Assessing pragmatic performance in advanced L2 academic writing through the lens of local grammars: A case study of ‘exemplification’

This study explores the relationship between pragmatic performance of discourse acts and second language (L2) English writing proficiency. To this end, the study focuses on one specific discourse act, i.e., exemplification, and adopts a local grammar approach to investigate the performance of exemplification in three corpora of academic writing by Chinese undergraduate English as a foreign language (EFL) learners, Chinese postgraduate EFL learners, and expert writers. The results show that both the frequency of exemplificatory markers and, more notably, the quantity, strategic use, and diversity of local grammar patterns largely increase with proficiency level, suggesting that pragmatic performance of discourse acts could be a useful indicator of L2 writing proficiency. The implications of our findings for L2 writing research and assessment are discussed. • This study explores the relationship between pragmatic performance of discourse acts and L2 English writing proficiency. • It focuses on investigating Chinese advanced EFL learners’ use of exemplification in academic writing. • The investigation reveals some correspondence between writing proficiency and the pragmatic performance of exemplification. • The investigation shows that L2 writers’ pragmatic performance could be a useful indicator of L2 writing proficiency.