Learner data from Belgium, Finland and the U. S.
Ulla Connor, Kristen Precht and Thomas Upton
Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis and Kent State University
Chapter overview
In this chapter, Connor et al. seek to demonstrate the value of combining the traditional textlinguistic tools of genre analysis, such as the identification of rhetorical moves, with a genre-specific corpus to make broader statements about how different writers approach writing for a specific purpose. Accord- ingly, the chapter also highlights the value of developing genre-specific learner corpora to facilitate the analysis of student writing for specific purposes.
The learner corpus used in this study is an intercultural collection of let- ters of job application from native and non-native speakers of English study- ing in three different undergraduate business classes in Belgium, Finland, and the United States. While the rhetorical moves that define the genre of applica- tion letters had to be identified and tagged manually, the text retrieval program Wordsmith, was used to automate part of the analysis. Their analysis revealed that while some rhetorical moves were used by all three groups in their letters of application, others were more group-specific, suggesting that different cul- tural norms might exist for the genre. Connor et al. highlight the sometimes unexpected impact that such differences may have for people attempting to apply for jobs across languages and cultures.
Ulla Connor, Kristen Precht and Thomas Upton
. Introduction
The past decade has witnessed the rise of computer learner corpora. The most notable corpora include the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE), a corpus of learner English containing argumentative writing by students from many L1 backgrounds (Granger 1998), and the Hong Kong University of Sci- ence and Technology (HKUST) Learner Corpus, a corpus of undergraduate assignments and “A” level Use of English exam essays from the Hong Kong Ex- amination Authority (Hyland & Milton 1997). The focus in learner corpora such as these in collecting data is on argumentative essays, other timed writing exercises, or school assignments.
The learner corpora described above represent an important new devel- opment in corpus linguistics. They provide significant data of general written English proficiency for interlanguage contrasts, which is beneficial for research in L2 acquisition as well as L2 teaching. The data describe general EFL pro- ficiency of a significant number of EFL learners in their first few years after high school.
Most of the learner corpus based analyses conducted to date have centered on the lexico-grammatical patterning of texts with less regard for functional and rhetorical, textlinguistic aspects (Flowerdew 1998). However, there is no reason corpus-based analyses cannot also be used to investigate how writers use discourse structures to accomplish the aim or purpose of a writing task (Kinneavy 1971).
Recent research in two related fields – namely contrastive rhetoric and genre analysis – provides new evidence about learner English with direct rele- vance to the corpus work. There is convincing evidence about systematic vari- ation in learners’ performance depending on the specific language task. Con- trastive rhetoricians, following Kinneavy’s (1971) classification of discourse, describe task-induced discourse structures and other language use. Kinneavy (1971) categorizes discourse according to the aim or purpose of writing and identifies four discourse aims, namely, persuasive, informative, expressive, and literary. According to Kinneavy, the purpose is a key element in shaping text and thus cross-cultural differences in the writer’s purpose would have signifi- cant effects on the final text. Although contrastive rhetoric points to some uni- versal features of argumentation and narration, language subtleties, such as the expression of purpose through the interweaving of discourse, syntax and lex- icon, have been overlooked by most previous research. In order to investigate the cross-cultural expression of purpose, a very carefully controlled purpose – such as applying for a job – in a corpus would be essential.
Business English in a learner corpus
Genre analysts, such as Swales (1981) and Martin (1993), situate purpose within other genre features such as content, style, discourse community, struc- ture and audience. All of these features are understood implicitly in the pro- cess of acquiring a new genre. Traditional genre analysis proposes ‘moves’ or functional components as basic to each genre; such moves can be taught to a novice writer of a particular genre (Dudley-Evans 1995; Bhatia 1993, 1995).
Genres must then consequently have cultural expectations – disciplinary as well as national or ethnic – and crossing cultural boundaries within the same genre requires re-learning part of the genre. Negotiating cultural differences in the translation of genres would then be an expected part of writing for a new cultural group.
