The analysis of Toulmin elements in Chinese EFL university argumentative writing

This descriptive study aims to analyze structures of argumentative papers written by second language (L2) university students, based on the adapted Toulmin, 1958 and Toulmin, 2003 model of argument structure constituting six elements (i.e., claim, data, counterargument claim, counterargument data, rebuttal claim, and rebuttal data). It also investigates how the uses of these Toulmin elements are related to the overall quality of argumentative papers. One hundred and thirty-three second-year university English-majors in a Chinese university wrote an argumentative paper in English after reading two preselected English opinion pieces with opposing views on the same controversial topic. The Toulmin elements in the students’ papers were analyzed and the quality of papers was assessed. It was found that an average paper had at least one claim supported by four pieces of data. However, there were far fewer uses of counterargument claim, counterargument data, rebuttal claim, and rebuttal data in the papers, although their uses were significant predictors of the overall quality of argumentative papers. Potential implications of the findings are discussed as they pertain to L2 argumentative writing pedagogy.