The present study investigates EFL students' perceptions of power differentials and their negotiation strategies when communicating with native English-speaking students via emails. The study involved 28 Taiwanese and American undergraduates who participated in a semester-long cross-national email writing activity. Findings show that students in…

This study examines how novice foreign language (FL) writers develop their genre awareness, linguistic knowledge, and writing competence in a genre-based writing course that incorporates email-writing tasks. To define genre, the study draws on systemic functional linguistics (SFL) that sees language as a resource for making meaning in a particular…

Examines the way students in a graduate-level English-as-a-Second-Language course used email on their own initiative to interact with their instructor. Analyzes 120 messages to the instructor and categorizes them into four areas: (1) phatic communication; (2)asking for help; (3) making excuses; (4) making formal requests. (Author/VWL)