Development of Rhetorical Awareness in EFL Undergraduate Research Writing
著者 Rosa Suen
journal or
publication title
International Culture and Communication Studies
volume 5
page range 119‑148
year 2022‑03
URL http://doi.org/10.34428/00013458
Creative Commons : 表示 ‑ 非営利 ‑ 改変禁止 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by‑nc‑nd/3.0/deed.ja
Theoretical Support for the Explicit Development of Rhetorical Awareness in EFL Undergraduate
Research Writing
Rosa Suen
Abstract
Research writing in a foreign language is a complex phenomenon, and it is a form of writing many undergraduate English majors in Japan find challenging.
While personal factors such as English proficiency level can affect the quality of EFL undergraduate research writing, previous research has so far overlooked the fact that this genre of writing is a form of critical academic writing in which rhetorical awareness development is the key to enhancing students’
genre-specific knowledge (Hyon, 2002; Yasuda, 2011) in order to improve their writing quality. As such, rather than the process-approach to teaching research writing commonly adopted by writing instructors in EFL settings, this paper advocates the curricular incorporation of rhetorical awareness raising instruction for teaching this genre of writing. More specifically, this paper first defines the genre of EFL undergraduate research writing, then explains this writing genre’s universal educational purpose for critical thinking development, and finally examines the importance of rhetorical awareness development for EFL undergraduates to produce quality research writing based on genre theory.
Keywords: genre pedagogy, undergraduate research, L2 writing, rhetorical concerns
論文
Defining EFL Undergraduate Research Writing
Producing writing with the use of sources in the form of course assignments or term reports is common for undergraduate students. However, there is a distinction between research writing that is categorized as writing from sources (WFS) for academic purposes and what is called undergraduate research writing (URW). Although a review of previous literature reveals that not all writing experts make this distinction between the two, due to the difference in teaching and learning between English-speaking and English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts, it is necessary to reconsider the definition of URW in EFL contexts.
Below is an account of the difference between WFS and URW.
Definition of WFS
WFS refers to writing that requires the use of sources in a purely technical sense. In fact, a number of writing experts have devised their own definition for WFS in terms of writing skills utilization to achieve intertextuality, defined as the referencing of other people’s work in the creation of own writing. For example, in asserting the importance for language learning and teaching, Grabe and Zhang (2013) defined WFS as the use of a list of writing skills, namely integrating complementary sources of information, interpreting conceptually difficult information, summarizing, synthesizing information, and critically responding to text input. Similarly, in a synthesis of published empirical research investigating WFS, Cumming, Lai and Cho (2016) concluded that WFS requires students to employ complex processes to “integrate source material effectively and appropriately into written compositions” (p. 47). What these two definitions share in common is that they describe WFS as a solely technical process involving the use of writing skills to incorporate sources into written texts.
Undoubtedly this definition partially describes the genre of URW. Unlike WFS,
however, URW is more than the use of writing process and skills to incorporate sources into written compositions.
Definition of URW
To define the genre of URW, it is important to first understand the purpose of conducting undergraduate research. The conceptualization of undergraduate research evolved from the developmental model of education traces its origin to William Perry’s (1981) work. Perry’s model was founded on a belief that a liberal education at the university level should help students progress through stages of intellectual and epistemological development marked by increasingly complex engagement with the ideas of others. In other words, the purpose of
undergraduate research is to invite undergraduate students to think in a more complex and critical way, and the acquisition of this mode of thinking is assumed to be indicative of intellectual growth that is likely to help prepare students for working in a professional setting after graduation.
In accordance to this conceptualization of undergraduate research, the Council on Undergraduate Research (1978) based in the United States has defined undergraduate research as “an inquiry or investigation conducted by an undergraduate student that makes an original intellectual or creative contribution to the discipline” (Mission section, para. 3). By this definition of undergraduate research, URW is considered to be genuine and distinct from WFS for it involves undergraduates as apprentices, collaborators, or independent scholars in critical investigations using fieldwork and discipline-specific methodologies under the sponsorship of faculty mentors (Grobman & Kinkead, 2010). Because an emphasis is put on undergraduates making scientific contribution to own field of study in the form of discovery of new knowledge, such research experiences often take the form of independent study projects, honors college theses, or
summer enrichment activities such as research assistantships in a faculty research lab in science, technology, engineering, math, psychology, and the human sciences disciplines (Collins et al, 2010). In other words, such
undergraduate research opportunities in the form of URW are available only to a small number of students chosen by faculty members so they are rare in comparison to WFS course assignments. In addition, undergraduate research vary widely in their goals, in the students they attract, and in their structural elements (National Academy of Sciences [NAS], 2017; Seymour et al. 2004).
