TY - JOUR
T1 - The role of communicative purpose in describing and interpreting lexico-grammatical variation in L2 writing
AU - Kim, Yoo Lae
AU - Crawford, William J.
AU - McDonough, Kim
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 The Authors
PY - 2025/3
Y1 - 2025/3
N2 - The exploration of how communicative purpose influences second language (L2) writing has a long-standing history. This study adapted the Register Functional (RF) approach as proposed by Biber et al. (2021) to investigate linguistic patterns in essays written in English for two different communicative purposes (narrative and descriptive) by the same L2 writers in an EFL context. We analyzed 55 narrative and 55 descriptive essays (N = 110) written by the same 55 students during one exam period. Using selective features and lexical analyses to identify key grammatical features and their lexical realizations. The study identified distinguishing linguistic features between narrative and descriptive essays that can be functionally interpreted and related to the communicative purpose of each essay type. Based on the findings, we illustrate how different communicative purposes have the potential to enhance L2 writers’ use of diverse lexico-grammatical features when writing.
AB - The exploration of how communicative purpose influences second language (L2) writing has a long-standing history. This study adapted the Register Functional (RF) approach as proposed by Biber et al. (2021) to investigate linguistic patterns in essays written in English for two different communicative purposes (narrative and descriptive) by the same L2 writers in an EFL context. We analyzed 55 narrative and 55 descriptive essays (N = 110) written by the same 55 students during one exam period. Using selective features and lexical analyses to identify key grammatical features and their lexical realizations. The study identified distinguishing linguistic features between narrative and descriptive essays that can be functionally interpreted and related to the communicative purpose of each essay type. Based on the findings, we illustrate how different communicative purposes have the potential to enhance L2 writers’ use of diverse lexico-grammatical features when writing.
KW - Communicative purpose
KW - Key Feature analysis
KW - Lexico-grammatical approach
KW - Linguistic variation
KW - Register Functional approach
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jslw.2025.101176
DO - 10.1016/j.jslw.2025.101176
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85215092719
SN - 1060-3743
VL - 67
JO - Journal of Second Language Writing
JF - Journal of Second Language Writing
M1 - 101176
ER -