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Research Paper 

 

EAP Learners as Discourse Analysts: Empowering Emergent Multilingual Students 

 

Kelly Shoecraft 

Griffith University 

 

Jodie L. Martin 

University of British Columbia 

 

Greta Perris 

University of British Columbia 

 

Abstract 

 

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) aims to equip multilingual students with the tools to 

effectively engage in disciplinary academic communication, especially writing. An ongoing 

challenge is how to transfer students’ knowledge of language from the EAP classroom into their 

current and future disciplines (Monbec, 2018) and how to empower them as independent learners 

and collaborators in their knowledge development. This paper reports on an EAP curriculum 

project in which first-year international science students in British Columbia were scaffolded to 

conduct independent comparative discourse analysis to develop their academic literacy abilities. 

We demonstrate how students not only improved their understanding of specific language 

features, but also were empowered with the critical knowledge and skills to become apprentice 

scholars and active members in the science community. The students were therefore legitimized 

as academic apprentices, rather than framed as deficient in language or victims of circumstance 

(Gallagher & Haan, 2017). We therefore present evidence of non-linguist language students 

successfully conducting independent discourse analysis to further their own language and 

learning goals.  

 

Introduction 

 

In English for Academic Purposes (EAP), students risk being framed as deficient in language or 

victims of circumstances (Gallagher & Haan, 2017). However, this view does a disservice to 

English language learners who are in fact multilingual emerging academic scholars. As such, 

EAP students are in need of tools to help them navigate the new forms of discourse they 

encounter and the new forms of writing they must produce. These tools can empower students to 

understand and use language strategically to position themselves—and understand how others 

may be positioning them—within academia and beyond. In this way, EAP can help students 

overcome linguistic and other educational barriers through access to powerful discourse. One 

tool for achieving this outcome is engaging students in discourse analysis.  

 

 Discourse analysis reveals the diversity of language use and its relation to multiple 

influencing factors, such as the status of the author, the topic under discussion, the purpose of the 

communication, and the intended audience (Schleppegrell, 2012). While discourse analysis 

frequently informs explicit instruction in EAP (Basturkmen, 2019; Campion, 2016; Ding & 

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Bruce, 2017), it tends to be conducted by teachers to shape lesson planning and materials design. 

At the same time, an ongoing challenge of EAP is how to guide students to be independent 

learners and co-collaborators in their knowledge development. We argue that supporting them to 

conduct language analysis on texts and topics of their own interest empowers them as language 

users and emerging scholars, and to potentially transfer knowledge to new contexts they 

encounter.  

 

 Discourse analysis as a pedagogical tool in EAP classrooms is the focus of this article. 

We describe and discuss a first-year research writing course refocused on discourse analysis as a 

research method in order to explore its efficacy as a language learning strategy (as evidenced in 

the students’ writing). The course was part of a first-year program for international students in 

Canada with embedded EAP instruction based on systemic functional linguistics (SFL) (Halliday 

& Matthiessen, 2004) and genre-based pedagogies (Martin & Rose, 2008), which focus on 

language use as patterns of contextualized choices. Students were required to conduct 

comparative discourse analysis research by investigating language features they had studied and 

producing a typical academic report based on their study. By conducting analysis themselves, 

students increased their knowledge and understanding of the features of language and their uses 

within academic and non-academic genres. Moreover, they were empowered to recognize and 

use language features, whether SFL or otherwise, within their own writing across disciplines and 

explore their use outside the language classroom.  

 

 This article begins by situating discourse analysis within EAP pedagogy literature, 

followed by an overview of the context and methodology for the study. We will describe the 

corpus we collected and present examples from the students’ discourse analysis projects to 

demonstrate how they engaged in individual language analysis that was real and relevant. 

Finally, we discuss how students in this study were empowered by conducting discourse analysis 

in various ways. This paper will therefore demonstrate how discourse analysis is an effective 

pedagogical tool for academic language development, especially for EAP students who are not 

linguistics students. This study has implications for EAP teaching in British Columbia as well as 

other EAP contexts in higher education.   

 

Literature Review: Discourse Analysis in Language and Writing Instruction 

 

Discourse analysis involves exploring patterns of language features in a particular body of 

language (Schleppegrell, 2012) and actively connects language choices to a wider context of 

language use. Comparative discourse analysis focuses on how language use varies across texts 

by highlighting how different factors generate or are generated by different language features 

(Eggins, 2004). Therefore, discourse analysis can be useful in language and literacy education as 

it explicitly highlights the use of language features in a particular text, genre, or corpus, and 

contributes to the development of knowledge about language. This is particularly relevant in 

EAP, where courses may be generalized across the university, streamed to particular fields (e.g., 

sciences, arts), or targeted to specific disciplinary discourses. Discourse analysis is therefore part 

of a set of knowledge and research skills required of EAP practitioners in order to teach across or 

within disciplinary boundaries (BALEAP, 2008; Basturkmen, 2019; Campion, 2016; Ding & 

Bruce, 2017). Many materials for discourse analysis are thus aimed at the practitioner 

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(Alexander et al., 2008) and not at the students themselves, who are guided by instructors and 

teachers, typically in analysis of pre-analyzed texts.  