The above discussion suggests that attention to ESP writing is crucial for language learners since writers of different L2s may acquire genres differently based on cultural assumptions. The implication for the development of learner corpora is that situation, context, and stimulus need to be identified, since vari- ation in each of these may elicit different types of language. Indeed, a corpus study in ESP may have interesting implications both for SLA and ESP peda- gogy. Consequently, we see a need for corpora that are specific to ESP situa- tions and include the writing requirements appearing in them. The subtleties of accommodating one’s writing for another culture may well become apparent in tightly controlling for genre and purpose in a learner corpus. The Indiana Business Learner Corpus (IBLC), used in this study and described below, is one example of the type of genre-specific learner corpus that can be collected and used to investigate cross-cultural variations in a genre.
. Textlinguistic approaches to corpus linguistics
In addition to arguing for more specificity in applied learner corpus develop- ment with regard to situation, context, and stimulus, we will also show how a textlinguistic approach is useful in analyzing the corpus data. As Flowerdew (1998) points out, a great deal of the corpus-based, more applied work has fo- cused on the lexico-grammatical patterning of text, producing collocations and lists of fixed phrases; much of this work has centered on the propositional level of texts with less regard to functional and rhetorical aspects.
For pedagogical purposes, instead of producing lists of modals and hedges, for example, it would be beneficial to show how modals are used persuasively in specific sections of an application letter, as in politely indicating a desire for an interview. A promising direction, according to Flowerdew, will be tag-
Ulla Connor, Kristen Precht and Thomas Upton
ging not only lexicon and syntax, but also discourse features such as ‘moves’. In Flowerdew’s words:
Another suggestion, which I believe would have wide pedagogical applica- tions, is more exploitation of the tagging function of existing software on the market. As Leech (1991) remarks, most of the work on text annotation (tag- ging) has been done at the grammatical (word class) or syntactic (parsing) level. Very little has been done on the semantic or pragmatic discourse level to date. For example, text could be tagged manually to indicate the generic ‘move structures’ such as background, scope, purpose in the introductory sections of a report. (p. 549)
In this study we tagged the rhetorical moves – explained below – in letters of application and begin to investigate differences and similarities in letters of application from different cultures.
. Letters of application as a genre
Letters of application would fit a genre definition such as Swales’: “a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communica- tive purposes” (1990: 58). According to Swales, genres have certain structural characteristics: they have a beginning, middle and end. Letters of application also conform to traditional definitions of genre in that they have a well-defined purpose. In addition, the readers of the discourse have certain expectations of the content and format of such letters. As such, the prototypical forms of application letters can be studied in terms of content and structure.
Bhatia (1993) has the most complete discussion of letters of application as a genre, drawing up a six-part structure: establishing credentials, offering incentives, enclosing documents, using pressure tactics, soliciting response, and ending politely.
In a cross-cultural comparison of application letters, based on some 200 applications for jobs and scholarships from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, Bhatia found differences in the function of the job applications in South Asia and the West. The main function of a Western job application letter is to highlight and make relevant the qualifications and experience of the ap- plicant to the specifications of the job, thus to provide self-appraisal. In South Asia, on the other hand, the applicants typically used the cover letters to enclose thecurriculum vitae, but did not take the opportunity to offer self-appraisal in order to persuade the readers about their strong credentials. Instead, many
Business English in a learner corpus
applicants used ‘emotional’ strategies such as ‘target glorification’ (i.e. prais- ing the prospective employer) and ‘self-degradation’. The Western reader finds these strategies too emotional and prefers ‘logical’ self-appraisal, according to Bhatia’s interpretation.
Although our research has benefited from Bhatia’s model building of appli- cation letters, like Scollon (2000) we consider it important to begin a descrip- tion of genre characteristics from the data sets in question, rather than super- imposing a predefined prototype. Consequently, the development of the moves analysis in our study began from the data at hand and will be described below.
. Data
The Indiana Business Learner Corpus (IBLC) which was used in this study comprises job application letters and résumés of business students from the U.S., Belgium and Finland. The goal of the larger corpus project is to study language use, accommodation, and genre acquisition of native and non-native speaking students in an undergraduate business class. Specifically, the corpus project plans:
1. to build an advanced EFL learner corpus of letters of job applications, with a native English speaker comparison group
2. to make interlanguage comparison possible among learners of different L2s 3. to identify the genre thoroughly, with simulated letters of application as a genre, to produce a prototype and then describe variation based on L2, business background, etc.
