Grammatical and Semantic Patterns of Communicative Verbs in Saudi and Native English Argumentative Writing

Abstract

The present study examined the use of communicative verbs (CVs) in argumentative essays composed by Saudi EFL learners together with native English-speaking university students. The study investigated four main questions: (1) What communicative verbs do Saudi EFL learners use in their argumentative essays? (2)  To what extent are these verbs covered in the argumentative essays of Saudi EFL learners when compared to those of English native speakers' university students? (3)  Do Saudi EFL learners show a tendency to use communicative verb patterns as native speakers do? If so, what are some similarities and differences? (4) Do the semantic frames of these pattern structures primed by native and non-native speakers have common or distinctive features? This study is urgent in light of persistent challenges faced by EFL learners in developing native-like academic discourse when expressing stance and argument structure. The research utilized two corpora which consisted of 491 Saudi argumentative essays totaling 166,000 words and 175 LOCNESS essays with 151,000 words. The communicative verbs were extracted through AntConc before applying Wmatrix for tagging purposes. Pattern Grammar was used to analyze grammatical patterns, while FrameNet was employed for semantic frame classification. The data was validated through manual annotation procedures that achieved 90% inter-rater agreement. The findings showed that Saudi learners preferred to use a small number of CVs (e.g., argue, say) while demonstrating less grammatical and semantic variety than native speakers. The research provides practical applications to teaching English as a foreign language by showing how specific instruction about grammatical patterns and semantic frames enhances students' academic writing abilities.