 

 The benefits of discourse analysis for students are well documented in multiple contexts. 

In K–12 in the United States, discourse analysis applying SFL has been shown to raise critical 

language awareness in both first and additional language learners (Gebhard, 2019; Moore & 

Schleppegrell, 2014; O’Hallaron et al., 2015). For EAP in particular, the active engagement in 

language through deconstruction and analysis of academic texts develops students’ ability to read 

with an eye for writing (Lin, 2016), actively noticing rather than simply comprehending 

language (Richards, 2006). Rather than just reading for content, discourse analysis requires 

students to focus on specific language features that are present (or absent) for specific purposes. 

Understanding why these language features have been used requires contextualization by making 

explicit the purposes of the texts (genre), the specific contexts they engage with and signal 

(register), as well as the substantive topic of those texts, and learning that these can be 

manipulated (Machin & Mayr, 2012) and can be connected to power (Chun, 2015; Fairclough, 

2001; Weninger & Kan, 2012). There are limited studies on academic language socialization for 

international students in EAP courses (Duff & Anderson, 2015). One of few studies found of 

students applying discourse analysis is Cheng’s (2007) case study of a single student writing 

three versions of an introduction section for different audiences. This study demonstrated 

learners’ awareness and justifications for language choices and text structure according to genre-

based pedagogy. This knowledge about language gives students tools to grapple with new 

contexts in their future studies and careers (Monbec, 2018). Advanced language learners 

encounter increasingly overlapping aspects of learning language, learning through language, and 

learning about language (Ferreira & Zappa-Hollman, 2019; Matthiessen, 2006), and it is this 

learning about language, or knowledge about language, that is a key aspect for EAP learners to 

develop in order to fully participate in their academic disciplinary community.  

 

 Comparative discourse analysis in particular exposes students to different genres of 

writing, thus making explicit not only what is present but, equally important, what is and is not 

appropriate in academic writing. English as an additional language (EAL) students are rarely 

exposed to varieties of English genres to the same extent as their native speaker counterparts 

(Macalister, 2008). Thus, EAP classrooms can provide an opportunity for extensive reading 

which benefits students’ development of academic skills as well as broader English language 

skills. Scientists who are non-native English speakers “need to read textbooks or research articles 

published in English, and many wish to publish in English themselves” (Bloor & Bloor, 2013, p. 

223). Therefore, science students in particular (as with those students in the present study) can 

benefit from exposure to English genres—both academic and for a general audience—in order to 

participate fully and with more confidence in the scientific community, within and beyond 

academia. 

 

 There are multiple recommendations in literature that students are capable of conducting 

discourse analysis themselves. Indeed, Thompson (2001) and Moore (2007) advocated that such 

student discourse analyses do not need to be complex, but instead can be focused on limited 

features or texts to still gain greater understanding of language use. Such a task is beneficial for 

students to increase their language ability, understand the content more thoroughly, and transfer 

what they learn within an EAP classroom to new contexts (Monbec, 2018). Further, Cheng 

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(2007) highlighted a need to explore connections between students’ analysis of language features 

and their subsequent writing performance. Nevertheless, descriptions of students conducting 

original discourse analysis in general, let alone for language learning purposes, are remarkably 

absent in the literature. It is in this gap that we situate our study.  

 

Context 

 

This course is offered in a university program in British Columbia which extends entry into first-

year university courses to multilingual students who do not fully meet the language proficiency 

requirements and therefore need additional language instruction. The program runs 

simultaneously with students’ first-year courses in their specific disciplines, and through a 

pedagogical approach that draws on SFL (see Ferreira & Zappa-Hollman, 2019 for a description 

of this approach). The discourse analysis focus discussed in this article was implemented in an 

academic research-writing course in the science stream in term two of the three-term program, 

following an initial academic writing course in term one. 

 

 The overall goal of the course is to develop students’ skills for designing, conducting and 

reporting on a small research project in the appropriate academic register. It builds on students’ 

linguistic knowledge from the corresponding academic-writing course in the first term, which 

included academic genres and stages typically encountered in science disciplines and the 

metalanguage of systemic functional grammar. The specific learning objectives of the course 

focused on the ability to identify features of academic and professional writing, understand how 

language choices are related to the context of a text, such as audience and purpose, and apply 

that understanding in their own language choices.  

 

 It was only after designing and developing this curriculum that the authors of this paper 

recognized the importance of this type of pedagogy for EAP contexts. We decided to conduct a 

study on the use of discourse analysis by students in the EAP classroom and began to 

retrospectively collect the data. Ethical approval was obtained in 2019 and emails were sent to 

past students to seek their consent to their previously submitted writing being included in the 

study. Students’ grades were not affected as consent was given after the course had finished. 

