Morphosyntactic variation of tenses in students'academic texts

Abstract

This study set out to explore the morphosyntactic variation of tenses in students’ academic texts at the target higher-learning institution in Lesotho. Premised on the qualitative paradigm, the study used the sociolinguistic interviews and documentary sources as data collection methods in order to answer the research questions and achieve the research objectives. Drawing from the methodology, findings and evaluation sections datasets of the academic texts, the study revealed the systematic and salient use of the simple past tense over the simple present tense. Further, the study found the sporadic use of the present perfect tense. Based on the findings, the study concludes that while morphosyntactic variation particularly on tenses, has been noted across the texts, the phenomenon seems to pose some challenges on the clarity and objective of the texts thus necessitating measures such as a need for contextualised learning of tenses. Thus, this study could contribute towards the corpus of morphosyntactic studies.