations between ideas clear. They may also be the devices these writers felt most comfortable using because sentence connectors, clause coordinators and subordinators are very explicit means for establishing intra- and intersentential relations. Similarly, pronouns need to refer back to an obvious link in the text and are thus one of the most basic ways of making connections. The students in our study did, however, also use pronouns where a direct referent would have been more appropriate, such as in cases when the intended referent could not be recovered.4 Still, this shows that students perceive pronouns as a prime means toward creating textual cohesion.
It is interesting that lexical repetition, found to be so prevalent in academic writing, was infrequent in both on-line and off-line essays, even though some students showed a distinct preference for making textual connections in this way. Overall, however, the general avoidance of exact lexical repetition may indicate that non-native speakers interpret the repetition of the same noun, or noun phrase, as demonstrating a lack of verbal flexibility, which they may also perceive as less desirable. Pronouns may be the easiest way to circumvent what the students perceive as a weakness as they may not have enough linguistic flexibility to select appropriate synonyms.
Overall, even though it had been expected that non-native students' on-line and off-line writing could be distinguished based on different frequencies of use of certain cohesive devices, the present study has yielded no consistent pattern that clearly demarcates on-line responses from off-line essays.
3.2. Text Length
While on-line writing does apparently not differ significantly from off-line writing in the students' use of the twelve cohesive features targeted in our study, they do differ with respect to text length. Contrary to suggestions made by other researchers (Hidi and Hildyard 1983, Lepeintre 1995), word counts of all available on-line and off-line essay pairs reveal that, as hypothesized, the on-line responses tend to be shorter than the corresponding off-line essays for all three topics on which the students wrote (Figure 4). This difference is also statistically significant (in three of the four cases presented in Table 1), a finding which is consistent with that of Tella (1992), who also found that the word count for texts written on-line tends to be lower than that for texts written off-line.
Table 1: Wilcoxen Matched-Pairs Signed-Ranks Test of Text Length
| Texts (N=25) | R | Number | S Rank | Mean Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Immigration (N=10) |
+R -R z=-2.429, p<.05 |
8 1 |
43 2 |
5.375 2 |
| Religion (N=7) |
+R -R z=-2.366, p<.05 |
7 0 |
28 0 |
4 -- |
| Multiculturalism (N=8) |
+R -R z=-1.54, p>.05 |
5 3 |
29 7 |
5.8 2.33 |
| All texts (N=25) |
+R -R z=-3.829, p<.01 |
20 4 |
284 16 |
14.2 4 |
In addition, it was found that all essays, both on-line and off-line, tended to get longer over the course of the study. In other words, the on-line responses and the off-line essays are shorter for the first two topics, immigration and religion, and longest for the last topic, multiculturalism. In the on-line condition, the responses to the text on religion were actually the shortest of all three topics, possibly reflecting a generally lower interest in the particular source text. While this may simply be a reflection of the students' greater interest in the last topic, it can also be assumed that the writers had become more used to writing in on-line and off-line conditions throughout the semester.
3.3. Contextualization
The difference in text length between the students' on-line responses and their corresponding off-line essays precipitated a closer investigation into what might account for the greater text length in the off-line essays. It had been hypothesized that writers would demonstrate a greater concern for providing background for the reader initially in the essay when addressing a potentially wider audience, as in the off-line writing condition. Our findings show that there is in fact a distinct trend in the students' off-line writing for initial contextualization of information, unlike in their on-line writing (Figure 5). More precisely, in their off-line essays, writers make an effort to provide some kind of background information on the topic, which takes various forms, such as referring to the title of the source article, its author, the author's point of view or message, or a general introduction to the topic. It is only after this background has been provided that the writers proceed to respond directly to the essay prompt, namely, whether or not they agree with the author's point of view. Apparently, even though the writers know that their audience, the two teachers, are familiar with the texts, they frame their off-line essays in a way consistent with self-contained writing, in which background needs to be established.