 

 The students’ research projects examined how one or two specific language features were 

used differently in two types of texts and interpreted the reason for and effect of those 

differences. The analysis involved a quantitative comparison of the use of specific language 

features across texts, and an analysis of the patterns noticed in the form of a data commentary. 

The types of language features selected and comparisons performed by the students are described 

below. The assessments for the course involved drafts of each section and a 1500-word final 

research report following an Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion (IMRD) structure and a 

reflective presentation. The students received guidance on their analyses during in-class 

workshops and tutorials. However, as the goal for this course was not to create technically 

accurate linguists but language-empowered students within their own disciplines, the students 

were not assessed on the analyses themselves, but on their ability to write about them using 

academic genres and language.  

  

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Methodology 

 

A corpus of student projects was built in 2019 and again in 2020. A total of 36 students from the 

classes of the three investigators of this project consented to participate in the study. These 

students were aged 18–20 and had achieved IELTS 5.5. The total corpus of texts was formed 

from the final research reports of these 36 students and each of the drafts of the four sections of 

the research report (n=180).  

 

 The initial analysis of these data consisted of collating the language features the students 

chose to investigate and the text types they chose to compare. We then selected specific language 

features that were both popular choices among the students and relevant to academic writing in 

the sciences and grouped them according to metafunction. Students’ texts investigating these 

language features were analyzed for their conclusions about the use of these language features in 

different genres. For this reason, the discussion sections of student texts were chosen as relevant 

examples in this paper. In addition, student presentation PowerPoints were included as they 

contained reflections on their process during this research project.  

 

Findings: Student Discourse Analysis Projects 

 

The corpus of 36 student projects provides insight into the value of discourse analysis for 

multilingual language learners and how it can empower students. The students were able to 

select the disciplines and topics they studied, the language features they worked on, and what 

types of texts they compared. This reflects both the concepts they were familiar with from the 

preceding writing course as well as which language features and texts they were interested in. 

 

 The most popular language features across the corpus were nominalization and noun 

groups (n=8), with significant focus on Attitude (markers), Theme (types and patterns), and 

process types (n=6), as shown in Figure 1. It should be noted that as a few of the studies 

compared multiple language features, the total in Figure 1 is greater than the number of projects 

in the corpus (n=36). Nominalization (the process of turning verbs and adjectives into nouns), 

Theme patterns (the connections made between content in clauses), and process types (functions 

of verbs) have been shown by linguistic research to be important in science (Halliday, 2004; Lin, 

2016), and indeed were topics emphasized in both the preceding writing course and in this 

particular course as being key features of academic language. However, Attitude, which focuses 

on evaluative language (Martin & White, 2005), is not significantly analyzed in research into 

scientific language, and had not been a major point of instruction in the students’ classes, so it is 

somewhat surprising that so many students chose this for investigation. We shall hypothesize 

that this interest in interpersonal positioning and evaluative language was due to students’ 

awareness that this was an important area for their language development. In the following 

sections we explore each of these focal language features to examine why they were a valid 

choice, what the students found in their own research, and how that may have benefited their 

own writing.  

  

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Figure 1 

 

Focal Language Features in Student Projects  

 

 
 

 Given the research methodology was comparative discourse analysis, the type of 

comparison chosen was also a key feature of the corpus, revealing the types of texts students 

thought were valued and were interested in themselves. Table 1 displays the main comparison 

for the texts, although often the projects involved multiple variables for comparison. For 

example, the most common comparison project was to compare a journal article with a TED 

Talk (n=9). The differences in language feature use observed could therefore be explained as a 

difference of mode (written versus spoken), audience (expert versus general public), and purpose 

(informative versus informative and entertaining). This selection potentially helped students not 

only confirm for themselves what they had learned about academic writing, but also understand 

how often the same experts adapted their language in a highly successful format for the general 

public. Similarly, comparisons of journal articles with web articles and general audience 

multimedia (podcast, educational video, popular science video) suggested an interest in how both 

audiences and modes played a role in language use. Another group of comparisons involved 

comparing journal articles, whether with other forms of writing (textbook, Wikipedia entry), 

across disciplines, across languages, or across time, or even sections within those articles. This 

focus again legitimized students’ lessons by having them conduct the analysis themselves, 

understand enough literature to discuss their findings, and rationalize the use due to the specifics 

of their data.  

 

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Table 1 

 

Types of Comparisons in Corpus 

 
Main Comparisons Tally 

Journal article vs TED Talk 9 

Journal article vs web article 7 

IMRD sections within articles 4 

Journal article vs general audience multimedia 3 

Journal article vs textbook 3 

Academic expert speaking to different audiences 2 

Different use of two language features 2 

Disciplinary journal articles (chemistry vs computer science) 1 

Journal articles in different languages (Chinese vs English) 1 

Food guides in different languages (Chinese vs Canadian English) 1 

Journal article vs Wikipedia entry 1 

Journal articles across time periods 1 

Lecture vs textbook 1 

 

 By allowing for an independent selection of both language features and texts for 

comparison, students were scaffolded to extend their learning from the EAP classroom to 

different topics, different texts, and different text types, potentially enabling transfer of 

knowledge and encouraging students to see language as reproducible and predictable patterns 

which can be variously followed or defied.  