These experiences typically occur in one of two settings: (a) apprenticeship- style, Mentored Undergraduate Research Experiences (MUREs) or (b) Course- based Undergraduate Research Experience (CUREs) (Linn, et al., 2015; Sadler et al., 2010). While only a selected few can engage in MUREs, CUREs represent an institutionalized strategy to update traditional science lab courses with a curriculum that requires undergraduates to learn science by engaging in authentic scientific practices and scientific discovery that are of interest to the scientific community (Auchincloss et al., 2014; Rodenbusch et al., 2016). In short, CUREs are for science majors, whereas MUREs are appropriate for undergraduates of all majors who have the privilege to engage in research as an apprentice of their professors. In both cases, the majority of undergraduates engaged in CUREs and MUREs are considered to be motivated in the task of producing research and have the language proficiency necessary for writing academic research. Because of the privileged nature of these experiences, it is common that faculty mentors only accompany few students throughout their research projects at one time.
In comparison to these privileged opportunities of undergraduate research written in English in the United States, however, many EFL undergraduates who major in English studies are required to write undergraduate research papers in
order to fulfill course or graduation requirement in regular classes that could be large classes where teachers teaching those classes have heavy teaching loads (Ferris, 2018). In the EFL context in Japan in particular, it is a common practice for undergraduates to write their graduation thesis in English regardless of their English proficiency level in public and private universities that offer the English language as an area of study. In addition, other than the difference in writing context, the differences in academic writing abilities between L1/ESL
undergraduates in the United States and EFL undergraduates in Japan are also of concern. In fact, literature has identified syntactic and organizational distinctions between texts written by L1 and EFL undergraduates (Conference on College Composition and Communication, 2014; Ferris, 2009; Matsuda, 2012). Because EFL undergraduates are undertaking a fundamentally different task with the added challenge of ongoing language acquisition occurring simultaneously while developing college-level writing competence, the acquisition of skills and knowledge necessary in producing URW is not an easy task for them.
Definition of EFL URW
Taking into account the educational purpose of undergraduate research and the challenges faced by EFL undergraduates in grappling with content-based learning in addition to learning English as an additional language (Ramanathan
& Kaplan, 1996) often in a short time frame with limited access to resources, it is then logical to devise a more inclusive definition of undergraduate research particular to URW in EFL contexts (Brew & Boud, 1995). Specifically,
undergraduate research in the EFL context should be defined as an investigation by students into three known entities: the “commonly known,” (i.e., commonly known by faculty in a discipline, but new to the student), the “commonly unknown,” (i.e., known only by a few specialists in a field, but unknown to the
student as well as faculty outside of that specialty), and the “totally unknown,”
(i.e., unknown to everyone, the elucidation of which would make an original contribution to the field). Thus, combining the definitions of undergraduate research as advocated by The Council on Undergraduate Research (1987) and Brew & Bond (1995), URW in EFL contexts should be defined as follows:
The writing for an inquiry or investigation by an undergraduate student on a research topic of own choosing into something previously unknown to the student through a novice-expert apprenticeship style writing process, through which the student may or may not make an original intellectual or creative contribution to his or her own discipline of study.
Undergraduate Research’s Purpose of Critical Thinking Development Effective teaching of URW as a form of critical academic writing depends on how successful teachers can encourage students to think critically as they write. However, a review of the literature on critical thinking has revealed a controversy over a unified definition for what constitutes critical thinking. As a result, a more focused sense of critical thinking particular to URW is provided below.
Definition of Critical Thinking
Critical thinking as a human faculty and measurable construct has been reviewed and discussed by multiple researchers (Facione & Facione, 1996; Ivie, 2001; Paul, 1988; Scriven & Paul, 1987). Scriven and Paul (1987) defined critical thinking as the mode of thinking in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them. Ivie (2001) defined critical
thinking in terms of reflective practice enabling learners to “establish clear and logical connections between beginning premises, relevant facts, and warranted conclusions” (p.10). Another definition focuses on critical thinking as self- directed and disciplined thinking “which exemplifies the perfections of thinking, appropriate to a particular mode or domain of thought” (Paul, 1988, p. 49).
