Volume 7-2 April 2011.

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Title
Exploring the Iranian Candidates’ Use of
Formulaic Sequences in the Writing Module of IELTS

Authors

Keivan Zahedi (Ph.D.)
Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

Mohammad Ali Shams (Ph.D. Candidate)
Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran

Bio Data

Keivan Zahedi is an assistant professor of linguistics at Shahid Beheshti University and Institute for Cognitive Science Studies, Tehran, Iran. His research interests include biolinguistics, clinical linguistics, discourse analysis and phraseology.

Mohammad Ali Shams is a Ph.D. Candidate of TEFL at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran. His research interests include narrative intelligence, IELTS studies, psychology of language learning, and phraseology.

Abstract
The aim of this study is to explore the IELTS candidates’ use of formulaic sequences in the writing tasks. Investigating a corpus created from 136 scripts responding to IELTS Academic and General Training Tasks 1 and 2, and using a framework proposed by Mackenzie (2000) for the identification of formulaic sequences, the researchers intend to describe the effect of the frequency and appropriacy of the use of formulaic sequences on the candidates’ obtained scores on the three IELTS writing criteria namely Cohesion, Coherence, and Lexical Resource, in particular, and on the writing scores, in general. The results of computer and manual analysis of the writing samples suggest that appropriate use of formulaic sequences have a positive effect on the writing scores while exotic and frequent use of these sequences compromises the quality of the writings. The findings of this study contribute to development and refinement of rating criteria of the Writing Module of IELTS, and can also be used to promote learning and teaching of formulaic sequences in IELTS preparation programs.
             
Keywords: Formulaic sequences, Writing, IELTS, Rating criteria