MAT variables with significant increase (60% or above) for all

Three variables were found to have increased significantly for all programmes: average word length, conjuncts and agentless passives. Each of these will be discussed in turn.

Average word length (AWL) which is calculated as a simple mean, shows a significant increase in all four cohorts for both years 2010 and 2012 and this is one of the clearest features of overall written language development so far suggested by the current research. This characteristic, which is also identified in both the pilot study and the Coh–Metrix analysis, suggests that students at the end of their presessional studies are producing texts which appear to be more written than oral in character than they were at the beginning of their presessional studies. Academic prose is likely to contain a higher proportion of polysyllabic nouns (the polysyllabic nature of many of the key academic terms is exemplified in the academic word list, Coxhead, 2000), and a reduced number of pronouns (Biber et al., 1999, p.235) which tend to be shorter in length. One would hope and possibly anticipate that the exposure of students to a range of academic texts and related word development exercises, which are carried out as part of the general EAP programme and in subject specific classes might result in a greater use of academic terms and generally more academically related vocabulary.

show an increase across the board with scores of +5, +7, +4 and +19 and +4, +9, +23 and +10 for the 20, 15, 10 and 6 week 2010 and 2012 programmes respectively with the 6 week figures being quite noticeable. The lexical items which fall under this CONJ category are coordinating conjunctions and sentence connectors which are characteristic of sentence complexity whereas the coordinating conjunctions for example and, but which are coded separately as CC, tend to be viewed as linking clauses in a relatively simple, speech-like fashion. The feature scores for coordinating conjunctions (CC) show a decrease for six out of eight programmes and an overall reduction of – 35 (-57%)

Here are three examples of conjuncts being used.

In comparison to the Eastern country, the UK is a island country. (10 week post 2010)

In other words the main lecture are the main body [of] our course (10 week post 2010)

Another important thing, the UK and Jordan have totaly different culture … in addition the population and size are widely different (20 week post 2010)

These examples are typical of much of the post course writing samples and this suggests that students are beginning to acquire a more characteristically academic style of writing. Biber (1999, p. 880) considers that such linking expressions are characteristic of academic prose and their use in supporting arguments “as a communicative need” is noticeable.

Agentless passives (PASS) are widely recognized as a feature of academic and technical writing (Biber et al., 1999; Grant and Ginther; 2000; Tribble, 2002). In the current research, the frequency of agentless passives was found to increase in all eight cohorts, with

movements of +8, +10, +21 and +7 and +3, +4, +9 and +8 for the 20, 15, 10 and 6 week 2010 and 2012 programmes respectively. It is reasonable to suggest these movements may be linked to the effects of the courses of study undertaken by the students and the EAP programme explicitly teaches the many passive forms and aims to sensitise students to their use in essays, dissertations and theses. It appears that students are beginning to use the passive voice more widely in their free writing as illustrated in the following example, taken from the 6 week programme 2012.

Pre

In China you will go to the secondary school when you 12 years old. It’s the beginning of the nightmare as well in somebody mind

Post

To begin with, as a student, the differences in the education system is really obvious. In China, competative pressure must be faced from the primary school, even the kindergarden

The agentless passive is in evidence in the extract and is possibly an indicator of writing quality which can serve to quantify the impressionistic evaluation of the post sample as being better that the pre sample. The evidence for the prevalence of the various forms of the passive in academic prose and in contrast to conversation is considerable and as Biber et al. (1999, pp. 937-938) show, with the exception of short passives as a verb complement there is a higher incidence of all passive forms in academic writing and this may be as Biber et al. (1999) suggest because of the concern with generalisations characteristic of the register.

5.5.2.2 MAT variables with significant increase for 7 out of 8 programmes

A further 3 variables were found to have increased significantly for all but one of the 8 programmes included in the present study: verb participles, nominalizations, and demonstratives.

Verb participle (VBN) figures show increases of +5, +11, +25 and +3 (2010) and -2, +3, +25 and +6 (2012). This may reflect increased use of the passive plus a greater awareness of more complex grammatical forms which are explicated and targeted by the presessional programme, such as using transitivity to express an opinion of an event (an example exercise being the Chancellor increased taxes on North Sea oil/ taxes were increased in line with inflation/taxes increased by over 50%).

Nominalisations (NOMZ) are classified by MAT as a vocabulary item, with nouns ending in -tion, -ment, - ness and –ity. The occurrence of these suffixes are the means by which the MAT tagger identifies the nominalisation process, and with noun phrases containing pre- modifiers being “three to four times more common in expository written registers than in conversation” (Biber et al. ,1999, p.589) this may represent a move from a verbal to a nominal style of expression. This increased nominalised characteristic is a feature of academic prose and Biber and Gray (2013, p. 100) give examples of this in scientific texts, as the following shows.

Now that programmed instruction has emerged from the laboratories of experimental psychology,

This feature, the nominal character of academic prose is taught explicitly on the EAP presessional programme and is a key component of our teaching curriculum. Here is an example from a post 6 week student in 2012:

It is heatedly debated about the difference between China and the UK. Although the globalization of world culture leads to the differences between China and the UK becoming smaller, there are still huge differences existent

Demonstratives (DEMO) Nini describes these features as found when the words that, this, these, those have not been tagged as either demonstrative pronouns DEMP (-66), that on object position TOBJ (+5), that on subject position, TSUB (-1), that adjective complements THAC (+ 21) or that verb complements THVC (+23) (Nini, 2014, p.19). They show an increase across all eight cohorts. Biber et al. (1999, p.350) find that when this and these are used as determiners, they are of relatively high frequency in academic prose “due to their use in marking immediate textual reference, for example … on this account” and this offers a suggestion that students may be becoming more aware of the need for explicitness and possibly context independence in formal academic writing.

5.5.2.3 MAT variables with less clearly identifiable upward movement

This category covers those variables, of which there is only one, which have shown over 60% upward movement for six out of eight programmes

Attributive adjectives (JJ) is a classification whereby an adjective is followed by a noun or another adjective, modifying nominal expressions thus excluding predicative adjectives. The scores show increases for 6 out of 8 cohorts with the 10 week programmes showing increases of 18 and 13 (31% and 20% for 2010 and 2012 respectively). This increase in a basic linguistic resource for “expand[ing] and elaborate[ing] the information in a text” (Biber, 1988, p.237) may again be indicative of an increase in range of vocabulary and possibly related to a greater use of nominalisations and nouns in general. An example is offered here by Biber et al. (1999, p.510):

One of the most important [ways] of achieving this is by the regular and thorough [implementation] of

planned disinfection [programmes] of all livestock units.

A (single) example is also presented from the EAPCORP (15 week 2010):

Hong Kong is a city where mix with western and traditional Chinese culture