The Effect of Topic on EFL Writing by Vietnamese Tertiary Students: Insights from Combining a Lexical Richness Analysis with Student Self-Reports | ||
| جستارهای زبانی | ||
| Article 19, Volume 13, Issue 5 - Serial Number 71, 1401, Pages 511-540 PDF (823.16 K) | ||
| Document Type: مقاله تحقیق | ||
| DOI: 10.52547/LRR.13.5.19 | ||
| Authors | ||
| Bao Trang Thi Nguyen* 1; Jonathan Newton2; Quynh Phuong Ngoc Tran1 | ||
| 1Faculty of English, University of Foreign Languages, Hue University, 57 Nguyen Khoa Chiem, Hue, Vietnam | ||
| 2School of School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, VZ 418, Von Zedlitz Building, 26 / 28 Kelburn Parade, Wellington, 6012, New Zealand | ||
| Abstract | ||
| Lexical richness in written language production has been examined in different contexts and in relation to different genres but research into the effects of within-genre topics on lexical richness is still limited and takes little account of learners’ perspectives. The present study therefore sought to understand the effects of topics on lexical richness (lexical density, lexical diversity and lexical sophistication) in written essays by Vietnamese EFL learners. Data were collected from sixty-four English-major university students who each wrote four essays on four different topics across two genres (persuasive and descriptive) in their normal classes as progress tests. Ten students were also interviewed after they had completed all the essays to understand their perceptions of the writing topics. Lextutor’s VocabProfile was used to obtain measures of lexical density, lexical diversity and lexical sophistication. The results showed mixed effects of writing topics on these three lexical measures. Learner perspectives provided insights into how cognitive and affective individual factors contributed to the complexity of topic influence. Pedagogical implications are discussed in regard to how to enhance productive lexical use in writing through task selection and instructional planning. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| writing; Vietnamese EFL students; topic effects; Lexical Richness; students’ perceptions | ||
| References | ||
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