Critical thinking is defined by the American Philosophical Association Delphi Research Project as “purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual
considerations upon which that judgment is based” (Facione, 1990, p.3). Nearly all definitions of critical thinking cited above emphasize in-depth consideration and examination of gathered information using different modes of thinking, in light of present evidence, in order to make decisions or take actions.
Examining from another angle, a review of the above definitions also shows that critical thinking could be conceptualized as either cognitive skills or social and emotional disposition. Critical thinking as cognitive skills includes a set of higher-order thinking skills, such as analysis, inference, evaluation, deductive and inductive reasoning. The disposition part, on the other hand, comprises truth seeking, open-mindedness, systematicity, analyticity, maturity, inquisitiveness, and self-confidence (Facione, 2011; Yang & Chou, 2008). It could thus be argued that critical thinking is “skillful and responsible thinking that facilitates good judgment because it (a) relies on criteria, (b) is self-correcting, and (c) is sensitive to context” (Weinstein, 2000, p. 41). In this definition of critical thinking, skillful thinking refers to the appropriate practice of critical thinking embedded in contexts that invoke reliable information. In contrast, responsible thinking refers to the responsibility of the critical thinker to present reasons for acceptable standards or challenge the standards by convincing arguments. When
making a judgment, exercising critical thinking refers to the non-routine thinking that cannot be based on mechanical procedures, but on situations that hinge on the assessment and determinations of priorities, truth, and relevance.
Criteria refers to the reasons of the critical thinker’s assessment of the essential factors, considered when analyzing, supporting or challenging a claim. Self- correction happens when the critical thinker applies critical thinking processes to develop the procedures that he or she adopts. Finally, sensitivity to context refers to the application of the developed criteria in different contextual settings (Weinstein, 2000).
Critical Thinking in URW
To some compositionists such as Flower, Stein, Ackerman, Kantz, McCormick and Peck (1990), critical thinking for academic writing is
understood as independent thinking that promotes original and authentic writing.
However, this definition does not define the exact critical thinking processes necessary in promoting such kind of writing. In an attempt to determine those critical thinking processes as defined by Weinstein(2000), Freire (1985) and Giroux (1992) asserted that critical thinking for academic writing is dialogical in that it encourages students to interrogate thinking in relation to material life, engage with their own biases, and negotiate alternate perspectives on the subject of their interest from the perspective of critical pedagogy. More recently, Roth and Borcoman (2015) refined critical thinking for the composition of research writing in English as critical thinking that includes three basic components:
concept clarification, fact-claim verification, and argument/influence validation.
First, concept clarification is one of the most important aspects in performing well as a thinker and writer. It involves defining terms and
expressions and assuring that there is no ambiguity, vagueness, nor imprecision
in a word or term used in an argument. For example, different people might have different ideas about what makes a movie a “good movie”. Therefore, a
discussion about the definition of a “good movie” may help reduce any misunderstanding likely to have arisen between the writer and the audience.
Second, the component of fact-claim verification requires research. When writers attempt to convince someone of the soundness of their viewpoint, they have to provide believable reasons, that is, those that a reasonable person would judge to be acceptable to common sense. If the chosen issue of an argument requires more specialized knowledge, then it is important to provide reference sources such as well-known authorities, professional journals, and dependable web-based resources such as technical and research reports from government websites or higher education institutional archives that are significantly related to the subject of argument.
Third, and the last essential component of research writing in English is argument/influence validation. What it involves is judging or evaluating the claims and arguments of others in terms of what is known as argument structure.
This means that student writers need to look at the way in which the reasons or premises of an argument provide support for the main claim. Argument- inference validation asks students to examine the way in which the reasons they have given provide support of their claim by putting the components together and evaluate the structure and content of their argument. The components should be arranged in an order that makes it easy to tell which statements are premises or reasons, and which one is the conclusion. This is the argument/influence validation step of critical thinking. Next, students would have to check if the premises are believable, true or factual by asking themselves if there is any further research that they need to do. Imagine that a student writes the sentence:
The airport authorities have argued that they need additional security because
the proportion of football fans using the airport has risen in the last year. In this sentence, the argument that there is a need for increased security is predicated upon the premise that football fans automatically create more of a security risk at airports. Thus, in performing the fact-claim verification step, the student who wrote the sentence would have to evaluate whether the use of not only opinions but also facts in the form of statistics and real-life examples taken from sources should also be applied in supporting the premise that football fans automatically create more of a security risk at airports in order to check if this premise is well founded.
