Lexicogrammatical and Semantic Development in Academic Writing of EFL Learners: A Systemic Functional Approach

Abstract

Many Japanese university students' English writing skills are insufficient despite completing at least six years of English language instruction before entering university. Several researchers have explored this topic. A corpus-based approach to this field, for example, has improved the understanding of the writing skills of learners of English. In Japan, the recent developments in corpus linguistics have enabled instructors and researchers to analyze English linguistic features written by Japanese EFL learners. For example, Mizusawa (2015) referred to the Japanese EFL learner Corpus, a collection of junior high and high school students' English essays, to investigate the linguistic features, such as lexical density, grammatical intricacy, and semantic variations framed by systemic functional linguistics (SFL). This paper aimed to examine English academic writings written by 38 Japanese university students. Their writings were analyzed in terms of lexical density and semantic features within the SFL frameworks. The results highlighted that the critical limitation in Japanese university students' writing skills suggested teaching students the lexicogrammatical differences between written and spoken modes of the English language.