A Cognitive Analysis Of Chinese EFL Learners’ Use Of Contrastive Connectives Based On Corpora

Contrastive connectives play an essential role in the discourse as cohesive ties. However, a number of studies have shown that Chinese EFL learners tend to overuse or underuse and even misuse some contrastive connectives. Previous studies on connectives are mainly concentrated on the use of connectives in written English, but few have been carried out to investigate Chinese EFL learners’ use of contrastive connectives in spoken English. This thesis employs a corpus-based approach and carries out a cognitive analysis of the use of contrastive connectives by Chinese EFL learners and native English speakers both in written and spoken English. Through comparison, the differences and similarities of the use of connectives in the written and spoken English are explored. Our main purpose is to provide an understanding of the normative use of connectives as demonstrated in native speakers’ writings and conversation. The study explores the following questions:1) What are the features of Chinese EFL learners’ use of contrastive connectives in their spoken and written English?2) Do the Chinese EFL learners use contrastive connectives to the same extent as native English speakers?3) What is the correlation between the Chinese EFL learners’ use of contrastive connectives and their language proficiency?4) Are there any differences in the use of contrastive connectives by Chinese EFL learners and native English speakers from the cognitive perspective?This research uses four corpora as the data sources:SECLL2.0, WECLL2.0, BNC spoken corpus and NESSIE2.0. The former two come from the sub-corpora of Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners (2.0)(SWECCL2.0) and the BNC spoken corpus is the sub-corpora of British National Corpus (BNC) and NESSIE2.0is available on BFSU CQP web. The research procedures include the following steps: Firstly, the author classify the contrastive connectives and list all the connectives which would be investigated in the present study; Secondly, the author get the language data of contrastive connectives from the above four corpora; Thirdly, with the help of AntConc3.2.1.w and CQPweb tool, the author examine the frequencies of each contrastive connective in the four corpora respectively. At the same time, the actual context, in which each connective occurs, is also carefully examined. The cases of non-contrastive connectives have been eliminated and the multifunctional connectives will be differentiated. After that, the statistical findings are collected for various analytical purposes mentioned above. Finally, the author will seek appropriate interpretations for the results. The major findings of the study include:Firstly, there is a general tendency that Chinese EFL learners adopt more contrastive connectives in their spoken English than in their written English.Secondly, Chinese EFL learners are more likely to adopt more contrastive connectives than native English speakers and the difference is significant, which has been proved by the Chi-square test and Log-likelihood ration test.Thirdly, Chinese EFL learners with higher proficiency and native English speakers can adopt more varieties of contrastive connectives than learners with lower language proficiency.Fourthly, from the perspective of categorization and prototype theory, the prototypical members of the contrastive connective category in spoken English of Chinese EFL learners and native English speakers are different while in written English they are similar. However, cognitive differences of various degrees still exist in the individual use of contrastive connectives in Chinese learners’written language in comparison with the use of contrastive connectives by native English speakers.The present study can shed light on the features of Chinese EFL learners’use of contrastive connectives in their language production to help raise both teachers’and learners’awareness of the value of contrastive connectives in English. Furthermore, it can help establish a corpus-based approach that can be extended to the studies of other linguistic phenomena.