I TENOR I
4.2 Triangulating Data from Other Sources
4.2.4 Analysis of Students' Writing
The final source of data that is triangulated against the learners' LLHs is an analysis of student writing. Two essays are analysed, namely, a narrative and an argument, which have been selected
as representative of the writing of the learners in standard nine (grade 11) that I taught. The writing is analysed in orderto gauge how learners approach thedifferent writingtasks to what extent theymeetcriteria(Appendices 1 and 22) establishedfor thesegenres.Thisprovidesinsight into what students have learned about writing for different purposes in the context being investigated which canbe related to what emerged from learners' LLHsand theothersources of dataused.
The firstessay isanarrati ve where students were asked towriteastory about 'Trust'.
At the time of this story Iwasa student in theUniversityofWestvillein Durban and myhom e is situa ted in Johann esburg andwe were living in a flat withmy friend Lisa. She was a good friend of me Iwas trustingherShe was mybest friend the personthat we weresharing darkn ess secrets with her.
I meether in a universityherhome was suituated in Bophuthas twan a. We were havingboyfriendand they were friend we meetthem in a university they were nice guys.They use to take us to cinem as,hotel etc.
The followingmonthI decidedto go home.While Iwas at homeI phon edmy friendand I foundthat she was with myboyfriend Lindani but I didnt suspect anything cause I trusted them andLisa was my best friendshewas the one that I tell my darknesssecrets.
When Icame backLisa'sboyfriendtold me that Lisa and Lindaniare in lovetheyareloversand Ididnt be live it.Itwas like adream to me. I thought he might tellme that he 'sjokingbut he didnt.
At laterI found that he was telling methetruth causemy friend Lisa fall in pregn ant and myfriend come tometo make anapo log ies of that. Shesaid they were jus t make asecret lovetheyneverthou ght what would happ en andshe takeall her thing sand shego back toherhom e. AndLinda nicome tome for an apologies but Ididntexpect thatbecau se hewas goingtobe a father soon.
I was love Lisaand I was thoughtshe loveme as I love herbut I provedthatshewasjustpretend ing me.
I neverhave a friend which [ love,trust likeLisa.
In terms of the structure of narrative genre the student does provide a basic orientation>complication >resolution sequence. The reader is given the setting and the participants:twouniversity friends sharing a flat and datingboyfriends whoarealsoat university.
The complication ofa love triangle is established leading to the disappointment ofa trust not reciprocated.As readers we are able to follow the activity/ event sequence easily enough. Also thereis useofevaluationto foreshadow events and createsomeexpectation whenthe writerstates that she'didntsuspect anything cause I trusted themand Lisa wasmybest friend' . Otherthanthat thenarrative is ratherflat.
This flatness it brought to light when one examines the text in relation to tenor. The writer has written a narrative sequence without much effort to develop the subjective world of the participants. The reader is not let into the character's motives or feelings except when she writes that the news of her friend's affair with her boyfriend was 'like a dream to me' and at the end when the reader is left with a sense of loss and betrayal. There are thus few mental processes, comment adjuncts,rhetorical questions, direct speech or exclamatives in the text.
In the field dimension the writer does create a plausible world with specific participants interacting with each other and the activity sequence is coherent in that we are able to follow the sequence of events.However, there is little effort to develop and elaborate the physical details of the world and the characters with varied, precise and discriminating vocabulary. The result is that there is little to engage the reader's interest.
In terms of mode the writer has shown some degree of control in that he has used varied beginnings to denote changes in the temporal sequence of events. The themes of each paragraph, except for paragraph 2, signal a change in the time sequence which helps narrative along. These are: 'At the time of the story'; 'The following month'; 'While I was at home'; 'When I came back'; 'At later'. However, 'The following month' is confusing because no time is established beforehand against which it can be related. There is evidence of control of a range of clause types within a sentence, for example: 'While I was at home//Iphoned my friend/land I found//that she was with my boyfriend//but I didnt suspect anything//cause I trusted them ...'; 'When I came back//Lisa'sboyfriend told me//thatLisa and Lindani are in love ...'. Besides these examples there is a reliance on simple sentences or strings of clauses linked by 'and ' or 'but'.
