| Discourse Markers (DMs) is a common language phenomenon of speech communication, which serves to indicate the logical connection between discourses. Therefore, DMs is usually studied in oral discourse from the perspective of discourse analysis. However, DMs in written discourse is rarely researched. Actually, writing is also a kind of communication, which is between writers and readers. Halliday and Hasan (1976) contend that DMs is one way to realize textual cohesion and coherence. If students can use DMs in a correct and proper way, their competence in textual coherence will be greatly enhanced. Thus, the extent to which the students know DMs is closely related to their English writing quality.By reflecting research on DMs and English writing quality, they can be summarized as below:1) researchers adopt different text styles and research subjects; 2) their focus is not specifically on DMs, but on various cohesive ties; 3) researchers cannot come to an agreement to the relationship between DMs and writing quality, for the latter is influenced by all kinds of factors, such as vocabulary and syntactic complexity. Therefore, the present study focuses on the DMs among all cohesive devices to examine and discuss to what extent the use of DMs affects English writing quality.From Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners (WECCL), the present study takes the existing 270 expository writings as the research data and they have all been rated. After that,127 writings scored lower than 70 are excluded so as to ensure the remaining writings to be on a similar level. Thus the rest 143 writings meet the standard. Then, the thesis author divides these writings into higher group and lower group according to the rated scores, which is one way frequently adopted in the quantitative studies. Therefore,30 writings scored between 80-90 (90 is the highest) make up the higher-score group and 113 writings scored between 70-79 fall into the lower-score group. To match the 30 sample writings in the higher-score group,30 samples are randomly selected from the lower-score group so as to make a relatively balanced comparison between the two groups. Finally, the total 60 pieces of writings are used as the target data.Under the guidance of textual cohesion and coherence theory, total frequency, category distribution and inappropriate use of DMs in the 60 pieces of expository writings are quantitatively studied and qualitatively discussed in order to clarify the effect on writing quality by using DMs. The present research finds out that 1) the total frequency and category distribution of DMs in the higher-score group are more than those in the lower-score group, and the amount of inappropriate DMs use in higher-score group is lower than that in lower-score group. In the correlation test, the total frequency and categorization of DMs is positively correlated with English writing quality; the amount of inappropriate DMs use is negatively correlated with English writing quality; 2) the difference of DMs use between the higher-and lower-score group reveals different logical thinking ways between the two groups, that is, students in the higher-score group more tend to use DMs to construct a cohesive discourse and adopt different types of DMs to realize logical connection; 3) as DMs help to construct a cohesive and coherent discourse in a more obvious way, different logical thinking ways and competence in using DMs between two groups affect their writing quality accordingly. On one hand, diverse DM types make elements in the text cohesively tied and coherently connected, finally improving the writing quality. On the other hand, inappropriate use of DMs impedes readers’ comprehension on the text and to some extent reflects their incompetence in correctly using DMs, thus lowering the writing quality.As for the significance, the present study takes English expository writings as research data, which can act as complementary study to those on relationship between written English quality and DMs. What’s more, previous studies usually take all the cohesive devices into consideration, while the present thesis focuses on DMs effect on writing quality aiming to examine and discuss its effect more adequately. Finally, the research results will also be of significance in L2 teaching, especially in English writing teaching. Teachers can shed light on the importance of discourse markers in writing and emphasize their importance in constructing the discourse so as to enhance students’ writing quality. |
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