 

Studies of Language Features 

 

In this section, we present examples of the students’ discourse analysis projects according to the 

language features they investigated, focusing both on those most popular in our corpus, and those 

established as significant in science (Halliday & Martin, 1993). The description is organized 

according to the three concomitant metafunctions of systemic functional grammar. The 

metafunctions describe the various ways language and grammatical resources relate to meanings; 

the ideational metafunction construes meanings through a focus on content (what the text is 

about), the textual metafunction constructs meanings by organizing language (how the text is 

organized), and the interpersonal metafunction enacts meanings by focusing on relationships 

between participants (who is involved in what way) (Matthiessen et al., 2010). These 

metafunctions were explicitly taught to students as part of the introduction to these concepts in 

the first term. 

 

Ideation 

 

The language of science is characterized by technicality and abstraction, and two key 

grammatical resources for realizing these characteristics are nominalization, the process by 

which verbs and adjectives are turned into nouns, and process types, functional categories for 

verbs (Halliday, 2004). The main process types are relational (defining, for example the verb “to 

be”), material (acting/doing), verbal (communicating), and mental processes (thinking and 

feeling). These two features were a prominent teaching point in students’ language courses, 

closely tied with academic writing of different genres in the first term, and then with the sections 

and stages of writing their own research reports.  

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 Nominalization. By comparing journal articles with TED Talks and web articles, 

students recognized the high usage of nominalization in academic writing in comparison to other 

types of genres. While they had learned of nominalizations as a useful feature in scientific 

language, to fully interpret the results, they needed to explore different ways of classifying and 

comparing the nominalizations and connect that to contextual features of the texts. One student 

who compared nominalizations in a journal article and a TED Talk extended their research to 

identify differences between nominalizations derived from verbs (e.g., argue–argument) and 

derived from adjectives (e.g., real–reality). Drawing on literature and with scaffolding, this 

student connected the nominal derivation to particular characteristics: “This research implies that 

scientific texts prefer using nominalizations derived from verbs to nominalization derived from 

adjectives since it enables texts to be more conceptual and objective.” The main finding of the 

project connected the usage to the mode (oral/written) and the audience: 

 

This research result suggests that oral speeches tend to use nominalizations that are not 

difficult to interpret since those are written for general public, whereas journal articles 

tend to use nominalizations that are technical and professional because those are written 

for experts. The result also indicates that nominalizations are used as the method of 

condensing scientific data. 

 

 Thus, the student demonstrated their increased awareness of the use of nominalizations, 

not only as a countable feature, but the more specific nuanced usage of technical and specialized 

nominalizations as well as their variations in form. Their conclusion also validated their research 

by demonstrating an understanding of the actors involved and their potential audiences: “This 

research is useful for linguists who investigate the difference between scientific speech and 

journal article and scientists who want to present their findings in front of the general public.” 

Furthermore, this conclusion potentially enables the transfer of knowledge from this project to 

any form of presentation to the general public that they undertake in the future.  

 

 The study of nominalizations by students therefore confirmed the writing advice they had 

received about the use of nominalizations in scientific language, and also involved deeper 

exploration of exactly how to identify and classify nominalizations according to form or 

meaning, and how to connect that usage to the topic and context of the language use. 

 

 Processes. A number of students investigated process (verb) types, comparing academic 

journal articles with textbooks and with general audience texts (web articles and TED Talks), or 

comparing within sections of articles themselves. This independent research largely confirmed 

and validated the advice they had received in class: that the use of material processes and 

relational processes was significant in academic writing, but used differently in academic and 

pedagogical texts, or between sections of texts. 

 

 For example, one student investigated the use of process types in method and discussion 

sections in journal articles on artificial intelligence. The analysis showed a higher usage of 

material processes in the method section, and a higher usage of relational processes in the 

discussion section. In their own discussion section, the student drew significantly on literature to 

interpret the findings, while, incidentally, implementing those findings by making significant use 

of relational processes in their writing:  

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The higher frequency of material processes in the method section which suggests that 

descriptive language is more important in procedure. [...] Based on Martinez’s research, 

the method section seems to be the most active part in science research articles (Martinez, 

2001). The material processes will provide more information and help the readers 

visualize the procedure. In comparison, the low frequency of material processes in the 

discussion section displays more conceptual ideas instead of physical activities. The 

method section is the description of the experimental steps (Martinez, 2003). On the other 

hand, the frequency of relational processes in the discussion section is higher than the 

method section, which is opposite to the distribution of material processes. The higher 

frequency in the discussion section is related to its purpose, because the discussion 

section is to evaluate the result and address thoughts to audiences which is similar to 

Martinez’s study (2001). The discussion section may be the most controversial and 

conceptual part (Martinez, 2003). 