Most students displayed basic control over the event sequence of narratives as the example above showed. However, this student's narrative writing displays other features typical of much of the students' work that I encountered. Narratives were written as rather flat statements/recounts of events with no control of the linguistic resources to engage readers in the thoughts, motives and emotions 0f protagonists in the narrative. Furthermore, the overwhelming impression of many essays is that they are written as tasks for marks and there is little evidence ofleamer engagement in the task. While this lack of interest could be attributed to the topic, the statements from
learners' LLHs about their experience of writing and the assessment of writing lends weight to the conclusion that learners perceive writing more as a grammatical exercise where the basics of a coherent narrative are all that is required.
The second essay is an example of a student's attempt to develop an argument about how the violence in South Africa should be ended through negotiations.
Ifwe want out country to be quite& peace we must come together as grassroots of thiscountry.We must find the cause of this violence which has gone. With many people most of them who are innocent and if we are negotiating there should be all races of this country and our leaders if anyone of them talks inflammarly we must not rush to insult or shout at him because that can lead us to the destination of nowhere.Wemustsit around the table like one big family when they eat meal where there is acstsyat all events.
When negotiating each and every organisation must contribute towards the necessitiesof South Africa and payhomage to our leaders as they ususally do when delivering speech to their followeres,because they toleratedall the difficulties they came across with. We must treat one another aswe treat our brothers an sisters. Even those who are bully or rude who want to have status by provoking leader of certain organisation we must not start to point fingers at him or hit him because that will cause violence which i hate it.
When we have finished our speech that we have descussing about we must shake hands to oneanotherto ensure that it very nice to be together as an inhabitants of South Africa who can make this country very beautiful very attractive and our posterity may develop if we have passed away in our new South Africa in the name of negotiations.
This student shows very little control of the structural conventions of argument. Firstly, there is no clear thesis statement which expresses the point of view to be argued in the essay and which sets the boundaries for the topic. The first sentence could be taken as the thesis statement but the issue mentioned,coming together at grassroots level, is not developed consistentlythrough the essay. The rest of the first paragraph seems to argue that people should not react violently to the inflammatory speeches ofleaders. The last sentence expresses the need for people to sit round a table but exactly how this could be accomplished is not developed. There is no coherent developmentof claims in support of an identifiable thesis. The second paragraph introduces the notion of negotiations, but negotiation is seen as paying homage to leaders and there is no coherent link between these two propositions. The second paragraph repeats the idea of not reacting violently to provocative leaders. There is no conclusion to the argument that links back to any thesis or previous claims, there is a jumbled list of cliched calls to work together without presenting any argument for why these things should be done and how they could be
accomplished. In short, a weak argument.
As far as tenor is concerned the writer makes no use of any linguistic resources to try and create an impression of being objective. Use is made of personal reference 'we' and 'I' and there is strong modality ('must') employed throughout the text. The overall impression created by the language used is that this is speech written down.Itis a highly 'verbal' text with a high incidence ofconjunctions: 'if', 'which', 'because', 'when', 'and'. In the field dimension the writer does not use language which elaborates on information and does not use means other than conjunctions to establish reasoning relationships. There is no evidence of an awareness of the appropriate vocabulary related to the issue of negotiations. Itis in developing a context-independent text (mode) that this student fails dramatically. There is no evidence of text and paragraph themes which are coherently developed nor are there clause themes consistent with the purpose of the text.
This essay displays all the problems that most students faced when confronted with the genre of argument. The evidence from their writing points to vague generalised injunctions to write an essay with an introduction, body and conclusion without any idea of how different purposes for writing will create texts with different beginnings, middles and ends in keeping with the purpose ofthat text. This text confirms what many ofthe students have stated about having no idea of how to put an argument together and clearly indicates that these genres are largely ignored and that little explicit teaching occurs around them.