The corpus was initiated to help meet the need for situation-specific corpora.
The data consist of a cross-cultural job application simulation. Participants in this simulation are undergraduate university students in courses which have parallel components, including: “1) instruction in international business writ- ing; 2) a simulation, in which students exchange business documents inter- nationally; and 3) case studies of business people who communicate interna- tionally in writing” (Connor, Davis, De Rycker, Phillips & Verckens 1997: 65).
The IBLC is compiled from the learner material generated during the simula- tion project. Each year, the U.S.-Belgian-Finnish writing project involves three simulated, but tailor-made and roughly identical job advertisements, describ- ing a summer internship in an international business seminar to be held at the respective institutions. Job advertisements are written by the project instruc- tors. Each group of students writes cover letters and résumés for the foreign
Ulla Connor, Kristen Precht and Thomas Upton
internship and these letters and résumés are exchanged between the institu- tions. Students at each institution then go through the documents from their counterparts and, acting as simulated shortlisting committees, decide which candidates will get an invitation for a telephone interview. Students then in- dicate what the bases of their shortlisting decisions were. During all stages of this project, participants in each country discuss what they learned about the foreign students’ textualizations and about their own textualizations in light of the foreign students’ evaluations of their own letters.
The products from this simulation, which has been conducted since 1990, have been collected on a yearly basis from the various instructors and together comprise the IBLC. (For further description of the course outlines, students and assignments, see Connor et al. 1997).
For this study, we examined ninety-nine learner generated letters of appli- cation from Belgium, Finland and the U.S. from 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997 and 1998. The Belgian and Finnish participants were non-native speakers of English who had had at least six years of English instruction, though a good many participants had had considerably more English study than that. The Bel- gian students were majors in business administration, while the Finnish learn- ers had a double major in business and English. The American learners had mixed majors: some were English majors, others business majors.
The Belgian and Finnish participants were, on average, younger and less experienced in business than the American participants and attended their schools as full-time students. The American university participating in the study is situated in a large Midwestern city; many of these students were return- ing to school after beginning their careers and were attending school part-time while working full-time.
. Data analysis
An analysis based on Swalesean genre moves was performed on initial data in Connor, Davis & De Rycker (1995). The notion that prototypical forms of gen- res can be generated and studied is key for our study. A moves analysis is a useful methodology, since moves are semantic/functional units of texts which can be identified first because of their communicative purposes, and second because of linguistic boundaries typical of the moves. The moves have been empirically developed from a corpus of application letters from Belgium, Fin- land and the US, and describe the majority of functions generally performed in an application letter.
Business English in a learner corpus
The study reported here employs that coding scheme for genre moves, with slight modifications. Following is a description of the modified coding scheme:
Table 1. Meaning Components of a Letter of Application: a Coding Scheme (based on Connor, Davis & De Rycker 1995).
1. Identify the source of information. (Explain how and where you learned of the position.)
2. Apply for the position. (State desire for consideration.) 3. Provide supporting arguments for the job application.
a. neutral evidence or information about background and experience.
b. arguments based on what would be good for the hiring company. (“My intercul- tural training will be an asset to your international negotiations team.”)
c. arguments based on what would be good for the applicant. (“This job will give me the opportunity to test my intercultural training.”)
4. Indicate desire for an interview or a desire for further contact, or specify means of further communication/how to be contacted.
5. Express politeness (pleasantries) or appreciation at the end of the letter.
6. Offer to provide more information.
7. Reference attached résumé.
Note.Further explanation of the scheme is available in Connor, Davis & De Rycker 1995.
For examples of each of these coding categories from actual letters, see Ap- pendix A.
The original data-coding scheme was modified for the current study to reflect the further analysis of the data and to remove ambiguities that surfaced in training raters. In order to reflect the types of arguments being made in Move 3 (arguments for the job application), subcategories of arguments were added: a) information that was not directly used in support of an argument of the benefits to the company or the individual, b) arguments and information used to support arguments which focused on the benefit to the hiring agency, and c) arguments and information used to support arguments which focused on the benefit to the applicant.
The original coding scheme had separate categories for requesting an inter- view and for specifying methods for further contact. Since specifying methods for contact presumes that such contact would be for the purpose of setting up an interview, we decided to collapse these two moves into one: Move 4 – “In- dicate desire for an interview or a desire for further contact, or specify means of further communication/how to be contacted.”