 

 By associating use of material processes with the activity recount of the methods section, 

and relational processes with evaluation and hence with more abstract ideas characteristic of 

discussion sections, the student’s writing shows a heightened awareness of variability of register, 

from more concrete for “visualizing” procedures to more abstract for “conceptualization,” 

according to different genres. 

 

 The student was also able to contextualize the differences between their findings and the 

consulted literature, identifying a gap in study that was referenced: 

 

However, there are more material processes in both discussion (60%) and method 

sections (77%) while comparing with relational process (38%) & (21%) which is not 

addressed in Martinez’s research. The reason is that Martinez’s research is based on 

physics, biology and social science, and mine is computer science which is a unique 

subject in science. Journal articles in computer science do not share the same pattern with 

other science journal articles. In most of the science research articles, the IMRD section 

is clear, but in computer science, there are only three distinct sections: introduction, result 

and discussion section, and computer science needs to explain the reason and method for 

analytic process (Posteguillo, 1999). That is also the reason why there are more material 

processes than relational processes in both sections. 

 

 The student thus demonstrated an awareness of the diversity of scientific disciplines and 

disciplinary texts. The student may therefore be better prepared to move into their chosen field, 

or any other, and both meet genre expectations overall and understand specific purposes and 

variables that may change the language requirements. 

 

 In summary, by conducting their own analysis of ideational language such as 

nominalization and process types, students had the opportunity to confirm and clarify for 

themselves their importance in science writing. These features are often glossed over by being 

conflated into a vague “formal language” category at risk of being missed in general English 

classes although it can actually benefit and empower students in their academic writing. Often 

students recognize that writing is “more formal” or “more academic,” but do not recognize the 

use of nominalization or have the metalanguage to describe it. Similarly, verbs are often glossed 

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simply by grammatical agreement or formality levels, but understanding different process types 

helps connect language use to broader purposes of defining (relational processes) or connecting 

with audiences (verbal and mental). 

 

Textual 

 

An important aspect of academic writing and scientific writing is information flow—the 

organization of information and the logical sequencing of ideas (Halliday, 2004)—which can be 

a challenge for students. One manner in which this is achieved is the organized use of Themes 

(the beginning of a clause) in patterns. Academic writing features combinations of Theme 

patterns: linear pattern (repeating the start of a clause in the next), zigzag pattern (using the end 

of a clause as the start of the next), or derived pattern (ending a clause with a list or category that 

becomes the Theme of subsequent sentences or sections. It is worth noting that these were the 

labels used in our context, but different labels are used in various literature sources (see for 

example Eggins 2004; Humphrey et al., 2012; Thompson, 2014). Students learned about Theme 

patterns as a major organizational method in their first term, and investigating them across 

academic and non-academic texts and contexts provided evidence of how and when they are 

used to present logical, cohesive arguments. 

 

A number of students in the present study chose to focus on the use of Theme patterns across 

genres. One student found more frequent use of linear patterns in a TED Talk when the speaker 

was recounting their personal experience, as compared to multiple Theme patterns present in a 

journal article by the same person for the underlying organization. The student explained that the 

linear pattern was more useful for maintaining information flow in a spoken text as the audience 

needs more reminders, while in a written text information flow cues are visible at all times and 

the text can be re-read numerous times. One consequence of grappling with real language usage, 

and in particular focusing on function as well as form, was that the students had to explore 

interconnected purposes of language. In order to explain the use of a linear Theme pattern in the 

TED Talk, the student explored why those Themes were personal pronouns: 

 

The data analysis reveals that the methods section of Text A uses significantly more 

personal pronouns in theme position than Text B, which can be linked to the different 

points of departure. 

 

The theme choice in Text A, I and we, are fulfilling almost the whole text, “I grew…”, “I 

figured…”, “I gathered…”, “I had…”, “We got…”, “We got…” (cl. 1, 2, 4, 5, 13, 19) 

and so on. These theme choices are all departing from the author’s experience. According 

to Eggins (2004), in face-to-face conversation, our point of departure is to communicate 

about ourselves or those messages are connecting with us. In academic writing, the theme 

choice demands the thematization of abstraction, and the interpersonal connection 

between the author and readers is less emphasized. 

 

This explanation not only clarified organizational details about the text, but content selection. 

This student applied this insight in their final research presentation, presenting their methodology 

section with their slide highlighting the linear Theme pattern they were using in their speech by 

repeatedly starting each clause with “I.”  

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 Another student noted a higher usage of zigzag patterns in the results section of a journal 

article when compared to the introduction section, which itself included a higher frequency of 

linear and derivative patterns. This student commented on the different genres of each of the 

sections within the journal article, thus developing their understanding of language choices 

related to organization within an academic text. This student highlighted the usefulness of this 

research: “In particular, it benefits the writing skills for non-native speakers by guiding academic 

journal article writing.” 

 

 By identifying the varied use of Theme patterns in different genres, students were 

developing an awareness of cohesive devices other than conjunctions (which are often a focus in 

EAL writing lessons). Students began to recognize appropriate moments for the use of repetition, 

or when other patterns were more suitable. 

