Tenor in Indonesian University Students’ Argumentative Texts Written in English (original) (raw)

This paper reports on research into the ways Indonesian students encoded Tenor in written argumentative texts in English. Texts were analysed using the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics' Register theory. Tenor, defined as the expression of the writer's attitudes, includes feelings, emotions and opinions. The paper begins with the identification of Tenor markers in theory. The kinds of Tenor markers in the Indonesian university students' texts were then identified, classified and tabulated. It was found that there was a tendency for Indonesian university students to use Tenor markers in a quite specific way. This study is significant for the teaching of writing to learners of English as a second or foreign language, specifically with respect to the building of awareness of how to produce an appropriate text for various academic audiences. It is also significant for understanding patterns of attitudes expressed by Indonesian students compared with those of L1 Englishspeaking students and English as a foreign language learners from other countries around the world.