A Study Of The Toulmin Elements In Chinese University Students’ Argumentative Writings

The argumentative model proposed by the British philosopher Toulmin in the 1958 is widely regarded as an important framework for studies on argumentative writings and its instructional significance for argumentative writings is well acknowledged.Studies found that students of different ages had different levels of mastering the Toulmin argumentative model,and mastering the Toulmin argumentative model was conducive to improving the quality of argumentative writing.However,most relevant previous studies that used the Toulmin model as framework in analyzing argumentative writings were conducted in L1 contexts and scarcely in L2 settings.Therefore,the use and distribution of the Toulmin elements in L2 writings are to be explored.This paper explores the distribution of the six elements(i.e.,claim,data,counterargument claim,counterargument data,rebuttal claim and rebuttal data)in argumentative writings written by Chinese college students.The research corpus of this study includes two drafts of an argumentative essay by 120 first-year non-English majors in a university,a total of 240 drafts,as well as 360 comment feedback from peers(3 feedbacks for each draft 1 essay).The study aims at answering three research questions: 1)What is the distribution of Toulmin elements in students’ argumentative writings? 2)How does peer review influence the distribution of Toulmin elements in students’ argumentative writings? 3)How does the distribution of Toulmin elements correlate with the writing achievements of students’ argumentative writings?The findings are: 1)most Chinese college students’ argumentative papers contain the two basic elements in the Toulmin model(i.e.,claim and data),but only a few argumentative papers contain the four secondary elements in the Toulmin model(i.e.,counterargument claim,counterargument data,rebuttal claim and rebuttal data),showing that Chinese college students can use the two basic elements well in English argumentative writing,while they are less capable of using the secondary elements;2)after peer review,the number of Toulmin elements in students’ argumentative papers shows an increasing trend,and adoption rate of the comments on Toulmin secondary elements is higher than that of the basic elements;3)there is a positive correlation between the amount of the six elements in students’ argumentative writings and the writing achievements,indicating that all the six Toulmin elements can contribute to the effectiveness of argumentation and can improve the quality of argumentative writings.This study implies that the argumentative elements are not complete in students’ writings,therefore,it is necessary to find out this issue through text analysis of students’ writings so as to provide timely guidance to students.Meanwhile,the use of peer review can help students to increase their use of the argumentative elements which will lead to the improvement of the writing quality.The future studies can further explore the relationship between Chinese English majors’ argumentative writings and Toulmin elements and compares the differences and similarities between them,which can provide some enlightenment for the Chinese argumentative writing teaching.