 

Interpersonal 

 

Although research shows that academic language in science requires careful positioning of 

claims and evidence and adoption of stance (Hyland, 2005), within the limits of a research 

project or EAP course, researchers and teachers tend reasonably to focus on features like 

nominalization, process types, and Themes and Theme patterns as having more central 

importance. Indeed, as has been demonstrated above, these are key features in academic 

scientific writing. However, a significant number of students within our cohort who chose to 

study language features from the interpersonal metafunction, which deals with the way an author 

presents opinion and certainty, and constructs relationships with their readers, merits some 

exploration. Whether students chose more easily identifiable features like self-mention or 

hedging modal verbs, or analyzing more nuanced language choices like attitude markers, the 

corpus reveals a number of interesting topics and comparisons, which suggests international 

students may be eager for further instruction on these topics. 

 

 Student discourse analyses that focused on interpersonal positioning drew on two 

frameworks: Interactional Resources (Hyland, 2005) and Appraisal (Martin & White, 2005). 

Those focusing on Interactional Resources chose one or two features and compared across time, 

disciplines, modes, and audiences. Those focusing on hedging and boosting investigated how 

claims were positioned as certain and reliable, and therefore sometimes challenged students’ 

expectations that scientific academic writing would display only features of high confidence. 

 

 Interactional Resources. A number of studies focused on self-mention, perhaps 

reflecting students’ curiosity about the common injunction against their own use of self-mention, 

although it is far from absent in academic discourse, or alternatively simply because they 

expected it to be easy to analyze methodologically. Nonetheless, teasing out which personal 

pronouns were self-mention (I, my, we, our) and which were engagement markers (we, our, you, 

your) revealed interesting differences. For example, several students found that public speeches, 

like TED Talks and educational videos, used an inclusive “we” to indicate a shared experience of 

humanity, and to engage and persuade the audience. By contrast, in articles written for other 

experts, writers used an exclusive “we” to refer to the research team and claim ownership or 

responsibility for the actions and conclusions drawn. 

 

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 Another study grappled with how these particular Interactional Resources contributed to 

interactivity between speaker and audience (in a TED Talk) and writer and reader (in journal 

articles). The student framed this audience awareness explicitly in their introduction, writing: 

 

Although the role of self-mention and engagement is to enhance the interactivity of the 

article, the interactive experience the author is hoping to provide for a particular reader 

might be different. Therefore, the research question is: When addressing the academic 

audience and general public, how do human geographers include themselves with readers 

and audiences in their language? 

 

 Having identified the significantly higher usage of self-mention and engagement markers 

in the TED Talk than in the journal articles, the student took a further step of identifying what 

participant roles those instances of self-mention played: 

 

The Ted talks used a lot of self-mention and engagement markers in order to give the 

audience a sense of direct interaction and participation; scientists played the role of actors 

(A type of participants, function: to construe the material world of doing) while 

conveying their messages. For academic papers, it has a few interactive words, and most 

of them are sensers (A type of participants, function: to construe and may project the 

inner world of consciousness). 

 

 They therefore identified the difference between scientists talking about what they did (as 

actors) to a general audience and talking about what they think or understand (as sensers) to an 

academic audience. This revealed quantitative and qualitative differences for the usage and 

granted the student insight into not only whether to use the first person in their own writing, but 

also why, when, and how. 

 

 Appraisal. A number of students also chose to analyze evaluative language with the 

Attitude system from Appraisal, differentiating positive and negative meanings according to 

emotion (affect), evaluations of people and their behaviour (judgement), or evaluations of objects 

and ideas (appreciation). This proved a fruitful avenue of study, with students mostly comparing 

modes and investigating a broad range of objects of study: dissociative identity disorder, 

vegetarianism, aerogels, and quantum computing. Indeed, O’Hallaron et al. (2015) emphasized 

the usefulness of Appraisal for critical awareness of science texts. The students’ choice also 

represented an awareness of differences present in discourse with different audiences, such as 

being more emotive in representing a new technology to general audiences in popular science 

texts and more restrained in a journal article aimed at other experts. 

 

 For example, in a focus on vegetarianism, a student compared a website of a vegetarian 

association with an article investigating the nutritional benefits of vegetarianism. During the 

course, they described the choice of topic (vegetarianism) as one that could have interesting 

features for interpersonal positioning, which was an aspect of language they felt they needed to 

improve in their own writing. Initially, they anticipated that the discourse around vegetarianism 

would include judgement of people for following or not following a vegetarian diet, but in fact 

their findings surprised them. They concluded their project: 

 

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This study has investigated the use of different types of attitude adjectives and how they 

impact the reader in academic and non-academic texts under the same topic. Website 

articles tend to use attitude adjectives in a more personal and interactive way, establishing 

ideas that contain particular purpose from the author, while journal articles are more 

objective and have less interaction with the reader. […] The findings can help explain 

why a source is appropriate or inappropriate to use in academic writings based on its 

subjectivity and the interactivity. 

