Assertions and alternatives: Helping ESL undergraduates extend their choices in academic writing☆

Abstract English as a second language (ESL) undergraduates in various educational contexts are likely to make assertions in their writing that experienced academic readers judge to be unwarranted or unnecessary, or to qualify their assertions in ways that appear inappropriate to subject lecturers and ESL teachers. After reviewing reasons why this should be so, this article presents and discusses short extracts from essays written by first-year undergraduates following an ESL-medium humanities curriculum at the University of Hong Kong. Some of the choices of wording carried what were apparently unintended consequences for knowledge claims and relations with readers. Class and tutorial feedback sessions on students' essays looked into ways in which a writer's factual or evaluative claims might be advanced, qualified, or assumed in linguistic choices from word to sentence level and beyond. The suggestion is made that, in a “general” academic-purpose context, focused explorations of wording can begin to relate writers' textual choices to questions that matter in academic communication.

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