From ‘‘Show’’ to ‘‘Focus’’: Corpus Evidence of Reporting Verb Use and Academic Writing Development in ESL Student Writing

Abstract

Reporting verbs are central to academic writing, as they serve to credit sources, express stance, evaluate, and argue. This study examined their frequency, syntax, semantics, and discipline specificity in ESL students’ academic writing, utilising a corpus based linguistic approach. Drawing on schema theory, the constructionist view, and academic writing theory, the study analysed a corpus of student essays via frequency counts, concordance analysis, and syntactic and semantic examination. The results revealed that ‘focus’ (n = 1,131) and ‘show’ (n = 1,077) were the most frequent reporting verbs, accounting for more than half of all instances of reporting verbs in the corpus. Concordance analysis showed that ‘show’ was mostly used to introduce evidence and back up arguments, whereas ‘focus’ largely functioned as an organizational device to point readers’ attention and organize discussions. Nevertheless, many occurrences of both verbs performed a descriptive or organizational function instead of performing the rhetorical work of the reporting verbs’ attribution, evaluation, and stance-taking. Our findings suggest that students have some vocabulary, but lack the capacity to deploy reporting verbs rhetorically and critically. Explicit instruction on reporting verbs, genre pedagogy, and corpus-informed teaching may be required to improve academic writing skills and disciplinary literacy among university students.