Argument constructions in argumentative essays by Malaysian tertiary students: a systemic functional approach

The aim of this thesis is to identify the relationship between the use of schematic structures of argumentative essays and the deployment of logical metafunction resources. In achieving the aim, first, the study describes the schematic structure analysis of twenty final examination argumentative genre essays (AEs) written by the three different groups of writers each namely, high-graded (HGE), middle graded (MGE) and low-graded (LGE) in a Malaysian university entrance context. Next, it describes and compares the logical metafunction resources employed by the three groups of essays. It then maps the variation in schematic structures and logico-semantic resources onto each other to see how these resources are employed by the writers at the different stages of the schematic structures. Finally, the results of the mapping analysis are compared across the three groups of writers to see how arguments were constructed in successful and less successful essays.