STUDENT-WRITERS’ CLAIMS IN HORTATORY ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS: AN APPRAISAL STUDY IN CONVENIENCE WRITING

Working on writing argumentative essay instructions has been practices in a non-formal language learning settings. Yet, its students’ pursued claims are not fully explored as an evaluativion of how student-writers interact as conveying arguments with the readers. Investigating the linguistic resources on which they develop and evaluate these, two selected English Language essays were looked into regarding to exploitation of macrostructures in them. Subsequently, they were captured within the framework of appraisal theory as to emerge various trends relative to the employment of engagement resource types, combined with the other resources in confirming claims: graduation and attitudinal ones. It was pinpointed that the essays were low-graded notifying substantial numbers of monoglossic resources with low-considered attitudinal items. They failed to recognise other voices and alternative positions. Their construction of evaluative meanings provided feedbacks, enhancing classroom teachers’ awareness of typical features in genre-based instructions.


Introduction
Writing an argumentative essay is a challenging task for any students, let alone in English.They are much expected to be aware of the precise functions of grammatical aspects but also of the typical features of such writing genre.Students with excellent command in syntactic structures and lexicon in English are possible to complete argumentative essays considered ineffective and inadequate relative to their persuasiveness and/or coherence organization noticed by numerous native instructors (Serevino, 1993ain Ho, 2011).That is the fact that argumentative genre is the one apt to be dialogic in nature and demanded a high level of interaction (Thompson, 2001).These demands are substantially ignored by instructors merely focusing on prescriptive grammar while at the same they do not adequately self-capitalize with "metafunctional eyes" so as to identify the strength and weakness of their writing, extending students' awareness of rhetoric and linguistic to construct a persuasive and objective in arguing a case (Promwinai, 2010).In a number of well-established language institutions, the practice of how to compose an argumentative essay, therefore, has been a solid and reliable endorsement regarding with student service excellence; In other words, argumentation comprises the prime text type in academic writing often examined by standardized English tests (TOEFL and IELTS) for scholarship grants or promotions.Yet, rare internal study to reflect year-practices of genre-based instructions is applied as an evaluative framework leading to the understanding of interactive construed stances the student-writers have made up.This study of interpersonal resources employed by students has been a following one researched by a number of scholars to discern the success of argumentative writing completion (Wu, 2007;Promwinai, 2010;Jalilifar & Hemmati, 2013;Liu, 2013).However, it constituted typical settings prevalently conducive to the convenient writing in that it had a less than 10 students in the class cordially invited to have any time outside class writing conferences.Referring to the umbrella of Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) comprising three metafunctions -social functions of languages- (Halliday, 1994), this study merely focused two low-graded essays on interpersonal metafunction in which it has the clause as the core resources (graduation, attitude and engagement) for expressing meanings.It aimed to pinpoint, by employing appraisal theoretical framework, the tendency of the employment of engagement resources accompanied by the other two ones: graduation and attitude.The next part taps the precise theory employed and the particular essay genre studied.