Because the three components of concept clarification, fact-claim verification, and argument/influence validation when consciously applied and integrated into writing would allow student writers to clarify and elucidate controversial issues or issues about which there is ongoing disagreement (Roth &
Borcoman, 2015), they are relevant to the purpose of EFL URW. Consequently, by incorporating these three components with the synthesized understanding of critical thinking as stated in previous literature, critical thinking in EFL URW is ought to be defined as follows:
Critical thinking in EFL URW is an in-depth consideration and examination of gathered information in light of present evidence in order to facilitate concept clarification, fact-claim verification, and argument/influence validation throughout the writing process within a particular social context.
Some may argue that EFL undergraduates already exercise critical thinking as they try to write in grammatically and syntactically correct sentences when producing URW in English. However, this argument is flawed because the genre of EFLURW recognizes grammatic and syntactic fluency only as an ability a writer may have that helps create sound arguments. By logic, a syntactically
fluent writer is not necessarily one who can create sound arguments taking into consideration their particular writing purpose, audience and context. In the case of EFL URW, student writers are expected to exercise critical thinking in making such sound arguments throughout their writing process.
Rhetorical Awareness in URW
Similar to the definition of critical thinking, the meaning of genre needs to be formally defined in order to understand URW as a distinctive writing genre.
A genre is a staged, goal-oriented text with a definite communicative purpose or purposes within a specific community (Hyland, 2004; Johns, 2015). More specifically, genres are defined as textual forms that have typified formal features for addressing the specific needs of the audience in a particular context of recurrent situations (Hyland, 2015). Pedagogy that teaches about singular or multiple writing genres includes instruction to build awareness of the relationship between these text elements as well as their specific rhetorical purposes and the relationships that exist between writers, readers, texts, and the micro- and macro-contexts in which the texts are created (Cheng, 2006; Hyland, 2004; Tardy, 2009). This kind of pedagogy is based on what is commonly known as the genre theory.
Genre theory when applied to academic writing and instruction advocates that formal knowledge of text features and conventional language patterns are an initial stage of understanding that needs to gradually develop into a deeper and more nuanced awareness of the extent to which genres are shaped by influencing factors such as rhetorical purposes, interactions with readers (audience), and disciplinary practices (writing context). This is because writing well in a genre requires what Downs and Wardle (2007) labelled writing skills and writing knowledge. Writing skills consist of composing strategies such as brainstorming,
outlining, and evaluating a draft in light of assignment requirements. In contrast, writing knowledge is defined as knowledge about writing, for instance, an explicit understanding of how genres function.
Genre-Specific Knowledge for URW
Following Downs and Wardle, Tardy (2009) later conceptualized the definition of the term “writing knowledge” for any particular genre as consisting of four interconnected dimensions of knowledge as shown in Figure 1. In this diagram showing the different domains of genre-specific knowledge, first, knowledge of text form refers to knowledge of appropriate linguistic resources or structural elements at various discourse levels (e.g., knowledge regarding the use of link words to connect phrases and sentences together to form well-structured arguments is necessary in producing undergraduate research writing). Second, rhetorical concerns address awareness of purpose, audience, and social context.
More specifically, they refer to a writer’s knowledge of rhetorical purposes, writer-reader engagement, the writer’s stance and voice, issues of power and influence, specific circumstances, and disciplinary norms. For example, students should be concerned about who their own audience is and know the reason for writing a research paper when producing own URW. Third, process knowledge includes procedures for meeting the requirements of a genre’s writing as in how the genre is composed, disseminated, and connected to other genres. For example, students need to know the process for URW involves the writing of multiple drafts, and in producing those drafts they should consult expert opinion by having writing conferences with own instructor. Fourth, knowledge of subject matter is simply the content of the discipline. For example, students need to read extensively on their research topic to devise a research question for writing their research paper on that topic.
Note. From “Building Genre Knowledge,” by C. Tardy, 2009. Copyright 2009 by Parlor Press.
Figure 1
Domains of Genre-Specific Knowledge
Definition of Rhetorical Awareness in Genre-Specific Writing In contrast to genre-specific knowledge (Tardy, 2009), genre awareness is not specific to a single genre, but is an “explicit or conscious understanding”
(Tardy, 2016, p.143) of how genres function for people in specific activities and communities. In particular, genre awareness includes a broad understanding of rhetorical contexts and how writers may effectively respond to exigencies within such contexts, as well as an explicit framework for analyzing such contexts, for example through genre analysis (Cheng, 2018). Figure 2 illustrates the relationship between genre-specific knowledge and genre awareness. In the diagram, the dotted boundary between the two constructs portraits “the fluidity and interaction between the two” (Tardy et al., 2020, p. 297). Moreover, the arrow at the boundary indicates that they may contribute to one another.
