Browsing by Author "Bourai Zahia"

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    A Genre Analysis of Selected Emails Written in English by First-Year Students in the Department of English at Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi-Ouzou
    (Université Mouloud Mammer Tizi Ouzou, 2024) Zedek Nora; Bourai Zahia
    Nowadays, E-mails play a vital role within higher education especially in building and maintaining effective relationships between teachers and students. In this context, e-mails are considered as a genre that students must be familiar with and able to use effectively. The current dissertation is a genre analysis that aims at analysing emails samples of first-year students in the Department of English at MMUTO. The study focuses on three (03) main objectives. The first is to analyse the genre conventions and structural characteristics of each identified genre within the corpus of first-year students’ emails. The second is to determine teachers ‘attitudes towards first-year students’ emails communication. Lastly, the third objective is to provide an appropriate structure of writing an academic email for enhancing first-year students’ capabilities and awareness. To carry out our research study, we relied on John Swales’ CARS Model (1990) with two integrated approaches namely TAM and TPACK Models. These combined approaches provide a comprehensive understanding of how firstyear students adapt to email communication within a university setting by considering genre conventions, linguistic features, and communicative purposes of first-year students in an academic context. To reach the objectives of the research, a mixed-methods approach was used for both data collection and data analysis. Thus, we used the descriptive statistical method in order to quantify the closed-ended items of the students’ questionnaire that consists of seventeenth (17) questions, and the frequency of email genre conventions included in thirty-three (33) emails, a quantitative method was adopted. Additionally, a qualitative content analysis was used for the interpretation of the open-ended question of the questionnaire (01), teachers’ interview conducted with three (03) teachers, and the results of moves and steps included in first-year students’ emails referring to John Swales’ Model (1990). Moreover, the findings of the questionnaire show that first-year students were unfamiliar with the requirements of an academic email, and the results of the interview revealed the positive attitudes and reactions of teachers towards their students by appreciating their efforts as well. As regards the findings of the corpus affirmed that first year students lack knowledge and awareness about the appropriate structure of an academic email.