The Trajectory of an Undergraduate Researcher

This article focuses on the progress of an undergraduate English major on the scholarship continuum outlined by Laurie Grobman (2009). The student engaged in authentic research in a research methods course for English majors, a class that also meets a university requirement of “quantitative intensive,” and she completed two research projects of note. Her journey has implications and significance for faculty in designing undergraduate research experiences.

A Comparative Analysis of Reporting Verbs Used in Literature Review Chapters of Bachelor’s and Master’s Theses of Chinese English Majors

Reporting Verbs (RVs), a crucial aspect of citations in academic writing, are used to report the work of other researchers. A Literature Review Chapter, as a key part-genre of any thesis, or a bigger genre where it is embedded, is the main place that has the highest number of RVs. Accordingly, this study aimed to analyze and compare the use of RVs between 30 bachelor’s thesis (BT) Literature Review Chapters and 30 master’s thesis (MT) Literature Review Chapters of Chinese English majors in terms of denotation and evaluation of RVs based on Hyland’s (2002) classification framework. The findings reveal that the RVs used in the BT Literature Reviews were smaller in amount and narrower in range compared with those in the MT counterparts. Regarding the denotation of RVs, Discourse Act RVs were found to be the most predominant in the BT corpus, while Research Act RVs prevailed in the MT corpus. Cognition Act RVs were the least used in the two corpora. Regarding the evaluation of RVs, factive RVs were the most frequently used in the BT Literature Reviews, while non-factive RVs were the most prominent in the MT counterparts. However, negative RVswere infrequent in both corpora. This study would increase the thesis writers’ knowledge on the significance of RVs, raise their awareness of employing RVs, and help them use RVs appropriately and effectively in writing their thesis and other academic writings. This paper also provides practical implications for teaching RVs in preparing research dissertations.

Thai elf Users’ Characteristics of Relative Clauses

To build up the empirical description of elf’s morphosyntactic system, this study examines Thai elf users’ characteristics of relative clauses and analyses the causes underlying their use of the construction. Data were taken from the writing of 116 advanced and upper-intermediate English majors at a university in Bangkok. The results indicated that Thai elf users’ relative clauses exhibit preferences for unmarked and explicit structures. Both linguistic and functional causes are responsible for their production of the construction: they form relative clauses full of basic and transparent structures in order to ensure simple and successful communication. The overall results reveal the nature of elf communication. Although Thai elf users’ relative clauses are associated with some specific patterns, their use of this grammatical construction is governed by general linguistic processes which have been found to operate in the interactions of many groups of elf speakers, especially at the phonological and pragmatic levels.

Analysis of Conversational Interaction in the Listening Discourse of Test for English Majors-8

Conversational interaction analysis is a method of analyzing the content and structure of the words spoken by both parties in a conversation. The listening discourse of TEM-8 has not only the basic characteristics of daily conversation discourse, but also its special features as a selective examination. This paper applies a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, encompassing the perspectives of the construction and transformation of turn, the sequential organization of the conversation, and the repair of conversation, to carry out conversational interaction analysis on listening discourse materials of the TEM-8 in 2011, 2015 and 2019. The results revealed that candidates need to grasp the topic, match questions with answers, capture details, and pay attention to the role change, tone and repair of the conversation, as well as strengthen listening training, so that they can do well in TEM-8 exams.

Agency Fluctuations and Identity Transformations in Chinese English-Majors on Their Learning Trajectories

This paper explores agency fluctuations and identity transformations in Chinese English-majors and how they are related to the process of English learning. By tracing a group of students for four years in a Chinese university and conducting qualitative analyses to their oral narrations of learning experiences at different periods, the study has found that most participants started and ended their university life at relatively high levels of agency, with inevitable ups and downs in between. Agency fluctuations in the learners are the result of their identity positioning and repositioning within a complex and ever-changing context. Concordant or conflicting identities may co-exist within an individual learner and keep changing across different situations. Learner identities will cause increase or reduction in their investment in English learning, while their learning experience will in turn reinforce or undermine their identities. The study sheds light on the intricate relationships between agency, identity and language learning and therefore has important implications for English learning and teaching in China.

A Study on English Learning Motivation and Vocabulary Learning Strategies of Excellent English Graduates

Vocabulary is the basic building block of language, and the acquisition of a language relies on vocabulary. In acquiring vocabulary, the adoption of vocabulary learning strategies is an important affecting factor. The relationship between vocabulary learning strategy and vocabulary knowledge has been the focus of researchers. Motivation also has a significant impact on language learning. The paper aims to explore excellent English graduates’ English learning motivation and vocabulary strategies. Two separate questionnaires are used to investigate different motivations and vocabulary learning strategies of English majors. In designing the motivation questionnaire, Gao Yihong’s questionnaire is used as a reference and in designing the vocabulary learning questionnaire, the paper mainly follows O’Malley and Chamot’s study. Through analysis, the study reveals the following findings: Firstly, with the least mean value exceeded 2.4, all kinds of vocabulary learning strategies were adopted by excellent English majors while learning vocabulary. Meta-cognitive (M=3.614035088) strategies and cognitive (M=3.633684211) strategies were preferred. Secondly, for the situation of learning motivations, situational motivations (M=3.858695652) were the highest. With the mean value of 3.432065217, instrumental motivations were the lowest motivation among the three types of motivations. Especially achievement motivation, it was the least held motivation by excellent English majors.