Note. Model of genre knowledge, integrating genre-specific knowledge and genre awareness as adopted from “Teaching and Researching Genre Knowledge: Toward an Enhanced Theoretical Framework” by C.M., Tardy, B., Sommer-Farias, and J., Gevers, 2020, Written Communication, 37(3), p. 297 (https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088320916554). Copyright 2020 by SAGE Publications.
Figure 2
Model of Genre Knowledge
In consideration that these two constructs, genre-specific knowledge and genre awareness, are mutually supporting as “neither can be achieved without the other” (Cheng, 2018, p. 47), it is not a hard stretch to realize that genre awareness overlaps with rhetorical awareness (RA) that a writer develops for a specific genre (Tardy et al., 2020). However, compared to RA for a specific genre of writing, genre awareness refers to a broader understanding of writing and genres that writers can bring to familiar and unfamiliar genres by comparing different genres. In other words, genre awareness is an awareness that writing is adapted to specific rhetorical situations and developed through explicit writing transfer experiences across different genres.
For example, imagine an undergraduate student who must create a poster of his or her senior thesis he or she has just finished writing for use in participating in a department event. As a senior student, this student has developed genre
awareness that the poster content and design will differ from a research report.
Also, this student has learned to look at examples to identify conventions and variations, and is able to ask good questions to own advisor to understand better what readers will expect in the poster. This student, therefore, is able to use his or her genre awareness to build knowledge of the poster he or she has to make.
In contrast, RA in genre-specific writing such as URW is an awareness a student writer can develop through explicit classroom instructions and feedback on own writing pertaining to that specific genre alone. For example, the same student mentioned above gradually developed his or her RA for the purpose, audience and social context within which he or she had to produce her senior thesis. As this student wrote his or her thesis, this student was constantly engaged in the process of writing it as he or she received URW instruction in the classroom and teacher feedback. In other words, the RA she developed is an awareness of a need to adapt a repertoire of structures and techniques to the demands of the writing purpose, context, and audience for her senior thesis alone.
Note. Proposed model of genre knowledge, genre awareness, genre-specific knowledge and rhetorical awareness for genre-specific knowledge combining Figure 1 and Figure 2.
Figure 3
Relationship between Genre Awareness and Rhetorical Awareness for Genre- Specific Knowledge
As genre knowledge is different from genre-specific knowledge, it is also necessary to distinguish between genre awareness and genre-specific awareness as explained above and shown in Figure 3. While genre awareness is an awareness of the distinction between genres, genre-specific awareness is in fact RA, which is concerned only about a single genre of writing.
The Metacognitive Nature of Rhetorical Awareness
Be it genre awareness for multiple writing genres or RA for a particular writing genre, both types of awareness are considered a kind of metacognitive knowledge. This is because metacognitive knowledge is defined as human understanding of what a person knows about a specific rhetorical task, including awareness of him or her as a writer, and relevant concepts and strategies that may help perform this task (Negretti & McGrath, 2018).
In fact, writing has long been depicted as not only a cognitive activity, but also a metacognitive activity (Flower & Hayes, 1981). Educational psychologists have agreed that metacognition plays a crucial role in enabling learners to use and assess their knowledge, respond to task requirements, and take control of their learning (Negretti, 2012, 2017; Veenman et al., 2006). Particularly, Hayes’
(2012) cognitive model of writing emphasizes that metacognition is needed for writers to orchestrate knowledge and strategies to meet the specific objectives and constraints of the writing task (Escorcia et al., 2017). In other words, metacognition for writing can be understood as a writer’s ability to consider and regulate cognitive processes while planning or writing (Tardy et al., 2020). It is a form of applied metacognition (Hacker et al., 2009) consisting of two
components, metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation (Negretti &
McGrath, 2018; Veenman et al., 2006).
