This paper explores the expression of certainty in a set of high- and low-rated Geography argumentative essays. Using one aspect of Hunston's (1989, 2000) concept of the evaluation of status, the paper compares the statement types used to construe the writer's expression of certainty in the construction of arguments. Drawing on the framework,…

This paper is motivated by the premise that little is known about the use of requestive strategies in request emails in Chinese English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) context. Specifically, the paper examines and compares requestive strategies in request emails between two groups of university students, namely English majors (EM) and non-English…

The Systemic Textual Analysis (STA) is a text-based approach to teaching writing based on a combination of the genre-based theory and systemic functional linguistics. Central to this approach is the teacher-learner collaborative analysis of various text types in terms of structure and texture through the use of genre analysis and systemic…

This case study analyses two written texts produced by an ESL learner either side of a five-week genre-based teaching intervention. The second text was judged to be of a much higher quality by two independent markers in a previous study. The question arising is: what exactly has improved? The analytical tools of systemic functional linguistics are…