Corpus-based Study Of Causal Connectors In Chinese English Majors' Argumentative Writings

The present research aims to study the use of causal connectors in English majors' argumentative writings.The corpus of the study include 353 writings,from two section: the first one is 198 argumentative writings from Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners 2.0(SWECCL 2.0),the second one is 155 argumentative writings from LOCNESS(Louvain Corpus of Native English writings).In this research,Coh-Metrix3.0 is used to measure the level of the writings,and Antconc3.2.1 and SPSS17.0 are used to analysis the writings.With quantitative and qualitative data research of the corpus,it found that: firstly,in comparison with native English speakers,the use of causal connectors is higher in intensity and colloquial tendency,lower in richness by Chinese English majors;secondly,with the improvement of writing level,Chinese English majors' use of causal connectors is more native-like;thirdly,by analyzing intensity and richness of the use of causal connectors by different level Chinese English majors,it found that there is a low correlation between intensity and writing quality,and the same relationship property to richness and writing quality.Besides that,the research explores the possible reasons for these results,and they are register awareness,avoidance strategy and input bias.The paper gives some suggestions for the teaching of causal connectors.