Lastly, based on analysis of the common elements in the 99 application letters in this study, it was determined that this genre clearly included two fur- ther rhetorical moves than were originally proposed. Consequently, Move 6,
Ulla Connor, Kristen Precht and Thomas Upton
“the offer to provide more information”, and Move 7, “reference to an attached résumé”, were added.
The moves were coded by two trained raters, who had a .92 correlation in identifying and categorizing the moves. The occurrence of each move was coded in the data. Analyses were then performed on the occurrence of moves by country using a concordance software program (WordSmith).
. Results and discussion
To test for statistical significance in the rate of occurrence of moves across countries, a 2×3 chi-square test was run on each move. The chi-square test is used to determine whether categorical data has the same proportion of ‘events’
(in this case ‘moves’) across subjects; consequently, the null hypothesis is that there is no difference between the rate of use of any particular moves between the Belgian, Finnish and American subjects. With a level of significance set at p < .05, no significant difference in the rate of occurrence was discovered in five of the seven moves: Move 1 (source of information), Move 2 (application for the position), Move 3 (supporting arguments for the application) with the sub-moves a, b, and c combined, Move 4 (desire for interview/further contact) and Move 7 (reference to attached résumé). Based on this evidence, there seems to be a general consensus cross-culturally on the moves that should be included in a letter of application, but clearly there is also some variation across cultures.
Significant differences did occur in three areas. These will be discussed below.
. Move 3 (arguments for the application)
Although there was no significant difference across countries in the use of Move 3 with sub-moves a, b, and c combined, there was a significant difference in the types of arguments used in Move 3 when sub-moves were analyzed sepa- rately. A chi-square test showed that there were significant differences between groups in the use of Move 3b (arguments of benefit to the hiring company) (X2(2) = 6.81,p< .05). A post-hoc Fisher Exact Test indicated that the Finns (p< .05) and the Americans (p < .05) used this move significantly more fre- quently than the Belgians did. In terms of percentages, Move 3b was found in only 76% of the Belgian letters, compared with 96% and 91% for the Finnish and U.S. letters respectively. Below are two examples of American application letters using Move 3b:
Business English in a learner corpus
(1) Currently enrolled at Indiana University at Indianapolis, Business and Communications are my double majors. By working for such established companies as Malone Communications, I have acquired quite a bit of business experience. Through my determination and hard work ethic, I have been awarded a law scholarship from The Ohio State University for the fall of school session in 1994.
(2) I have a strong desire to work in some way with an international sys- tem, and although I am sure that positions with your institution are very competitive, I am sure I can be of benefit.
Although the first paragraph above does not specifically mention benefit to the company, the information given (business experience, personal qualities, achievements) is clearly intended to highlight qualities which the company would presumably value. The second paragraph specifically argues that the applicant can be of benefit to the hiring company.
Move 3c (arguments of benefit to the applicant) also showed significant differences (X2(2) = 13.68,p< .001), with post-hoc Fisher Exact Tests showing the Belgian application letters using this move more frequently than either the American (p< .001) or Finnish (p< .05) letters. In terms of percentages, 56%
of the Belgian application letters contained Move 3c, compared with only 26%
and 17% respectively of the Finnish and U.S. letters. Below is a Belgian letter showing a typical Move 3c:
(3) I feel good in my current position. However, the young age of the manage- ment will significantly reduce my career opportunities on a short-term ba- sis. I am an engineer in electronics and I have 8 years of experience in R&D projects and project management. With my current university studies in economics I would like to focus my career on marketing projects where I can further build on my organizational skills and experience in working with subcontractors both nationally and internationally. Developing and implementing creative solutions is one of my strongest assets.
The above example contains information that could also address the benefit of the applicant to the hiring company (experience, university courses), but the thrust of the arguments in this paragraph is focused on how the intern- ship could help the student achieve her goals. The entire paragraph, then, is characterized as Move 3c.
The more frequent use of Move 3b by the Americans and Finns and the more frequent use of Move 3c by the Belgians may suggest a cultural difference in what are considered to be effective arguments when applying for jobs.