 

 Whether or not the students’ analysis was technically accurate, undertaking the research 

raised the students’ awareness of how language was used in different contexts for different 

purposes. Making the connection back to their own context of study and concluding that this 

language feature can help them select appropriate academic sources shows a deeper language 

awareness of how language responds to and creates context. This critical language awareness is 

ultimately one of the major goals of the course: to prepare students to meet their immediate 

academic course requirements and further equip them for their ongoing studies. 

 

 The students’ attention to interpersonal positioning therefore revealed a range of insights 

into how to negotiate different topics, communicate with different audiences, and achieve 

different purposes. The fact that a significant number of these EAL students chose to focus on 

interpersonal positioning suggests that this metafunction merits greater focus in EAP classes and 

more broadly in EAP research, as argued by Thompson (2001) for EAP and similarly by 

O’Hallaron et al. (2015) for science. 

 

Lexical Density and Grammatical Intricacy 

 

One key feature of academic language that operates across metafunctions is the characteristics of 

Lexical Density (LD) and Grammatical Intricacy (GI). LD tallies the lexical or content words (as 

opposed to grammatical or non-content words) as a percentage of the total word count, and GI 

calculates the average number of clauses per sentence. Academic texts are generally 

characterized by higher LD (a higher percentage of lexical words) and lower GI (fewer clauses 

per sentence) (Eggins, 2004; Fang, 2005). 

 

 While some students used these quantitative calculations to contextualize the use of other 

language features, one student focused on these features in the introductions of journal articles 

and textbooks on the same topic. The two main findings of the analysis, higher LD in research 

articles as compared with textbooks, and higher GI in textbooks than research articles, are 

associated with the purpose of specific text types and the audiences the texts address: 

 

This study has revealed that the degree of lexical density and grammatical intricacy 

significantly depend on the purpose of different scientific writing genres on the same 

topic in order to address different audiences. Scientific research articles have higher 

lexical density and lower grammatical intricacy as they normally are aimed towards 

specialists on specific topics by using more academic language, while textbooks have 

lower lexical density and higher grammatical intricacy in order to help students 

understand scientific concepts easily by applying more spoken language. 

 

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 While not a major focus in the corpus, this highlights the benefit of disciplinary analysis 

of not only academic texts (e.g., journal articles) but also pedagogical texts (e.g., textbooks). 

Students can gain an understanding of how language is adjusted in pedagogical texts to suit an 

audience and can therefore better interpret that language.  

 

Student Reflection and Feedback 

 

As part of the research project, students were asked to deliver a presentation on their study and 

findings. This presentation also required self-reflection on the research process, providing insight 

into students’ experiences and perceived benefits of completing discourse analysis research. One 

student highlighted that as a science student they had never considered language to be important, 

but by completing this project they discovered that “language is really interesting.” Another 

student mentioned that this project helped them better understand the concepts of SFL learned in 

Term 1. Other students appreciated the option to choose the science discipline and language 

feature. Another student recognized the challenge of so much reading, but also that they 

improved their reading skills and became faster and more proficient by the end of the course. 

This feedback from students reiterated the benefits of exposure to a variety of texts and genres, 

developing critical language awareness, and the contribution to students’ empowerment.  

 

 One student applied their reflection analytically, turning their analysis of nominalization 

frequency in astronomy onto their own writing. During this student’s oral presentation, they 

compared their own use of nominalizations in their very first draft and the final version of their 

submitted writing tasks (Image 1), reflecting on their own increased usage over time. Thus, the 

student was beginning to notice the language used in their own writing, contributing to their 

critical awareness of language use and how to use it effectively. All in all, these students’ 

reflections are positive indicators of the benefit of science students conducting discourse analysis 

for the purpose of language learning.  

 

Image 1 

 

PowerPoint Slide from Student’s Oral Presentation. 

 

  

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Discussion: Empowering Students with Discourse Analysis 

 

The comparative discourse analysis research projects described above empowered the students to 

participate in various communities, to develop knowledge and understanding of language as 

strategic choices, to recognize opportunities to position themselves as social actors, and 

ultimately to become apprentice scholars. These knowledge and skills benefited and empowered 

the EAP students in three key ways: students sharpened their critical awareness of language and 

its functions, developed their ability to analyze texts within and outside academic contexts, and 

potentially applied this knowledge to their own language use. 

 

Critical Language Awareness 

 

We argue that the explicit focus on language variation across types of texts and the interpretation 

of linguistic patterns as authors’ choices promoted students’ development of critical language 

awareness—a way of actively engaging with a text by interpreting and questioning its production 

and impact (Hasan, 1996; O’Hallaron et al., 2015; Weninger & Kan, 2012). To this end, 

functional grammar theory and concepts were valuable tools for noticing, researching, analyzing, 

and interpreting language. Mediated by functional grammar, the students learned that language is 

a powerful meaning-making resource and that authors, even in scientific informational texts, 

make intentional language choices to meet specific purposes as well as genre and register 

constraints (Halliday & Martin, 1993). In this paper, we have shown that analysis of only one 

linguistic feature (e.g., nominalization) relevant to science discursive communities, or even an 

aspect of it (e.g., verb-derived nominalization), provided rich ground for analysis and 

interpretation at this level. For example, students’ close readings and analyses of Attitude in the 

texts demonstrated that the language of science is not devoid of subjectivity and language 

choices are made purposefully. Recognizing language as a choice is empowering as students 

learn to question and resist texts by evaluating linguistic choices and their purpose and impact 

(Hasan, 1996).  