Metacognitive knowledge refers to writers’ understanding of what they know about a specific rhetorical writing task. More specifically, metacognition in writing is a generic concept understood as both knowledge and strategies that the writer uses to manage the cognitive processes during his or her writing (Escorcia et al., 2017; Gorzelsky et al., 2016). This component can further be subdivided into declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge (Negretti &
McGrath, 2018). More specifically, it can include (a) information about the cognitive task at hand, (b) one’s ability to perform that task, or (c) potential strategies one might use to perform that task (Serra & Metcalfe, 2009).
From a socio-cognitive or ecological perspective, successful writers adapt their knowledge to external criteria and expectations and assess their
performance within a broader socio-rhetorical context (Negretti, 2017). In adapting their knowledge, writers need to exercise their conditional knowledge, also known as proactive knowledge (Perkins, 1998) in the line of knowledge
transfer literature. Conditional knowledge, or the ability to determine when and why to use certain skills and strategies, links genre-specific knowledge and metacognition. In fact, even highly proficient language users rely on their conditional knowledge to regulate their learning (Negretti, 2017). Thus, the role RA plays in the writing process of genre-specific writing such as URW is significant. This is because URW instruction that develops students’ possession of RA of their particular writing purpose, audience and context is crucial to enabling students to effectively apply their genre-specific knowledge in
producing URW, especially when the possession of RA positively affects writers’
ability to monitor and control their strategy use during the writing process, and to accurately evaluate the quality of their work (Hawthorne et al., 2017).
For instance, the possession of RA has been shown to allow students to analyze the context and purpose of a text before making selections with regard to structure and language in own writing (Cheng, 2007; Johns, 2015; Negretti &
Kuteeva, 2011; Yasuda, 2011). Therefore, while it is important for students to acquire writing skills in order for them to attend to linguistic features, it is also important for them to acquire RA when writing in a particular genre if they were to write well (Arndt; 1987). This finding is consistent with the studies of Raimes’
(1987) non-remedial writers who did more revision than the remedial writers did.
Because of the prominent role of RA in facilitating URW development, it is important to ensure and monitor students’ RA development in their research writing process.
The Need for Rhetorical Awareness Development in EFL URW In EFL contexts, other than understanding the role of RA in enabling writing success in URW as mentioned above, explicit development of RA through instruction is also necessary because beliefs held by EFL writers about
URW as developed through their schooling may prevent them from seeing URW in English as a social action that is performed through interactions of purpose, audience, and context-dependent linguistic choice. This is because the academic discourse encountered in schools and the culture of schooling often encourage EFL students to consider texts primarily as repositories of factual information, including “tests that ask students to recall and reiterate information content only and textbooks that always seem to be written by nobody and everybody, as if the information embodied in them was beyond human composition” (Haas, 1994, p.46). In addition, previous studies have indicated that EFL writers’ concerns about writing in different genres might be much more formal at earlier stages of development as they undergo a grammar-focus curriculum, and as a result, they might be more aware of grammatical issues than pragmatic issues (Alcón, 2005;
Bardovi-Harlig & Dörnyei, 1998; Koike & Pearson, 2005; Takahashi, 2005).
These experiences in formal schooling together cause EFL writers to hold the incorrect belief that URW is autonomous and context free. As such, it would be useful, and possibly essential, to explicitly develop the RA of novice writers of URW such as EFL undergraduate students as they often do not possess RA for the purpose, audience and social context of their writing situation.
Awareness of Purpose
First, in developing EFL undergraduates’ awareness for their purpose of URW, English rhetoric assumes that writers are responsible for communicating their purpose clearly and presenting relevant information for readers to appreciate different perspectives. As URW is a distinctive writing genre, it is purposeful, or, at the very least, responsive (Johns, 2008). Unfortunately, the texts EFL students produce in their academic classrooms are often not as much purposeful as responsive: it is common that their instructors assign the writing
tasks, and the students respond to them. As such, the students’ purposes, in the main, are to please their instructors and/or pass the examinations. This phenomenon is evident in Ardnt’s (1987) study of Chinese ESL writers, where novice writers were found to manifest overzealous adherence to their writing plans and focused on making word-level changes instead of evaluating how successfully they have fulfilled their purpose for writing.
Awareness of Audience
Other than RA of writing purpose, developing EFL undergraduates’ RA for the audience of their URW is also important. This is because there are a number of factors within the general concept of audience that constrain the decisions they make in the process of text production (Kirsch & Roen, 1990). For example, in a study of the rhetorical consciousness of second language students at tertiary level, Sengupta (1999) found that school-sponsored writing is unique concerning the shared knowledge between the student-writers and their target audience (i.e., the teacher-grader), and that the student-writers see dubious need for signaling and making links explicit in their texts because they think that the reader (i.e., their teacher) knows the content better than they do.
