Abstract - KKU Research Journalresjournal.kku.ac.th/article/15_08_751.pdfBased on the analysis of a...

751The Use of Linking Adverbials in the Argumentative Essays

of Thai EFL Learners

KKU Res J 15 (78) : August 2010

การวิเคราะห์การใช้คำาเชื่อมในงานเขียนความเรียงเชิงสาธกของนักศึกษาไทยที่เรียนภาษาอังกฤษในฐานะภาษาต่างประเทศ

The Use of Linking Adverbials in the Argumentative Essays of Thai EFL Learners

อังคณา ทองพูน พัฒนศร (Angkana Tongpoon Patanasorn)1

บทคัดย่อ

งานวิจัยนี้มีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อ 1) เปรียบเทียบการใช้คำาเชื่อมในการเขียนเชิงสาธกของนักศึกษาไทยที่เรียน

ภาษาอังกฤษในฐานะภาษาต่างประเทศกับเจ้าของภาษาที่เป็นนักศึกษาและ2)ศึกษาถึงการใช้คำาเชื่อมในงานเขียนที่มี

ระดบัคะแนนการเขยีนตา่งกนัในนกัศกึษาไทยผลวจิยัแสดงใหเ้หน็วา่ทัง้นกัศกึษาไทยและนกัศกึษาทีเ่ปน็เจา้ของภาษา

มรีปูแบบการใชค้ำาเชือ่มทีค่อ่นขา้งคลา้ยคลงึกนัใน3ดา้นคอืดา้นความหมายตำาแหนง่และคำาเชือ่มทีใ่ชบ้อ่ยๆจากการ

ศกึษาถงึการใชค้ำาเชือ่มในงานเขยีนเชงิสาธกของนกัศกึษาไทยทีม่รีะดบัคะแนนตา่งกนัพบวา่งานเขยีนทีค่ะแนนสงูจะ

มกีารใชค้ำาเชือ่มมากกวา่งานเขยีนทีค่ะแนนนอ้ยอยา่งมนียัสำาคญั(p <.05)และมกีารใชจ้ำานวนคำาและกลุม่คำาเชือ่มตา่งๆ

มากกว่าทั้งทางด้านกลุ่มความหมายและหน้าที่ของคำาเชื่อม

Abstract

The current study explores the use of linking adverbials in a Thai EFL learner corpus by comparing it with a

US student corpus and focusing on occurrences of linking adverbials in different writing quality. The results revealed

that the Thai learner corpus and the US student corpus shared several similar features in usage patterns of semantic

categories(i.e.,result/referenceandenumerate/additionandsummation),syntacticforms(i.e.,singleadverbials),

andmostfrequentwords(e.g., so, however, therefore).Inregardstowritingquality,higherqualityessays(i.e.,Score

3)containedsignificantlymorelinkingadverbialsthanweakerones(i.e.,Scores1and2)(p<.05).Inaddition,in

moreeffectiveessays,ahighernumberofandawiderrangeoflinkingadverbials,differentsemanticcategories,and

semantic functions were found.

คำ�สำ�คัญ: ภาษาศาสตร์คลังข้อมูลการเขียนเชิงสาธกภาษาอังกฤษในฐานะภาษาต่างประเทศ

Keywords: corpuslinguistics,argumentativewriting,EnglishasaForeignLanguage

1 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Khon Kaen University, e-mail: [email protected]


of Thai EFL Learners วารสารวิจัย มข. 15 (8) : สิงหาคม 2553

The Use of Linking Adverbials in the

Argumentative Essays of Thai EFL

Learners

After the release of Halliday and Hasan’s

Cohesion in English (1976), interest in the studyof

cohesion and coherence received considerable attention.

Studies related tocohesivedevices,both lexical and

grammatical,haveflourished.Oneofthemajorandmost

widely studied grammatical devices is linking adverbials.

This grammatical element has attracted a number of

researchersinthefieldbecauselinkingadverbialusage

is evidently a challenging area for second language

learnerstomaster(McCarthy,1991;Lorenz,1998).This

isduetoseveralfactors.First,sincelinkingadverbials

arenotusuallyobligatory,learnersoftenfinditdifficult

todecidewhenandwhennottousethem(Conrad,1999;

Halliday,2004).Typesandquantityoflinkingadverbials

aredeterminedbyregistersbecauseeachregister(e.g.,news

and conversation) requires a different communicative

functionsregister(e.g.,addition,apposition,etc.)(Biber

etal.,1999;Conrad,1999).Finally,differentrhetorical

structuresinthefirstandsecondlanguagesmayinfluence

learners’ choice of linking adverbials, resulting in

learners’misuse, under, and overuse (Altenberg and

Tapper,1998;Kang,2005).