 

 Science communication occurs in many forms and contexts, which are relevant to 

university students for their learning, sharing research, and general participation in societies. By 

comparing linguistic choices across different genres, students were exposed to academic 

language as a set of linguistic registers (Schleppegrell, 2009), rather than a singular academic 

language, and, thus, were scaffolded towards a nuanced understanding of disciplinary discourses 

in science. 

 

Transfer to Other Contexts 

 

The immediate goals of the course were to guide students’ language development to be capable 

of meeting the demands of subject content courses in science and the genres valued in this 

context. Students who chose to study topics relevant to the content courses, such as computer 

science topics, thus gained some insight into how these disciplines tend to use language. At the 

same time, students had the freedom to choose other texts and topics they were interested in but 

not currently studying, such as biology or human geography. They therefore investigated a 

variety of academic contexts, potentially preparing them for courses they might choose in their 

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second year and beyond. In this way, the EAP course encouraged them to apply their language 

awareness to new texts from beyond the immediate context of their first-year program.  

 

 These research projects introduced students to a large variety of texts, both academic 

articles and texts for more general audiences. The students read published journal articles as part 

of their literature review and analyzed them as objects of study. By reading texts valued in the 

academy, intended for experts rather than apprentice scholars, students were given access to the 

types of texts which form high stakes reading (Macalister, 2008). Furthermore, by comparing 

academic texts with texts for general audiences, such as videos, TED Talks and web articles, 

they learned to apply their critical linguistic awareness more broadly. This exercise prepared the 

students to extend their discourse analysis skills to professional contexts and analyze, 

understand, and question any text. Consequently, the students were being prepared to operate as 

scientists and English language users talking to a range of audiences, both specialized and 

general. By choosing and investigating diverse and multimodal texts, students were empowered 

to participate more fully in academic and non-academic communities. Teaching students 

discourse analysis therefore empowered students to deconstruct and find patterns in any text, as 

opposed to simply being taught the organization and discourse patterns of a limited number of 

genres. 

 

Benefits to Their Own Language Use 

 

When conducting comparative discourse analysis, students began to notice language and 

understand how it is used, rather than just reading for content. By noticing and identifying 

language in action in a variety of genres and comparing this language use across texts, students 

developed a better understanding of how language is structured. Furthermore, they were capable 

of recognizing how and why language choices were made in specific genres to achieve specific 

purposes for particular audiences. The ultimate goal of the course was that the students would be 

equipped with the skill to transfer this developing knowledge to their own writing and be able to 

make more informed choices of language functions for their own purposes, both academic and 

otherwise. Whether they achieved this will be the subject of future research.  

 

 Discourse analysis therefore empowered these international multilingual students in a 

number of ways, by providing another avenue to improve their own academic writing in addition 

to the explicit instruction of the course. In this way, they were enabled to build knowledge for 

themselves and potentially transfer language knowledge beyond the context of the EAP 

classroom, into their other topics, future studies, and beyond.  

 

Conclusion 

 

Throughout this paper we have demonstrated that students are capable of conducting discourse 

analysis projects, specifically first-year international science students in a program with 

embedded academic English courses. Through this process of comparative discourse analysis, 

students were simultaneously being apprenticed into research (both conducting research and 

writing a research report) and developing their understanding of academic writing and science 

communication more broadly. This complemented and supported the other science courses 

students undertook in their first-year program, particularly those with a research focus.  

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 Providing opportunities for students to conduct discourse analysis empowered them in 

numerous ways. Recognizing language use as choices according to genre, purpose, and audience 

supported the development of critical language awareness. By focusing on one specific language 

feature in particular contexts, they could gain greater awareness of how to use that language 

feature more effectively in their own writing—a skill which is transferable to both academic and 

other contexts. In this way, they were developing the tools needed for successful and appropriate 

science communication which would allow them to participate more fully in their specific 

disciplinary communities and the science community in general.  

 

 This discourse analysis focus was possible in part due to its position within a program 

which provided multiple courses and small classes for students, conditions which enabled 

extensive scaffolding of both metalanguage and analytical technique. Nevertheless, similar 

projects can be implemented with students in any discipline within higher education and not 

necessarily limited to international students. English as a first language students also struggle 

with academic writing and do not necessarily receive (arguably, much needed) explicit 

instruction on how to write appropriately in academic genres (Hyland, 2008). We argue that this 

type of explicit instruction and discourse analysis is beneficial to all students entering or 

currently in academic educational contexts, particularly in British Columbia. Future research will 

investigate whether engaging in discourse analysis had an effect on students’ writing within the 

course.   

 

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