Logical Metaphors in Persuasive Texts of ESOL Undergraduates

Abstract

In Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), Logical Metaphors (LM) are among the advanced meaning-making resources to which not only native but also ESOL learners’ access determines their success in generating formal persuasive texts. Ontogenetically, ESOL undergraduates show consistent growth in their proficiency to exploit this advanced level linguistic tool for increasing compactness and sophistication in academic argumentative discourse. Hence, we decided to conduct the current study to explore whether the ESOL undergraduates in Pakistan satisfactorily use major kinds of LMs. Benefitting from the concordance tool of the corpus methodology, we worked on a specially built corpus named NBSFs202 that comprised 81 handwritten essays students in BS final semester, we found that the ESOL learners’ repertoire of marked paradigmatic choices has shown slight growth during their academic careers. The study offers insightful cues to English for Academic Purposes (EAP) practitioners and curriculum developers at school, college and university level for training learners to attain advanced academic literacy.