In contrast, in the on-line responses, writers tend to begin right away by providing their personal opinion; and in all cases the writers use explicit markers to signal their intent, for example by writing in my opinion, I think, I agree with the author, or I disagree with the author. In most cases, students react directly to the essay prompts by even repeating the wording of the prompts as provided by the teacher, e.g. In my opinion, her research project is important. However, background is not established, nor is the author of the text prompt identified, as the use of the possessive pronoun her in the previous example illustrates. Such background is most likely assumed as being shared with the audience, the two teachers involved in each class. It is quite obvious that the absence of contextualizing information also accounts for generally shorter texts, in this case the students' on-line responses.
4. Discussion
The results of this study indicate that the students' on-line and off-line texts could not be distinguished in terms of the relative frequency of occurrence of the cohesive lexical items. However, the two text types were distinguished fairly clearly based on text length and the amount of contextualization given text-initially.
It seems likely that the academic context in which the students completed their writing may have masked potential linguistic differences in text types. The writing completed for this study was reading-based and written for instructors. Furthermore, it was incorporated into a teaching unit for which students wrote other reading-based essay responses. During the first part of the semester, students were made aware of instructors' general expectations (e.g., regarding textual organization and grammatical accuracy) for writing. It would seem likely that students would address these expectations in the responses produced for this study, for both on-line and off-line essays.
Characteristics of the subjects participating in the study may also have led to finding no linguistic differences in text types. First, all students were at an intermediate-level of English writing proficiency. Also, most, if not all, had been taught formal, academic English and may have had little proficiency in less formal English. Both the students' level of proficiency and their specialized preparation may have restricted their use of English to more formal registers and may have prevented their use of some features of English associated with conversational English. Third, students' lack of familiarity with the technology may have extended to not being aware of the sociolinguistic variations that can occur between on-line and off-line texts. Thus, had the students had a command of informal English, they may not have employed it simply because of an unawareness of the common assumption that informal English is often used on-line.
It may also be likely that the choice of linguistic features may have led to the lack of distinction in text types. It may be that a different selection of features associated with textual cohesion would distinguish on-line and off-line texts. For example, during the analyses, we noted that deictic features5 and lexical topicalization (similar to left dislocation) were prominent and could possibly distinguish the text types.
Variations in text length and contextualization, as well as the occurrence of features such as salutations in students' on-line texts, indicate that students employ different rhetorical strategies for on-line and off-line writing. This conclusion raises the question as to whether e-mail is an appropriate tool for students to use in writing academic essays. Aside from difficulties due to the limited editing facilities in e-mail editors, if students tend not to contextualize and develop their writing in e-mail--for whatever reason--e-mail may be an inappropriate vehicle for promoting self-contained academic writing or, at least, aspects of it. Likewise, instead of taming the technology to meet pedagogical objectives (Marcus 1995), it may be more reasonable to use the various technologies in ways for which they are better suited.
Hawisher (1992) discusses misuses and appropriate uses of e-mail, arguing, for instance, that e-mail can be effective in conferencing. Similarly, based on the results of our study, it appears that the effectiveness of using e-mail during the drafting and revising stages of writing should be questioned. It may be more effective to have students draft and revise their writing in a wordprocessor and then upload/download it in the event that the writing were to be mailed.
In general, it is not clear how writing in e-mail may benefit students in terms of producing academic writing. A fair amount of empirical research has been done in business management (Ferrara, Brunner and Whittemore 1991; Kurth 1987; Metz 1994; Murray 1985, 1991, 1995; Sproull and Kiesler 1986; Yates and Orlikowski 1995; Yates, Orlikowski and Okamura 1997) to document the effectiveness of communication via e-mail in corporate contexts, but relatively little has been done to document how students' writing could be improved as a result of using e-mail (Stroble 1987; Lepeintre 1995; Tella 1992; Yoder 1991). While there is a growing body of literature which provides suggestions for classroom applications (Dik 1986; Kumpf 1986; Rosenthal 1991; Warschauer 1995) and which investigates affective variables associated with classroom uses (Ingram 1987; Tella 1991), there is an acute need for empirical research of the potential effects of e-mail use on students' language acquisition.
