Asian Journal of English Language Studies

25-42

Authors: Marie Claire Duque-Cruz

This paper examines how machismo is negotiated and enacted between and among men in competitive sports (i.e., basketball), and how it is (re)produced in social-media discourse. By employing van Dijk’s (2016) sociocognitive approach to critical discourse study, the polarization strategies and the ideologies built in the norms and values in discourse were subjected to micro- and macro-analysis. This paper addresses the gap in research as most critical studies in gendered language in sports are centered on male domination over females, and less academic attention is given to the materializations of machismo between and among men. This paper reveals significant and interesting findings on how the social constructions of masculinity become problematic, especially when men are placed under public scrutiny.

67-82

Authors: Marvin Dominic B. Buena

This study stylistically analyzes the semantic deviations in “Poem 130” by Jose Garcia Villa, a Philippine national artist for literature. Aside from the eccentric commas, his comma poem contains semantic deviations. Qualitative data were gathered to determine the functions of the semantic deviations found in the said poem. Findings revealed that the poem’s semantic deviations focus on images which, at the outset, seem nonsense or absurd, but would lead to the realization of the aptness of these semantic deviations for finding meanings in the poem. Using Leech’s (2008) stylistic analysis of semantic deviations, it was found that these deviations manifest an excellent metaphorical sense, which is another feature of the poem aside from its eccentric use of commas.

109-149

Authors: Ryan Glenn C. Conda

Stance-taking is one aspect of academic-writing conventions that college students need to attend to in order to improve their scholarly writing. Stance includes the ways writers express their value judgments and attitudes to forward a proposition and be aligned with other authors in the field (Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, & Finegan, 1999; Du Bois, 2007). This study aims to describe the ways students establish their stance in their literary-analysis papers. While most researchers on stance-taking followed Hyland’s (2005, 2010) framework, it cannot be denied that nuances appear in the ever-evolving dynamics of writing as a social act from authors. While Hyland’s framework is heavily informed by a bulk of data involving advanced and published researchers only, the present study followed Aull and Lancaster’s (2014) framework as this is informed by rather inclusive research data from amateur to advanced writers. The researcher examined the stance-taking linguistic markers used in the literary-analysis papers through the following: expressing commitment (use of hedges and boosters), reformulating and exemplifying (use of code glosses), and expressing concession and contrast (use of adversative or contrast connectors). Nine recorded interviews and 58 literary-analysis papers written by college students from a Philippine state university served as research data. Findings revealed that students used more boosters to express commitment to their claims, which would increase their authorial presence in the essays. Most of the time, the students used code glosses, boosters, and adversative or contrast markers to evidentialize their claims and refer to other authors in order to align themselves and eventually reveal their position on the topic(s) they discuss. The students, however, have limited understanding of the functions of stance-taking as they reasoned that these are only used to sound more convincing and persuasive. The study recommends the explicit instruction of linguistic markers of stance and their functions so that students can expand their rhetorical options for academic writing.

169-188

Authors: Natalie Soong Shuyi; Willy A. Renandya

Textbooks are an essential component in the classroom, making it extremely crucial to regularly evaluate textbooks used in schools so that their pedagogical contributions towards the teaching and learning processes can be guaranteed. The study aimed to identify and analyse the cognitive levels of questions available in Secondary Three All About English textbooks, which have been used in Singapore since 2013. The objective of carrying out the analysis was to determine the overall cognitive rigour of questions, using a matrix superimposing two taxonomies: Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Domain-of-Knowledge (DOK) model. The sample of this study consisted of questions from the Express and Normal Technical (NT) English language textbooks published by Hodder Education, where 346 questions were analysed in total. The cognitive rigour matrix was used in the classification of the questions. The results revealed that in the Express level textbook, most questions were within the cell [2,3] (35.9%), consisting of Understand and “Strategic Thinking” questions. In contrary, for the Normal Technical level textbook, most questions were within the cell [5,4] (17.6%), consisting of Evaluate and “Extended Thinking” questions. Overall, there was a good mix of Lower-order thinking skill (LOTS) and Higher-order thinking skill (HOTS) questions. However, not all cognitive levels were clearly varied, with an overemphasis on Understand and Evaluate questions, neglecting Remember and Apply questions. In light of the results, it is recommended that coursebook writers should incorporate questions of varied cognitive demands. We recommend that teachers should regularly evaluate the effectiveness of school textbooks so that there is closer alignment between the curriculum and the textbooks that teachers use in the classroom.