A Study Of The Use Of Conjunctions In English Writings By Senior High School Students

Conjunctions as cohesive devices are used to connect discourse segments. By literature review, it shows that most relevant researches involve advanced English learners. This thesis aims to examine the situation of conjunctions used in English compositions by senior high school students.To carry out the research, two research questions will be addressed.1. What is the general situation of conjunctions used in English writings by senior high school students?2. Are there any differences in the use of conjunctions between the high-level group and the low-level group? If yes, what are the differences?To address the two questions, 256 compositions of 87 students of Grade Two will be analyzed. All the writings are scored according to the New English Curriculum Standards Writing Requirements and are analyzed based on Quirk et al.’s classification of conjunctions. After collecting students’ compositions, the author interviews eight participants from high-level group and low-level group to support the second question.The results demonstrate that there is a significant difference between high-level group and low-level group in terms of frequency and variety of conjunctions. Furthermore, there is a positive correlation between the use of conjunctions and the writing qualities. Besides, interview findings present that the four students from high-level group do have higher awareness and ability to use conjunctions both in frequency and variety than that of the four ones from low-level group.Based on research results, the author puts forward some pedagogical implications in English writing teaching and learning. English teachers should cultivate students’ awareness of and ability to use conjunctions, especially the low-level group. Besides, the author also provides some concrete methods: cloze activities, sentence combining, re-assembly.