The present study will be expanded in several ways. Researchers will investigate other features (e.g., deictics and topicalization) which appear to play a role in distinguishing students' on-line and off-line texts, and additional texts are being collected for analysis. A refined analysis of contextualization likewise promises useful and interesting results. Variations in deployment of features under consideration will be examined in a qualitative study. Finally, a sociolinguistic analysis of the potential intersects of students'familiarity with e-mail and the linguistic and rhetorical textual variations will be completed as researchers analyze data collected from the questionnaires.
1 These features were clausal vs. phrasal structures, left dislocation, repair and "nextness."
2 In the word counts of the on-line responses, the entire message was considered, including salutations (beginning and end), and headings. For the off-line essays, each essay was considered in its entirety, including rewritten headings, salutations and rewritten essay prompts (except when the writer clearly indicated through bracketing or different font style/size that a particular question was not intended as part of the text proper but rather a reminder to the reader).
The following lexical items were counted as one word:
3 The formula for calculating normalized counts is the following:
(number of occurrences of feature / length of text) x 100
4 Pronouns with unrecoverable referents, i.e., pronouns in sentences/clauses not immediately following the intended referent, were not counted in our study.
5 Deictics are features which anchor a text temporally and spatially. The use of now, for example serves as a temporal deictic, referencing the time of writing. See Lyons (1977) and Levinson (1983) for further discussion of deictics.
EFL40 Oral Communication: Reaction Writing/Article #5
MULTICULTURALISM: "DON'T SAY A WORD--UNLESS IT'S IN ENGLISH"
Directions:
1. Read the attached article, "Don't Say a Word--Unless It's in English."
2. Go to a computer and enter the GWIS2 system.
3. Write your reaction to the article. Then e-mail it to your OC and your G/W instructors.
Respond to the following question:
Joan Beck wants English to be made the official language of the United States. Do you agree with her? Why or why not?
EFL40 Grammar and Writing Reaction Writing/Article #6
Assignment for the Computer Lab on Friday, November 15th:
1. Use Word Perfect (either 5.1 or 6.1) for this assignment.
2. Write your reaction to the article, "Lingua Blank."
Respond to the following question:
Dennis Baron does not believe that English should become the official language of the United States. He actually believes that English should be banned. Do you agree or disagree with him? Why?
3. When you have finished this assignment, give a hard copy and your diskette to your Grammar and Writing instructor. Your instructor will return your diskette next Monday after making it available to your Oral Communication instructor.
| Textual Features | Normalized Counts for On-Line Texts |
Normalized Counts for Off-Line Texts |
|---|---|---|
| Demonstrative Pronouns | 0.24 | 0.19 |
| Demonstrative Noun Phrases | 0.92 | 1.35 |
| Sentence Connectors | 1.85 | 1.66|
| Clause Coordinators | 1.72 | 1.37 |
| Clause Subordinators | 1.56 | 1.30 |
| Phrase Subordinators | 0.50 | 0.47 |
| Discourse Particles | 0.03 | 0.06 |
| Lexical Repetition | 0.81 | 0.64 |
| Synonyms | 0.11 | 0.10 |
| Pronouns | 2.29 | 2.05 |
| Ellipsis | 0.56 | 0.42 |
| Summative Expressions | 0.00 | 0.01 |
PRESENTERS:
Sigrun Biesenbach-Lucas
George Washington University
lucassb@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu
Donald Weasenforth
George Washington University
weasenf@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu
OTHER MEMBERS OF THE RESEARCH TEAM:
Fiona Baker
George Washington University
fionab@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu
Christine Meloni
George Washington University
meloni@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu
Kenneth Stratton
George Washington University
stratton@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu
