A Study Of CDMs In Master Theses Of Chinese English Majors

The last four decades have witnessed a growing body of research on discourse markers,while the amount of research about the use of contrastive discourse markers(hereafter,CDMs)in academic writing by non-native English learners has remained limited.As expressions that signal contrastive relations between linguistic segments in discourse,CDMs play an essential part in academic writing.The aim of this research is to compare the use of discourse markers by Chinese English majors with that by native speakers and to explore the features of English learners’ use of contrastive markers.This research aims to answer three questions:(1)What are the similarities and differences in frequency and type of the use of CDMs between Chinese English-major postgraduates and native speakers in their master theses?(2)What are the syntactical similarities and differences in the use of CDMs between Chinese English-major postgraduates and native speakers?(3)Compared with native speakers,what are the problems in the use of CDMs by Chinese English-major postgraduates? In this mixed-methods study,which combines quantitative and qualitative results,the findings were derived from an analysis of 41 master theses(about 600,000 words)which are collected from CNKI and ProQuest Digital Dissertations.Findings demonstrated some differences in the use of CDMs between Chinese English learners and native speakers.First,English majors do not use CDMs as frequently and diversely as native English speakers do.They rely heavily on some simple and familiar CDMs such as but,however,though and although,etc.Second,compared with native speakers,English learners tend to overuse or underuse some specific CDMs in their academic writing.Third,in terms of some CDMs that can be put in various positions,Chinese students cannot use them as flexibly as native speakers and tend to put them only in initial or middle position.This research contributes to the research of CDMs,and has some implications for the acquisition of CDMs as well as for English writing teaching.