A Corpus-based Study Of Linking Adverbials In Chinese EFL Learners' Argumentative Writings

The present study was a corpus-based comparative study. The first comparison was made between Chinese EFL learners and English native speakers for the purpose of investigating the similarities and differences between Chinese EFL learners and English native speakers in their use of the linking adverbials; then another comparison was made between the high achievers and the low achievers of Chinese EFL learners in order to find out whether the Chinese EFL learners'use of linking adverbials is correlated with their writing proficiency and whether Chinese EFL high achievers are more register-conscious than low achievers in their use of linking adverbials.The data selected for the present study were composed of two parts, namely, CLTST3, the subcategory of Chinese Learner English Corpus (CLEC), which serves as the learner corpus and the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS), as the reference native corpus. The research is a quantitative design by nature supplemented by a close analysis of some individual cases. Biber's (2000) and Crismore's (1993) linking adverbials classifications were employed in the present study. The data analysis generated the following findings:First, Chinese EFL learners are different from native speakers in terms of the frequency distributions in their use of linking adverbials. Chinese EFL learners are more likely to overuse and also underuse some linking adverbials. To be more specific, some Chinese EFL learners tend to overuse linking adverbials indicating apposition, enumeration, result and corroboration, but underuse those linking adverbials denoting summation, transition and contrast. This suggests monotony in those learners'choice of linking adverbials when developing argumentation as compared with native speakers.Second, in spite of the differences between native writers and Chinese EFL learners in the use of linking adverbials, similarities are also found in their selection of the ten most frequently used linking adverbials and in the variety of semantic types of their selected linking adverbials in argumentative writings. Third, there is a significant positive correlation between learners'choice of linking adverbials and their writing proficiency.Fourth, Chinese EFL high achievers are more register-conscious than low achievers in their use of linking adverbials. Their acquisition of linking adverbials move from a more"spoken"style to a more"written"style as they make progress in L2 learning, in other words, they become more register-conscious with the improvement of their language proficiency. For example, Chinese EFL learners initially lack register-awareness, which is reflected in their underuse of formal linking adverbial therefore in their argumentative writings and overuse informal linking adverbial so in such writings. Such phenomena improve along with the improvement of their target language proficiency.The present study has the following pedagogical implications. First, teachers are expected to design some exercises with a view to improving students'proficiency in applying linking adverbials. Second, teacher should offer authentic native language data to students. They should provide students with some model texts written by native speakers on how native speakers make the coherence relations evident by using those linking adverbials. Third, as Chinese EFL learners tend to use informal linking adverbials in writing, and lack adequate register-awareness when they choose linking adverbials, it is advisable for teachers to help learners understand the different stylistic meaning of linking adverbials so as to use them more appropriately.