Appraisal Theory and Hortatory Essays
It is argued that texts are negotiated so that making meanings with each others are construed; therefore, text is possibly deemed authentic products of social interaction (Eggins, 2005).In the forms of clauses, it is realized by three concurrent meaning kinds: ideational (experiential and logical processes in a text), interpersonal (writer's attitude and role relationship with readers), and textual (organizational and unfold text fashion) (Halliday, 1994).In particular, it is further explained that the interpersonal metafunction is the participatory function of language in which the speaker's meaning potential as "an intruder" is represented making use of the language in both "expressing his own attitudes and judgments and looking for influencing the attitudes and behaviors of others" (Halliday, 1978).Appraisal theory initially developed by Martin (2000) caters a precise framework for seeking the interpersonal meanings beyond clauses.According to Martin & White (2005), appraisal expressed by lexical choices is located as an interpersonal system at the level of discourse semantics.
Furthermore, as analyzing a text, it needs to investigate appraisal (Thompson, 2004).Referring to Martin & White (2005) and Martin & Rose (2007), three interacting domains are prevalent in appraisal resources, namely graduation, attitude and engagement.Graduation is concerned with the strength of feeling: adjusting the degree of evaluation (Force) and adjusting the degree of boundaries (Focus).Attitude is concerned with evaluation types: feelings (Affect), judgment of behavior (Judgment): and evaluation of things (Appreciation) (Martin & White, 2005).The affect is further split into In/security, Dis/satisfaction, Dis/Inclination, Un/Happiness.Judgment values in which we evaluate people and their behavior in a negative or positive way are split into social esteem and social sanction.Engagement is concerned with positioning the writer regarding with the value position being put forward and regarding with the potential responses to that value.Its diverse resources are used by the writer to adjust and negotiate the arguability of utterances.This can be monogloss and heterogloss.Monoglossic utterances simply voice self-evident propositions, the writer's only belief, with no acknowledgment with the multiple voices (White 2008bin Promwinai, 2010).
On the other hand, heteroglossic ones, extended to projection, modality and concession, confirm that his/her own view is just multiple prevalent views whose tone is available for dialogic alternatives (ibid).Projection, later, is a grammatical resources for attributing words and ideas to the write's source so that he/she explicitly assigns the responsibility of opinions to sources deriving from the expert of the field (Martin & Rose, 2007).Subsequently, modality setting up a semantic space between "yes" or "no" is either employed to argue about probability or frequency of proposition (modalisation) or to argue about the obligation or inclination of proposals (modulation) (Eggins, 2004).Halliday (1994) proposes four types of modality, namely usuality, probability, obligation and inclination.Eventually, concession, a resource for counter-expectancy, is a feasible stance to adopt as acknowledging and countering possible alternative propositions/views for an inexperienced writer (Wu, 2007).Thus, such concessive conjunctions as but, even if, although, however, in fact, still, even, indeed are noticeably found in the writer's utterances.
In line with argument genres, Coffin (2004) proposes there are four argument genres based on the writer's aims as well his/her argument about the world, that is analytical exposition genre, hortatory exposition genre, analytical discussion genre and hortatory discussion genre.The term "analytical" is differed from "hortatory" in that the earlier is an exposition persuading the readers that the thesis is well formulated, and the latter is an exposition persuading the reader to carry out as the thesis recommends (Martin, 1985in Promwinai, 2010).
Moreover, socially "exposition "genre aims to persuade the reader's to a certain point of view where the social goal of a discussion is to hold up two or more points of view, furthermore argue for one point over the others.Consequently, the four arguments comprise divergent stages in accordance with their purposes.In a similar vein, the hortatory exposition has its own goal to put forward a point of view and recommend a course action as well as denotes a typical staging: Thesis (Recommendation) + argument plus evidence + (counterargument plus evidence) + (reinforcement of thesis) + recommendation (Coffin, 2004, p.236).In details Hyland (1990) presents explicit rhetorical structures for an argumentative essay together with its specific elements: (1) Thesis makes up (gambit), (information), proposition, (evaluation) and (marker); (2) Argument comprises marker, (restatement), claim and support; (3) Conclusion owns (marker), consolidation, (affirmation) and (close).In SFL tradition, thesis stage is labeled "elaboration" phase, the optional marker in the stages is termed the "preview" phase, and an obligatory marker in argument stage is referred to the "hyperclaim".Appraisal theory and a particular genre of argument in an essay, therefore, are more or less adequately elaborated.

Method
Ten participants in High Intermediate 4, having been instructed on how to prepare a seven paragraph argumentative essay -hortatory exposition -in midst of completing the course book as well as invited to have post writing conference outside at any convenient time, submitted their paper.Only two essays were selected on the basis of instructor's recommendation: these were the best one in his views.Later, they were rated employing a scale from a combined assessment version: the composition Profile consisting content, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanics (Jacobs et al., 1981) and the Organization Plan for an Argument comprising and replacing the previous version, namely "Introduction, presentation, of writer position, summary of opposing views, response to opposing views and conclusion (Ramage, et al., 2012).Besides, the replaced 'content category" was added "audience awareness" as a part of it.The total score for the highest proficiency is 100 and the lowest is 34.To clear it up, the essays are categorized high graded if they are 63 or higher.
Conversely, those graded below 62 belong to low graded.Selected essays titled Stay away from Botox and Tarung Derajat for Life were graded by three experienced and qualified lecturers proven from their academic backgrounds (Masters degree in English Education) and with minimum five year teaching experiences in teaching hortatory exposition argumentative essays in a full-fledged and accredited English courses from three different universities lecturing academic writing: argumentative essays.Their scores were combined and divided by three.Beforehand, they were handed in the combined assessment version just a reminder that they employed the same combined one.Within the framework of appraisal theory, then, the researcher needs to be aware of three as reading and analyzing the data: Reading position, top-down or bottom-up analysis and double-coding analysis (Martin & White, 2005).In this study, the researcher took a compliant reading position as he shares cultural likeness and hold many ideational values with the student-writers as conducted in the previous studies as well (Liu & Thompson;2013;Jallilifar & Hemmati, 2013).Furthermore, the researcher approved of employing the bottom-up analysis in which it begins with realizations and pursuing back to the 'mood' of the text (ibid).Eventually, the researcher should be aware of double coding, particularly in attitudinal analysis.It is argued that double-coding is permitted as attitudinal items are semantically interconnected at times, and they are sometimes simultaneously interpreted in two divergent ways (Martin & Rose, 2003).

