A comparative study of abstraction and informational density in higher and lower Indonesian graduate students' L2 English academic texts

Abstract

The language features of the second language (L2) English academic texts written by Indonesian graduate students enrolled in Hungarian higher education are employed in the present study. The study focuses on the level of abstraction and informational density in student assignments in particular. Seven high-stakes essays were collected from seven Indonesian graduate students registered in the faculty of Social Sciences at three different Hungarian universities. Coh-Metrix, a corpus-based computational tool, was used in this study to examine indices of content words and abstraction. As for the comparison between higher and lower proficiency level students, parametric statistics were used to conduct a quantitative analysis of the selected linguistic features, including nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, and concreteness and abstraction. The results show that C1 English proficiency level students outnumber B2 students in terms of informational density. Their texts are more abstract than those of B2 students.

Redacción académica universitaria: Una revisión sistemática

“…Esta habilidad abarca la capacidad de transmitir ideas de manera efectiva, sustentar argumentos con evidencia y comunicar información compleja con claridad. Desarrollar sólidas habilidades de escritura académica es esencial para los estudiantes, ya que les permite expresar eficazmente sus pensamientos e ideas, respaldar sus argumentos con evidencia relevante y participar en el pensamiento crítico (Subandowo, 2023). Además, la redacción académica desempeña un papel importante en diversos aspectos del recorrido educativo de los estudiantes, como tareas, trabajos de investigación y exámenes.…”

“…Desarrollar sólidas habilidades de escritura académica es crucial para los estudiantes, ya que les permite expresar eficazmente sus pensamientos e ideas, respaldar sus argumentos con evidencia y participar en el pensamiento crítico (Subandowo, 2023). También juega un papel importante en su trayectoria educativa y en sus futuros esfuerzos profesionales.…”

Indonesian Graduate Students’ Consequences and Decisions of English Academic Writing Instruction (Eawi) at Hungarian Universities

“…In terms of the written context, writing papers in English is one of the criteria for success in the study. Subandowo's (2020) pilot study examined English academic writing challenges for Indonesian graduate students enrolled at Hungarian universities. His study pinpoints issues linked with EAW challenges by illustrating attitudes towards EAW in a non-native English-speaking environment.…”