Research

 

 

 

My research contunies to focus on analysis of students' longitudinal writing development, using the theoretical frameworks of genre theory and systemic-functional linguistics. Through collecting empirical data from intact classes, I have been exploring the possibility of tracing the simultaneous development of genre knowledge, writing competence, and language abilities. 

 

 

Current Projects (2023-Present)

 

What is "complexity" in L2 writing? 

 

Linguistic complexity has been documented as an important indicator of second language (L2) writing development. However, it is still uncertain whether form-based linguistic complexity (i.e., lexical and syntactic complexity measures) accurately reflects the complexity of meaning conveyed in an essay (e.g., the depth of argument). My current project addresses this gap by examining the relationship between form-based complexity and meaning-based complexity in argumentative essays. 

 

The study draws on a dataset comprising argumentative essays written by Japanese EFL high school learners at different proficiency levels. By focusing on adolescent learners, this study aims to gain insight into their writing developmental path in EFL writing at the lower-intermediate levels. 

 

 

 

Previous Projects

 

 (1) Effects of genre-based pedagogy on EFL learners' writing and language development

This study aimed to carefully document how EFL writers' expansion of lexicogrammatical repertoires or meaning-making choices was mediated by their interaction with genres that take place in various rhetorical contexts. The EFL writers were enrolled in a two-semester sequence of college-level writing courses that were designed based on the Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) perspective on genre learning (Byrnes, 2006; Halliday, 1996; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004; Martin & Rose, 2008). One powerful benefit of the SFL approach is that it provides learners with a number of textual interactions at different metafunctional levels (ideational, interpersonal, and textual). Such textual interactions may facilitate learners' rhetorical reading of the genre and help them become sensitized to the form-meaning-function relationship of lexicogrammatical resources. In order to gain in-depth insight into the FL writers’ longitudinal language development, triangulated inquiry was employed by gathering naturalistic data, including interviews, free writing, and pre- and post-instructional writing tasks.

 

 

(2) A computational analysis of students' texts using Coh-Metrix 

This project aims to explore the use of objetive measurse to assess or predict the quality of student writing. To this end, Coh-Metrix 2.0, an online text analysis tool, is used to measure 54 linguistic properties of essays written by English as a foreign language (EFL) students. Using regression analysis, I intend to identify what properties could contribute to the holistic scores of students' essays. In addition to the quantitative analysis, students' essays will also be analyzed qualitatively, focusing on their use of grammatical metaphor. 

 

 

(3) A cross-national comparison study of EFL students' literacy background 

This project seeks to explore, describe, and analyze EFL university students' language learning experiences in formal education, with a special focus on their writing experiences in the foreign language. A large-scale questionnare will be conducted on undergraduate students in four East-Asian countries, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.  The ultimate goal of this project to establish L2 writing theory and pedagogy in the East Asian EFL context. 

 

 

(4) The role of conceptual metaphors in learning phrasal verbs


Recent research in cognitive linguistics has shown that idiomatic phrases are decomposable and analyzable and that the individual words in idiomatic phrases systematically contribute to the overall figurative interpretations. This cognitive linguistic view suggests that enhancing awareness of conceptual metaphors embedded in the individual words may help second language students to learn idioms. This project examined whether enhancing awareness of orientational metaphors of particles facilitates acquisition of phrasal verbs by Japanese EFL students.

 

 

(5) Creating E-learning materials for academic writing


While writers' creativity and ownership are important (i.e., implicit, self-discovery approaches), learning certain conventions and rules of academic writing is also crucial (i.e., explicit, scaffolding approaches) for EFL university students so they can write confidently and convince their readers with logical arguments. In this project, the researcher created E-learning materials for learning conventions of academic writing, including thesis statement, topic sentence, and text types (i.e., classification, definition, comparison and contrast, and argumentation, etc.)

 

 

(6) Discourse analysis of reserach papers

In general, university-affiliated English programs have students from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds. Teachers might thus find it difficult to develop materials and tasks that best fulfill varying student needs. This project aimed to create English for Specific Purposes (ESP) corpora that reflect students' disciplinary backgrounds and investigate how and to what extent a corpus-based approach has possible applications that could be successful tools for ESL materials development.

 

 

(7) The role of Writing Center in Japanese EFL contexts


Writing centers have a long history in the U.S., dating back to the 1930s. The first writing center in Asian contexts was established at Waseda University in 2004. Based on tutoring experiences and interactions with Japanese EFL tutees there, the researcher investigated Japanese EFL students' needs, problems, and distinct features in their writing and suggested a new framework of writing centers in Japanese EFL contexts.

 

 

(8) Process-oriented approaches to teaching writing


This project investigated Japanese EFL students' writing processes, aiming to to identify possible factors that might affect their cognitive strategies and rhetorical decisions (e.g., students' past writing experiences and their L1 literacy, etc.)