A study of the texts in the TRAWL corpus of lower secondary schools reveals the visibility of the writer and reader in young learners' writing

Abstract

According to the findings of one study that used a learner corpus, advanced students of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) frequently make errors in the usage of interactional WRV components in their written academic papers. I believe inquiries, first- and second-person pronouns, modal adverbs, and modal auxiliaries are all included in this category of characteristics. The findings of learner corpus research lead to this widely accepted and acknowledged conclusion. On the other hand, there hasn't been much study conducted on elementary and secondary school students. The primary objective of this research is to study WRV characteristics in argumentative and explanatory genres within the TRAWL longitudinal corpus of learner texts from Norwegian lower secondary schools using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research approaches. Expository, argumentative, and hybrid writing are all types of writing that fall under this category. ICLE-NO, the Norwegian adaptation of the exam, is utilized to compare levels that have progressed in their growth (undergraduate students at universities).
 According to the findings, students who take TRAWL are more likely to include WRV features in their writing, with allusions to first-person views being particularly widespread among these students' contributions (with I dominating). The students who are enrolled in TRAWL have less experience than those who are enrolled in ICLE-NO, and as a result, they commonly abuse a range of features. Nevertheless, this is not the case for every TRAWL student. The fact that the prompts, whether argumentative or explanatory, typically look for a personal style is one explanation for the high frequency of WRV in TRAWL. Other possible explanations include: The following are some more reasons that might be applicable: There are particular explanation prompts and messages that are less personal, but other than that, there is not much difference between the genres. Consequently, teachers must be more specific about the genres they want their students to generate and provide them with more necessary prompts without imposing any particular writing style on them. In addition, they will need to provide their students with more opportunities to write.