Discourse competence in Hong Kong secondary students’ disciplinary research writing

Abstract

The study examined the frequency and accuracy of four discourse competence (DC) parameters (i.e., establishment of a smooth old-to-new information flow, stance display, engagement with readers, and mastery of knowledge of discourse structure) in Hong Kong English-as-a-second-language (ESL) secondary students’ disciplinary research reports. The results showed that: (1) elements of establishment of a smooth old-to-new information flow constituted, on average, less than 9 % of the reports’ length, with mean accuracy rates ranging from 64.31 % to 80.33 %; (2) elements of stance display constituted, on average, no more than 3 % of the reports’ length, with mean accuracy rates ranging from 58.33 % to 98.17 %; (3) elements of engagement with readers constituted, on average, no more than 2 % of the reports’ length, with mean accuracy rates ranging from 33.33% to 88.64 %; (4) the mean accuracy rates of mastery of knowledge of discourse structure ranged from 0 % to 100 %. The findings reveal the secondary students’ DC in disciplinary research writing and pinpoint weak areas that instructors can work on. The proposed DC framework forms a foundation for future research on DC in discipline-specific research writing.