A Rhetorical Structure Theory Based Approach to the Erroneous Rhetorical Relations in Chinese EFL Learners’Argumentative Writing

LI+Hong-kun

【Abstract】Based on Rhetorical Structure Theory，this study intends to investigate into the erroneous rhetorical relations in Chinese EFL learnersargumentative writing and their relationship with writing quality.Research findings show that students have problems in handling textual coherence in form and function.However，comparisons of the erroneous rhetorical relations both at the intra-paragraph and at the inter-paragraph level indicate statistical differences between the two groups.

【Key words】Rhetorical structure theory； Erroneous rhetorical relations； Argumentative writing

1 A General Introduction to RST

Rhetorical structure theory（RST）was proposed by Mann&Thompson in 1986 as an explanation of coherence relations of texts and has become one of the most widely applied discourse theories（Marcu 1997）.The authors of RST assert that except for certain types of text，such as laws，contracts etc.，virtually any coherent text is composed of a range of possibilities of structure—various sorts of“spans”，or“Elementary discourse units（EDUs）”，which can be in the form of clauses，sentences，or units larger than sentences，and they are related by certain rhetorical relations.

Mann and Thompson（1988）presented a list of 24 relations with their definitions，dubbed“Classical RST”.With more texts being analyzed，some other relations are being added in this list.Marcu et al.（2001）included a total number of 53 mononuclear and 25 multinuclear rhetorical relations for the tagging of the discourse-annotated corpus consisting of 385 documents of American English selected from the Penn Treebank（Marcus et al，1993）.

But as far as I know，the relations inventory built by W.C.Mann&S.A.Thompson in 1986 and the extended inventory by Carlson&Daniel Marcu in 2001 are used to describe the coherent discourse relations.There is not such an inventory for annotating the types of erroneous rhetorical relations made by Chinese EFL learners when handling the discourse structure in writing.So，this study aims at，firstly building an inventory of relation names to mark the illogically related text spans，and then analyzing the relationship between these illogically related text spans and the writing quality.

2 Research Methodology

A set of 120 argumentative essays was drawn from SWECCL（Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners）.These are essays written by English majors in a Chinese university to address a same essay prompt“Education as a lifelong process”.These texts were rated by three expert raters（see LIANG Maocheng 2006）.

Out of the 120 essays，the 30 best essays were selected to constitute the high-proficiency group（Group H），and the 30 essays with the lowest scores were selected to constitute the low-proficiency group（Group L）.

All 60 writing essays were first segmented paragraph by paragraph.Then the paragraphs were segmented into EDUs.After the segmentation，the incoherently related text spans were identified and annotated by careful reading of the texts.

3 Results and Discussion

3.1 Identification of Erroneous Rhetorical Relations

After a careful study of the incoherent EDUs of the 60 pieces of writing，9 types of erroneous rhetorical relations are identified.They can be divided into two categories：formal category and functional category.The first two belong to the erroneous relations in form，and the rest 7 belong to the erroneous relation in function.The reason to include the formal category in this inventory is that cue phrases，which are regarded as formal units，are important indicators in selecting rhetorical relations.Sometimes an erroneous use or omitting of a cue phrase will cause the EDUs to become incoherent.The 9 relations are listed in Table 1.

3.2 Erroneous Rhetorical Relations at Different Proficiency Levels

3.2.1 Erroneous Rhetorical Relations at the Intra-paragraph Level

Analysis of the erroneous rhetorical relations at the intra-paragraph level will begin with calculation of the numbers and types of them.Table 2 is the calculation of the erroneous relations identified in the two groups：

This table shows that both groups have problems in form and function in organizing the rhetorical structures of the texts.They are similar in the types of the erroneous relations they make.Compared with the erroneous relations in form，they are more likely to commit functional mistakes when structuring their writing.The three most frequently used erroneous relations in both groups are Illogic topic extension，Overlapping，Topic irrelevant statements.

The high frequency of the three relations reveals that both groups commit a high percentage in illogic extending of the topic，and their statements are often irrelevant to their topic they are discussing，and the information they provide is often overlapping.They reveal the textual incoherence to a certain extent among Chinese EFL learners in argumentative writing：they are poor in extending the topic to prove their viewpoint；they could not fully understand the topic they are talking about，the statements thus made are often diverted from the central topic；they could not support their viewpoint from a comprehensive way，only centering on one aspect，making their statements overlapping.

From Table 2，some differences can be identified in use of certain specific erroneous rhetorical relations between the two groups.Firstly，Group L commit Illogic cause-result nearly 5 times as many as that committed by the Group H.This means that while both groups make mistakes in managing the cause-result relations，the low-proficiency students are much more likely to make such mistakes.Secondly，there exists significant difference in handling topic extension.The low-proficiency students are twice more likely to make mistakes in extending their topic.Besides，the low-proficiency students are twice more likely to make irrelevant statements in their argumentative writing.All the above differences reveal that the writing essays of the low-proficiency Chinese EFL learners are much more incoherent than those of the high proficiency students because of their more likelihood of making mistakes in deduction of a conclusion or result from an irrelevant event，in extending their viewpoint in an illogic way，and in stating their viewpoints incomprehensively.

3.2.2 Erroneous Rhetorical Relations at the Inter-paragraph Level

Now lets have a look at the erroneous relations identified at the inter-paragraph level.Table 3 is the calculation of the erroneous relations used by both groups：

This table shows that almost all the mistakes both groups make are topic irrelevant statements and overlapping of their statements.To further analyze the two relations，the study compared the two relations with the total relations at the inter-paragraph level and found that topic irrelevant statements and overlapping statements take a high percentage among Chinese EFL learners at the paragraph level.This，plus the result shown in Table 3，reveals that Chinese EFL learners are generally poor in structuring statements in argumentative writing.They often divert their attention from the topic and arrange their arguments without knowing that their arguments are overlapping in information.

4 Conclusion

Students of both groups have problems in handling textual coherence in form and function.Among them，the most prominent problem is their difficulty in extending a topic logically.Other prominent problems include information overlapping，topic irrelevant statements，and Illogic cause-result，etc.These problems reflect studentslogical thinking problems.

【References】

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[責(zé)任編輯：湯靜]