A Corpus-based Analysis of Persuasive Linguistic Choices of Pakistani Argumentative Essay Writing

Abstract

Persuasive language is described as the language of power as its use permits a person to participate and access power in democratic societies. The teaching and learning of the persuasive discourse are, therefore, “a democracy sustaining approach to education” (Hess, 2009, p. 5). However, English Language Learners (ELLs) often encounter difficulties in understanding the complexity of the persuasive language. The present research aims to investigate the linguistic complexity of persuasive writing across the essays and within the generic phases of argumentative essays written by Pakistani learners. In this regard, the register variable field analysis proposed by Martin (2007) was applied to fifty argumentative essays retrieved from the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE). The results demonstrate that Pakistani learners’ essays were highly descriptive accounts because of the excessive utilization of the attributive relational clauses, material clauses, and the clause complexes made of interactive conjunctions in all the phases of argumentative essays. Hence, it is reasonable to assume that Pakistani learners are unaware of the field-related linguistic features required to enhance the persuasion according to their generic phases as also mentioned by Haider (2021), and Gill and Janjua (2020). Finally, the findings of this paper will guide English language teachers and learners about the explicit usage of the persuasive writing choices needed to create persuasive texts.