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Tense, aspect and the passive voice in L1 and L2 academic texts

Seattle University, ehinkel{at}seattleu.edu

This study analyses specific written discourse production in which NNSs’ usage of English tenses and voice appears to be dramatically different from that of NSs. The data for the study narrowly focuses on a small number of verb phrase features, such as tenses, aspects and the passive voice, examining how they are presented in writing instruction texts and identifying areas of L2 learning in need of intensive instruction. The main goal of the analysis is to identify the patterns and median frequency rates of L1 and L2 uses of three English tenses (the present, the past and the future), two aspects (the progressive and the perfect), and passive verb structures encountered in a NS and NNS corpus of L1 and L2 academic student academic texts (746 essays/226,054 words). The results of the study demonstrate that even after many years of L2 learning and use, advanced NNS students may have difficulty with the conventionalized uses of tenses, aspects and the passive voice in written academic discourse. The paper also offers a few practical techniques to improve NNS students’ production of passable L2 written academic prose. Therefore, the types of texts and contexts in which NNSs may choose to use particular tenses, aspects and voice (or to avoid them) represent an important research venue because such investigations can lead to new insights into learners’ real-life L2 skills. In particular, in academic writing that all NNS students in universities in English-speaking countries must produce in copious quantities, the issues of tense, aspect and specifically passive voice usage are usually seen as very important (Michaelis, 1994; Nehls, 1988, 1992; Swales and Feak, 2000).

The study presented here analyses specific written discourse production in which NNSs’ usage of English tense and voice appears to be dramatically different from that of NSs. The data for the study narrowly focuses on a small number of verb phrase features, such as tenses, aspects and the passive voice, with the goal of identifying areas of L2 learning in need of intensive instruction, in light of the fact that these important features of academic text are barely even mentioned in most writing instructional texts. The paper also offers a few practical techniques to improve NNS students’ production of passable L2 written academic prose. The research goal of this study is to analyse the patterns and median frequency rates of L1 and L2 uses of three English tenses (the present, the past and the future with both will- and would-constructions), two aspects (the progressive and the perfect) and passive verb structures encountered in a NS and NNS corpus of L1 and L2 academic student academic texts (746 essays/226,054 words).

Language Teaching Research, Vol. 8, No. 1, 5-29 (2004)
DOI: 10.1191/1362168804lr132oa


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