A Comparative Study On The Use Of Causal Conjunctions Between Chinese EFL Learners And Korean EFL Learners

Writing reflects the ability of language output,and it belongs to the advanced language skills.In foreign language learning,writing also reflects learners,English proficiency level.However,according to the previous researches,there are still incoherent problems in the writing of Chinese EFL learners.Conjunctions play a coherent role in the textual structure of English and make readers understand writers,ideas smoothly.Causal conjunction is a type of conjunctions and expresses cause-effect relationships,which plays a crucial role in argumentations.Argumentation is a style used by Chinese EFL learners frequently and thus it is essential for learners to use causal conjunctions correctly.The present study adopts Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis(CIA)to study the casual conjunctions by selecting the subcorpora of native speakers,Chinese EFL learners and Korean EFL learners from The International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English(ICNALE).Unlike previous studies,the present study emphasizes the comparison between Chinese EFL learners and Korean EFL learners.The purpose is to find out whether the features of causal conjunctions used by Chinese EFL learners belong to their own specific attributes or common attributes with other EFL learners to have a better understanding of the features of causal conjunctions used by Chinese EFL learners.Each corpus involved in the thesis has 400 argumentative essays and these essays are written around two topics within a limited time,which ensures the comparability of corpora.The present study mainly raises the following questions:(1)What are the characteristics of causal conjunctions used by Chinese EFL learners and Korean EFL learners in terms of frequency and variety?(2)What are the features of each type of causal conjunctions used by Chinese EFL learners and Korean EFL learners?(3)What are the common attributes and specific attributes between Chinese EFL learners and Korean EFL learners?What are the causes of these attributes?The present study uses Antconc 3.4.3 to extract the causal conjunctions from corpora and collect the relevant data.Then Log-likelihood ratio calculator is used to analyze the data.The result shows that Chinese EFL learners and Korean EFL learners have four common attributes and two specific attributes.The four common attributes are as follows:1)Chinese EFL learners and Korean EFL learners prefer to use simple and short causal conjunctions,which is the same as native speakers.This is related to the cognitive process of language acquisition and language economy principle.2)Chinese EFL learners and Korean EFL learners both have a colloquial tendency on the use of causal conjunctions.Proficiency level and register awareness are the reasons for this.3)Compared with native speakers,Chinese EFL learners and Korean EFL learners just use causal conjunctions in a single position or patterns.They often use incoherent ways to express the cause-effect relationship.The major reason is the inadequacy input of language.4)Chinese EFL learners and Korean EFL learners present similar thinking patterns when they use causal conjunctions and they prefer to use cause-before-effect to express causality.Cultural background influences thinking patterns and then affects the output of language.The two specific attributes include:1)Chinese EFL learners use fewer kinds of casual conjunctions than Korean EFL learners,which indicates that Korean EFL learners a richer vocabulary.2)The number of causal conjunctions underused by Chinese EFL learners is more than that of Korean EFL learners,which is related to proficiency level and learners' strategies.