An Investigation of the Variation among Writings: A Multidimensional Analysis of Non-Native English Learners’ Essays

Abstract

This study explored variations in the English learners’ essays from non-native Asian countries (Pakistan, India, and China) through multidimensional analysis (MDA) proposed by Biber (1988). The corpora were collected from an ICNALE that comprised 800 essays written by Chinese, Indian, and Pakistani students. The software, multidimensional analysis tagger (MAT) developed by Nini covering all the linguistic features of old MDA, was used to tag and analyses the corpora. The results taken through MAT in statistical form were further used to analyses dimension as well as z-scores and calculate the p-value for the significant differences among dimensions. Factor weightage of the z-score exhibited that the dimensions had significant variations. Most of the text belonged to the positive aspect of the dimensions except the non-narrative style of the whole corpora. One variation was very huge in case of the abstract nature of Indian, and Chinese learners’ essays and the non-abstract nature of the essays by Pakistani learners. These results suggested linguistic variations across-cultural essays written by the Chinese, Indian, and Pakistani students.