Findings and Discussion
Tapping the aims of the research, it was figured out that the scores of the two selected essays were 56, meaning that they were categorized into low-graded essays abbreviated LGEs employing the purposefully combined essay assesments.The above table depicted general description of interpersonal resources in which they were exposed in a number of appraisal categories: attitude, engagement and graduation.Both student-writers employed the sub-category of attitude, judgment, more than the other two subcategories (Affect & Appreciation), in line with the study conducted by Jallilifar & Hemmati (2013).Likewise, the number of sub-category of graduation, force, was also used by the student-writers more than that of focus.This corresponds to the research of Jallilifar & Hemmati on low-graded essays of Kurdish Undergraduate Students (ibid).In terms of how student-writers interacted with the readers as well as consider the potential alternative views, it was the fact that monoglossic utterances were still more dominant than heteroglossic ones.Such typical characteristics of novice writers are short of awareness to take into account alternative opinions that the readers.As a matter of fact, they simply tend to self-claim, rather ignoring to acknowledge dialogic utterances to see the potential views from audiences (White 2008b in Promwinai, 2010).The findings of this appraisal category were compatible with other studies (Wu, 2007; Jallilifar & Hemmati 2013).
In the depth analysis of the sub-category of attitude: affect, it was notified that these LGE made use of dis/inclination and un/happiness to back up the stated thesis more preponderantly than In/Security and Dis/Satisfaction: Using Botox on face gives some negative effects and Joining Tarung Derajat has some benefits.The following were the utterances of sub-categories of affect: (1).Botox can damage (affect > -security) body organs;(2) Botox can make addicted (affect > -security); (3) Botox wastes (affect >inclination) people's money; (4) Joining Tarung Darajat makes you used to reacting fast> + inclination); (5) It increases (affect >+ happiness) health, mental and physical; (6) it adds (affect > + happiness) your income.The preponderance of the first two subcategory effect (Inclination and happiness) were found dominant in the study carried out by Jalilifar & Hemmati (2013).Later, the expressed affectual items were articulated in the such verbs as damage, make, increases, adds, wastes in which contrary to the fact the nominalized items were presented in a foregrounded way encountered in High Graded Essays (Lee, 2008;Liu, 2013;Jalilifar & Hemmati, 2013).The other two sub-categories of affect: judgment and appreciation, it was found out that both social esteem and social sanction values were prevalent in judgment.Yet, the earlier ones were more preferable than the latter ones.Both essays, though, valued in-animate/non-human in which the judgment were employed to: Botox and Tatung Arafat.Afterwards, the student-writers highlighted the employment of appreciation as things which were worthwhile or worthless.In fact, the significant appreciation was more frequent in number in that the encoded valuations were explicitly construed in the forms of advantages and disadvantages.Such findings were justified that the appreciation of valuations were preponderantly existing stemming from the level of students' proficiency (Lee, 2008).
Taking into account of the number of monoglossic resources deriving from the table, it was inferred that the student-writers availed less room for other voices as well as alternative positions.In the few times text analysis of heteroglossic resources, the projection was of no prevalence at all in that the student-writers did not cite any resources as external voice or extra-vocalizing so as to assign the responsibility for opinions to academic experts (Martin & Rose, 2003).Like in the study of Liu (2013), these low graded essays employed profound numbers of pronoun item, thus much possibly that selfcitation to get an authorial self taking responsibility about the text was prompted.The other two sub-types of heteregloss, namely modality and concession were noticed and came up in following examples: (1) They can do anything to be more beautiful like famous actresses; (2) If they do not use botox, they can express their feelings; (3)For example men may be want to have six pack body…; (4) May be you are bored with teaching, you can try to join the competition to show your skills.The modality used was monotonous in syntactic structures as the student-writers was short of the repertoire of expressions revealing the degree of "yes" or "No" position.They still consider the chance of introducing additional voices and possibility as cited by Martin & Rose (2007) arguing that modality opens a space for negotiation, inviting the circulation of views surrounding the case.
To anticipate readers' certain expectations, the student-writers barely did as revealed in their written in the essays.Only one were exemplified: (1)The second benefit of joining Tarung Darajat is it increases health…In fact, people want to have a nice body; They failed to respond to what the other voices or alternatives were availed by the readers/audiences.Concerning the use of concessions, they put in a particular paragraph in which they refuted in the half section of it.The other ones were very rare if not considered total ignorance to anticipate divergent readers' expectations.The eventual finding of the graduation was that these low graded essays did exploit grading resources in spite of rarely intergraded with the attitudinal resources.The state was opposite to the findings in the previous study (Liuu, 2013;Jallilifar & Hemmati, 2013).In general, what was found on this research substantially corresponded with the earlier one in the same subject.

Conclusion
This study attempted to explore how the student writers whose essays were graded low deployed the resources of appraisal, then figured by appraisal framework, in argumentative essays, hortatory exposition.Analysis of Low graded Essays is necessary to find out the favored appraisal uses compared to the previous study of High Graded Essay apt resources.The precise assessment employed to grade an argumentative essays intentionally integrated aspects on how the (student)-writers interacted with the audience and claimed their arguments.As revealed in findings, the employment of monogloss was preponderantly prevalent so that self-citing was relied upon, arguably weak.Subsequently, considering the other alternative voices as well as anticipating the readers' expectation was rare in numbers.The grading values and attitudinal resources noticed in low graded essays were not profoundly connected.Despite its limit to two essays in nonformal academic context, it uncovered then the real practices of appraisal resources employment as an academic introspection of deployment" metafunctional" eyes that the instructors have to undertake.