In particular, some research studies have

shown that learners underused and overused certain

types of linking adverbials when compared to reference

corpora(e.g.,Boltonetal.,2002;GrangerandTyson,

1996).Thecurrentstudyprovidesfurtherinvestigation

into the analysis of EFL learners’ linking adverbial use

incomparisonwithnative students’writing.Also, it

throws light on EFL learners’ use of linking adverbial

inessaysofdifferentwritingquality,anareawhichhas

to date received little attention.

Linking Adverbials as Cohesive Devices

Linkingadverbials,orconjunctiveadverbials,

were brought to attention in 1976 byHalliday and

Hasan’s pioneering description of textual cohesion

in English.According toHalliday andHasan, text

can be made coherent through two types of cohesive

devices:grammaticalandlexical.Linkingadverbials,

as part of conjunctions, are one of the grammatical

cohesive devices used to mark relations in which one

unitideaelaborates,extends,orenhancesanotherunit

thatfollows.AccordingtoHallidayandHasan,linking

adverbialscanbedividedinto4groups:additive(e.g.,

furthermore, in addition, besides), adversative (e.g.,

however, nevertheless, instead), casual (e.g.,

consequently, on this basis, therefore), and temporal

(e.g.,after that, meanwhile, previously).

Basedontheanalysisofa largeamountof

spokenandwrittendata,Biberetal.(1999)re-categorized

linking adverbials and included two more categories.

In theirLongman Grammar of Written and Spoken

English (LGWSE), linking adverbials are comprised

ofsixcategories:enumeration/addition(e.g.,first of

all, next, finally, lastly), summation (e.g., in sum, to

conclude, all in all),apposition(e.g.,for example, for

instance, namely),result/inference(e.g.,consequently,

thus, as a result),contrast/concession(e.g.,in contrast,

alternatively, though),andtransition(e.g.,incidentally,

by the way).

According toBiber et al. (1999), linking

adverbials are found more commonly in academic

prose,compared toother registers (i.e.,conversation

andnews).Inacademicprose,awiderangeoflinking

adverbials is used because the writer needs to mark

explicit relationships between ideas in order to develop

theargumentofthetext(Conrad,1999).Thesemantic

categoriesthatarecommonlyusedareresult/inference

relations,followedbyappositive,contrast/concession,




and enumerative/additive/summative adverbials, and

thelasttypeistransitionadverbials,whicharerarein

the academic prose.

LGWSEalsoreportsthatinacademicprose,

the syntactic structure that is most commonly used is

the single adverb, followedbyprepositional phrases

andothersyntacticstructures(i.e.,finiteandnonfinite

clauses).Linking adverbials can occur in the initial

position(e.g., first, second, or to conclude),themedial

position(e.g.,Einstein, therefore, set to work…),and

thefinalposition(e.g.,You could buy a mini, though).

However,linkingadverbialsoccurmostcommonlyin

initialposition,followedbythemedialposition.Linking

adverbials in the final position are rarely found in

academic prose since they are a feature of interpersonal

interaction. The initial position is found to be the

primary position of linking adverbials since linking

adverbials in this position function as the link between

twoadjunct ideas, thesecondofwhich indicates the

relationshiptothepreviousunit(Conrad,1999).

Previous Studies on Second Language Learners’

Conjunction Use

Itwasfoundthatmostpreviousstudiesfocused

ontheuseoflinkingadverbialsinadvancedlearners,

and compared their use to that of native-speaking

universitystudents.Forexample,AltenbergandTapper

(1998)comparedadvancedEFLlearners’useoflinking

adverbials with a native student corpus to determine

overuse and underuse. The learner corpus was taken

fromtheSwedishICLECorpus (86untimedessays)

and thecontrol corpuswascontributedby70native

speakers. The results showed that the Swedish learners

overusedcertainlinkingadverbials(e.g.,moreover, for

instance, and on the other hand)andunderusedothers

(e.g.,hence, therefore, thus, and however).Similarly,

Chen (2006) also investigated the use of linking

adverbialsinEFLadvancedlearners,whowereTaiwanese

MAstudents inTESOL.He compared aTaiwanese

learner corpusof23academicpaperswithhisconstructed

corpus of 10 published journal papers. The results

showed that Taiwanese learners used slightly more

linking adverbials than the comparison corpus. Some

inappropriate use of linking adverbials was reported.

