ARGUMENT STRUCTURE IN LEARNER WRITING: A CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS USING ARGUMENT MAPPING

In this paper, corpus-based linguistics (CBL) is applied to the analysis of argument structure in Malaysian written learner English. Botley and Metom (2011) have demonstrated the value of using a corpus of student essays, a learner corpus, to explore the interlanguage (Selinker, 1972) of learners in the Malaysian university setting. This paper goes further by focusing on the critical thinking and argumentation abilities of students writing in a foreign language. The data consists of a sample of argumentative essays from the CALES learner corpus (Corpus Archive of Leaner English in Sabah/Sarawak).