In the same light, Grabe and Kaplan (1996) have identified five parameters of audience influence over the production of written discourse. These five parameters include: (a) the number of persons who are expected to read the text, (b) the extent of familiarity of the readers with the writer, (c) the status of the readers in relation to the writer, (d) the extent of shared background knowledge between the readers and the writer, and (e) the extent of shared specific topical knowledge between the readers and the writer. Parallel to these five parameters, Ede and Lunsford (1984) posited a sixth parameter of audience influence on writing quality by asserting that a complete understanding of audience is the
awareness that audience refers to both the audience being “addressed” in own writing (i.e., real readers), with its focus on the reader, and also the audience
“invoked” (i.e., imagined readers), with its focus on the writer. This sixth parameter is especially relevant to EFL URW as URW requires EFL undergraduates to possess a sense of belonging to a community of practice consisting of members who observe and obey the conventions that define the genre they write (Smit, 2004; Wardle & Clement; 2017). To EFL undergraduates, their real audience includes their instructor and possibly other faculty members in the department they belong. Conversely, their imagined audience would be all members, expert and novice, who produce research writing in their field of study.
For EFL undergraduates who engage in URW as a course requirement, although they might not think of themselves as practitioners in their field of study, understanding the influence their community of practice has on them by acquiring RA can possibly help them successfully transfer writing knowledge and skills from their previous writing experiences to producing URW in English.
After all, there is no doubt that part of the process of moving from novice to expert involves learning how to learn within communities as demonstrated in Beaufort’s (2007) study of one male undergraduate student conducted using a context-based framework of the discourse community theory. This male participant in her study experienced difficulty transferring writing knowledge from one course to the other as a result of both the competing values in the different discourse communities he was involved in as well as a lack of awareness on his part about the differences between those communities.
Awareness of Social Context
Perhaps to a lesser extent in comparison to the possession of RA for writing purpose and audience, EFL undergraduates also need to develop their RA for the
social context surrounding their writing situation. This is because there is a strong consensus among writing researchers on the importance of social contexts and cognitive efforts of student writers in understanding writing development.
(Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1993; Nystrand, 1989). Simply put, this consensus asserts that genres are socio-cognitive schemas for appropriate textual approaches to rhetorical problems (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996), schemas that often have to be reformulated as writers produce texts for the demands of specific contexts. Thus, receiving explicit instruction on the social functions of a genre (e.g. learning that URW is for knowledge acquisition and to show own
understanding of an academic topic) might provide inexperienced student writers (e.g. EFL undergraduates) with a concrete opportunity to see “language as a meaning-making system” (Martin, 2009, p.11), and in turn facilitates their use of language to make meaning according to the context of their writing situation.
Conclusion
Competent writers are aware of the different aspects of their rhetorical problems concerning writing purpose, audience, and social context, and they devise appropriate goal formation strategies to solve these problems. They do not merely decide what to write in each sentence and how to write each of them in a text based on their own preferences alone; rather, they mold their text by balancing their intentions and purposes with the expectations and needs of the audience. In other words, these writers understand the importance of addressing their audience’s interests, knowledge, values, and rhetorical expectations for writing in all phases of composing (Flower et al., 1990; Nystrand, 1989).
However, previous literature as discussed above suggests that EFL
undergraduates who have not developed appropriate academic schemas for these concerns in URW need to acquire RA through explicit teaching. Consequently,
teaching with a curriculum that adopts the genre approach to raise EFL undergraduates’ RA for URW as they undergo the writing process is necessary for them to write with success.
More importantly, as much as URW is considered a high-impact educational practice beneficial for undergraduate students (Kuh, 2008), the student
development perception of research for the enhancement of problem-solving skills is relatively new to undergraduate education in Japan (Imafuku, 2020).
Concerning EFL URW, English educators at Japanese universities need to acquire an understanding of how instruction of EFL URW at their respective institutions intersect with the purpose of university education for improving undergraduates’ ability to think critically, and also to devise methodology for the explicit teaching of RA. In so doing, it is expected that EFL undergraduates would learn to see research writing in English as a form of meaning-making communication, which is different from other writing tasks implemented in their English classroom with an emphasis on grammatical and syntactic accuracy, and ultimately be able to benefit from the process of learning and discovery through research writing in English.
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