This study analyzes argumentative writing produced by two groups of Korean high school EFL learners in an attempt to examine how two aspects, argument genre feature and language competence, are reflected in their writing and to compare them according ...
This study analyzes argumentative writing produced by two groups of Korean high school EFL learners in an attempt to examine how two aspects, argument genre feature and language competence, are reflected in their writing and to compare them according to students’ English proficiencies. Also, the relationship between two aspects was investigated in order to find which language competence measure explains the argument genre feature. Argument genre feature was measured by the quality of claim, data, and warrants of students’ writing. Language competence was evaluated by how complex the language in writing is lexically, semantically, and syntactically. Sixty-one high school students participated in this research. The results indicate that advanced students’ written arguments contain more quality genre feature and more complex language than those of the intermediates do. Moreover, only syntactic complexity of the writing accounted for the argument genre feature, the quality of argument. Interpretation of the results and pedagogic implications are discussed.