Abstract:

Postgraduate students, especially in the Humanities, are expected to have an excellent grasp of rhetorical structure and features of texts as they are about to engage in research writing on completion of their coursework. This expectation remains an ideal. Govindasamy (2008) researching on spurious use of adverbial linkers in theses written by L2 students described the lack of appropriacy in their use of linkers as appalling. In response to this educational dilemna, the present researcher developed a technique to raise student writers’ awareness of rhetorical features. Extensive discussions on signpostings formed part of Text Semantics class consisting of 19 postgraduate students. Prior to this discussion, students had highlighted appropriate and spurious use of signpostings in the theses written by their seniors. On the conclusion of discussions, students were asked to make another attempt on this exercise. During the reworking attempt, they had to point out both their correct responses and the errors that they had made previously. The earlier and later results were tabulated and checked for appropriacy. The second set of results confirmed the more accurate responses of the students. The results and the ensuing communication with the students will be presented at the EduLearn Conference.

Keywords:

Signpostings, rhetorical features, rhetorical structure, adverbial linkers.