One way to investigate learner writing is by analyzing the most frequently recurring sequences of words, that is, lexical bundles. This paper presents results for lexical bundles analyses of a Malaysian corpus (MCSAW) against its reference language variety, LOCNESS (Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays). Key 4-word lexical bundles are firstly…

This study investigated the moves and communicative purposes used in 522 email messages that were exchanged in a Malaysian private educational institute. Using Swales's (1990) move approach, this study revealed that email writers used fourteen moves that are mainly six framing and eight content moves. Content moves included four main, one…

The Appraisal Theory includes three subsystems of evaluation; Attitude, Engagement, and Graduation. This study focuses on Graduation subsystem which is used by writers to amplify or diminish the scope of these two subsystems. It consists of Focus and Force options. Focus expressions are usually non-gradable they tend to sharpen or soften the…

Studies on ESL/EFL learners' use of the progressives reveal that it is one of the grammatical aspects most problematic to them. This paper presents the results of a study on the use of progressives among Year 5, Form 1 and Form 4 Malaysian ESL learners' compositions using the English of Malaysian School Students (EMAS) corpus. The purpose of this…

This paper examines print advertisements in Malaysia to determine how advertisers seek to achieve their primary goal of persuading or influencing an audience by the use of both language and visuals. It describes the main component moves and rhetorical strategies used by writers to articulate the communicative purpose of the genre and the language…

This paper explores how contact between English and Chinese has resulted in the incorporation of Chinese borrowings into the lexicon of Malaysian English (ME). Using a corpus-based approach, this study analyses a comprehensive range of borrowed features extracted from the Malaysian English Newspaper Corpus (MEN Corpus). Based on the contexts of…

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…

This paper explores how the discourse of history "works" in the context of Malaysian junior-secondary education. Using the tools of systemic functional linguistics, a representative selection of school texts is deconstructed. By focusing on the intimate relationship between ideology, context, and text, characteristic purposes and their…

Describes the processes by which distinctive varieties of English develop in areas where English functions as a second language. The distinctions between rhetorical and communicative norms for speech events in these varieties are discussed. (Author/AM)

Explains individual and institutional code and style choices as locally motivated pragmatic selections within the specific contexts of the workplace settings and the larger Malaysian sociolinguistics context of English as the normative choice of Malaysian business and Malay as the lingua franca. (Author/VWL)