Abstract

The present study investigates the use of Problem-Solution in student essays to identify whether or not or to what extent this text pattern is a source of perceived difference in NNS student essays in comparison with NS student essays The study is a follow-up to Tahara 2017 which compared argumentation essays written by NNS students with those by NS students conducted from the perspective of the use of metadiscursive nouns They are general and unspecific meaning nouns that can serve as markers of the discourse in some ways by referring to a textual segment in the texts where the nouns occur Of 33 selected metadiscursive nouns examined in Tahara 2017 this paper reexamines the use of a noun problem in relation to the Problem-Solution pattern The focus of the noun for the investigation of the use of Problem-Solution is because in the 2017 study Tahara problem very often occurred in combination with a Response Solution-indicating vocabulary in both corpora as in problem is solved consider the problem or problem should be dealt with underlined are vocabulary signaling Response Solution