COGNITIVE GENRE PROTOTYPE MODELLING AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE TEACHING OF ACADEMIC WRITING TO LEARNERS OF ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE
Keywords:
Keywords: cognitive genre theory; prototype semantics; academic writing pedagogy; English for Academic Purposes; second language acquisition; schema- based instruction.Abstract
Abstract
The teaching of academic writing to learners of English as a second language
has long been preoccupied with two competing concerns: faithful reproduction of the
formal conventions of established scholarly genres, and the development of learner
agency and rhetorical creativity. This paper proposes an integrative theoretical
framework — Cognitive Genre Prototype Modelling (CGPM) — that draws on Eleanor
Rosch’s prototype theory, John Swales’ move-step analysis, and contemporary
cognitive accounts of genre to reconceptualise genre knowledge as a structured mental
representation organised around prototypical exemplars rather than rigid sets of
necessary and sufficient features. The study reports findings from an eight-week
pedagogical intervention conducted with thirty intermediate-level ESL learners
enrolled in a university-based English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programme, and
contrasts these outcomes with those of a comparable control group receiving
conventional genre-based instruction. Analytic comparison of pre- and post-
intervention texts, supplemented by questionnaire data and semi-structured interviews,
indicates that learners exposed to CGPM demonstrated stronger rhetorical structuring,
greater discoursal flexibility, and an enhanced metacognitive vocabulary for describing
their own writing decisions. The paper concludes by outlining implications for syllabus
design, materials development, teacher education, and the assessment of academic
writing in second-language settings.
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