A Study Of The Correlation Between The Use Of Discourse Markers And College English Writing Proficiency

English writing is not only one of the five basic skills in Englishlearning, but also the necessary step in the foreign language teaching. In theteaching of English writing, one of the key problems is how to correctly usediscourse markers to get a coherent writing. Both in text linguistics andpragmatic study, it is accepted that discourse markers have importantfunctions. Text linguists think discourse marker is a cohesive mechanismwhich indicates a cohesive and coherent relationship between a discourse andother parts of the text. It is an important means to realize the text’s semanticcoherence. Pragmatic experts have argued that discourse markers can guidethe listeners or readers to understand discourses. Different researchers haveinvestigated discourse markers from different perspectives, which has causedunavoidable disagreements regarding such fundamental issues as theirterminologies, definitions, classifications and functions. Since the 1980’s,discourse markers in L2 writing have attracted more attention fromresearchers.Coherence theory is regarded as the theoretical foundation of this study.Coherence involves the relation between sentences or elements of discourseand the topic of the whole discourse. Coherence theorists believe thatdiscourse does not comprise random series of irrelevant sentences, butinstead constructs a consistent structure of units. Within a coherence-basedframework, discourse markers are argued to link the utterance they introducewith previous discourse units as cohesive devices and so contribute todiscourse coherence.The purpose of the present study is to discuss the use condition of discourse markers by Chinese non-English majors in their written English,then explore the correlation between the use of discourse markers and theEnglish writing proficiency of Chinese non-English majors. According toWang Lifei and Zhu Weihua’s classification of discourse markers, the authorquantitatively analyzes discourse markers in the English compositions ofresearch subjects. Those subjects are 150 non-English sophomores fromChangsha University of Science & Technology. The methods adopted in thestudy include empirical method, data analysis and questionnaire method.The research results suggest that there is a significant correlationbetween the use of discourse markers and the English writing proficiency ofcollege students. The number of discourse markers used by students in theirEnglish writings is positively correlated with their English writingproficiency and the correlation between them is significant; the number oferrors of discourse markers in their writings is negatively correlated withtheir English writing proficiency and the correlation between them is alsosignificant. There are obvious differences in the quantity and quality of usingdiscourse markers between the high-scoring group and the low-scoring one,but only a few differences in the number of types which are used by them.The causes for using discourse markers wrongly include weak consciousnessfor using discourse markers, indeterminate understanding for the usages androles of discourse markers and the influence of native language thought.By studying the discourse marks in the students’writings, we can gainsome pedagogical revelations as follows:First of all, we can set up special writing practices for training the use ofdiscourse markers in the teaching process. Secondly, teachers shouldintroduce the differences in using discourse markers between English andChinese. Thirdly, discourse markers must be taught in contexts, and teachers should guide students to note the role of them in realizing the local coherencebetween sentences and the global coherence in the whole text. Fourthly, wecan provide students with many materials of source language, which makesthem really experience the effects of discourse markers. By reading thosematerials, students gradually grasp how to use discourse markers correctly incommunication. In addition, we can introduce more alternative discoursemarkers to students, avoiding the overuse of some discourse markers.