A Corpus-based Comparative Study of Lexical Proficiency of Writings by Majors of Arts v.s. Those of Science

Abstract

With aids of corpus linguistics technology, WordSmith Tools, Range, and other software such as Coh-Metrix, this paper attempts to give a scientific analysis on lexical proficiency of writings in placement test for vocational college majors of arts and those of science. First, there exist huge lexical proficiency discrepancies between the students, and they should be implanted more stylistic knowledge in writing and be input more original English materials to enlarge their English vocabulary size. Second, those using more referential cohesive devices and more difficult words tend to score lower in their writings, and the students should be instructed to pay attention to the surface coherence, but also to focus more attention to the global coherence. Finally, the students of arts do better than those of science in deep cohesion, and can score higher, despite that their words are usually the basic common words, suggesting that global coherence is of the greatest importance in all types of writings.

English Proficiency and Sequencing Skills in Narrative Writing of Public High School Students

“…Both sexes have difficulties in writing a narrative text with proficiency in the different areas of grammar. However, this study also found out that females are a bit higher than males in grammar proficiency, which is the same as the findings of the study conducted by Lange, Euler, and Zaretsky (2016) and Zhang (2014), indicating that girls have higher language competence than boys. The results indicate that STEM and SPA students with high level of grammar proficiency have committed minimal errors in writing their narrative texts.…”

“…Using the Scheffe method, the table of multiple comparisons revealed that STEM significantly differed with STVEP and regular, which means that the sequencing skills of the STEM students are better than the sequencing skills of STVEP and regular students. Abelman (2004) and Zhang (2014) have also found the same results. Both investigated the sequencing skills of the students from special and non-special classes.…”

“…However, females (M=3.15, SD=1.53) are a bit higher than males (M=2.88, SD=1.53), which means that females easily identify the relations between and among the series of events. This finding could be further justified by Zhang's (2014) investigation on the use of connectors in the writings of the students. It was found out that females use logical connectives correctly than males.…”

“…In an investigation on grammar proficiency of UNOR college students, Aboy (2014) found out that the grammar proficiency of the students from the College of Engineering was high. In another study on grammar proficiency, Zhang (2014) found that students from art class were also found to have a high level of grammar proficiency. The findings of the study conducted by Aboy (2014) and Zhang (2014) support the results of this study that STEM students, who are specializing in Engineering and Mathematics, and SPA students, who are specializing in Arts, have a high level of grammar proficiency.…”

“…Female students, therefore, significantly differed from men. Females use logical connectives correctly than males (Zhang, 2014). Table 8 shows the analysis of variance (ANOVA) used to determine the significant difference in the level of grammar proficiency of the Grade 7 students when they are grouped according to track.…”