A GENRE ANALYSIS OF THE CAMBRIDGE 'O' LEVEL MATHEMATICS EXAMINATION

Abstract

The research reports the findings of a genre analysis of the GCE '0' Level Mathematics Examinations. The researcher, as a Mathematics teacher and an insider researcher, started with the belief that students' difficulties in Mathematics are both content-related and linguistic-based. Five years (1993-1997) of the Cambridge 'O' level Mathematics Examinations papers were analysed for their language features, thus describing the genre of Mathematics evaluation. The conceptual framework used, pivots on Halliday's Systemic Functional view of language and Hasan's Generic Structure Potential. The rubric and layout in both Paper 1 and 2 were examined for a micro view of the evaluation genre and the linguistic complexity inherent in Paper 2 as rhetorical moves based on James (1996). The first result shows that the G.C. E. 'O' level examinations exhibit the same Generic Structure Potential (GSP): Examination Orientation " Read ' ' Select " Respond " (Review) in the big genre as other examinations, for example, the English Language Examinations in James, (1996). The analysis of the Examination Direction element in Examination Orientation reveals the specific generic feature of a Mathematics evaluation: in its need to use the calculator/mathematical tables as compared to the English Language Examinations in James ( 1996). The second level or analysis or the Mathematics tasks in Paper 2 as rhetorical moves reveals that there is no one GSP for the Mathematics task but a complexity of nesting of moves are used in building the Mathematics tasks unlike essay questions in James (1996). It also highlights the importance of the ability to read language in Mathematics - Only the technically simplest Mathematics task is minimally linguistic, whereas most Mathematics tasks have the Task Initiation move as the commonest first move as all the contextual clues are given at the beginning. The Task Classification element is also found to be ellipsed in the Mathematics task unlike the English Language Task in James (1996). The main advantage of this study is its contribution to the pool of existing literature on genre writing and especially on evaluation genres. It will have implications for the teaching of Mathematics.