Forexample,besides,whichisanoralcommunication

feature,wasusedasanadditiveinlearners’academicwriting.

Otherstudieshavecomparedlearners'useof

linkingadverbialstotheadverbialusefoundinlarge,

generalcorpora.Forinstance,MiltonandTsang(1993)

investigatedtheuseofChineselearners’logicallinking

adverbials by comparing it to theBrown andLOB

corpora. The results revealed that learners overused

alllogicalconnectors(e.g.,lastly, besides, moreover,

consequently, furthermore).Similarly,Boltonetal.(2002)

investigatedtheuseoflinkingadverbialsinHongKong

learners’ academic writing and compared it with two

native corpora: InternationalCorpus of English in

Britain (i.e.,native studentcorpus)and International

CorpusofEnglish (i.e.,publishedacademiccorpus).

The results revealed that the two groups of learners

(i.e., second language learners and native students)

overusedmanyconnectortypes(e.g.,so, also, and thus);

the occurrence of underuse was not found.

For those studies which compared learner

essaystolarge,generalcorpora,itisunclearwhetherthe

large,generalcorporaareappropriatetargets.Itmay

not be appropriate to expect learners to use adverbials

in argumentative essays the same way writers use

adverbialsinjournalarticles,textbooks,etc.Inaddition,

studies which tried to compare learner essays with

essays written by native speaking students typically

ignoretheissueofessayquality.Itmaynotbeusefulto

groupalllearnersinonecategory,withoutconsidering

differences within these groups.



OnlyonestudybyTanko(2004)usedwriting

quality of essays as one factor in her analysis of learners’

linkingadverbialuse.Onlyhighly-ratedargumentative

essayswereincludedinherlearnercorpus;theparticipants

were foreign language learners who were studying

in a master’s program in English. The learner corpus

consisted of 21 argumentative essays produced by

Hungarian university students and it was compared

with a native student corpus. The results showed

that Hungarian learners’ writing contained some

similar features to those of native speakers’ writing

(e.g., positions of adverbial connectors and stylistic

requirements).Learnerstendedtouseahighnumber

of linking adverbials but the range of used linking

adverbials was more restricted than that of native

speakers(i.e.,typesofusedlinkingadverbials).

Even though taking into account learners’

writing quality, Tanko looked at only highly-rated

papers and was not interested in the comparison of

papers with different grading. Information about

learners’ use of linking adverbials in essays of different

writing quality would enhance our knowledge of EFL

learners’linkingadverbialuse.Unfortunately,nostudies

have explored the differences in linking adverbial use

inessaysofdifferentwritingquality.Thecurrentstudy,

therefore,seekstoexamineEFLlearners’useoflinking

adverbials in argumentative writing in comparison with

nativestudentsand,particularlyonessaysofdifferent

writing quality. Furthermore, unlike the previous

research, this study focusedonThaiEFL learners,a

group that has not been studied in regards to the use

of linking adverbials.Accordingly, this study seeks

answers to the following two research questions:

1. Towhat extent does the use of linking

adverbials vary across the learner and native student

corpora?Inparticular,aredifferencesobservedin:

a. The overall frequency with which

linking adverbials are used?

b. The frequencies of particular semantic

categories?

c. The distribution of syntactic forms?

d. The positions of linking adverbials?

e. The frequencies of particular linking

adverbial forms?

2. Within the learner corpus, do higher

quality essays contain more linking adverbials?

Method

Participants and Corpora

Learner corpus. The learner corpus used in this

studyconsistsof163argumentativeessayscontributed

by163Thailearners.Thelearnerswerethirdandfourth

yearundergraduateandgraduatestudentsmajoringin

English studying at Thai universities located in the

northeastregionofThailand.Theessayswereuntimed,

andthetopicswereoftheirownchoosing(e.g.,wearing

uniforms,theequalityofmenandwomen,war,religion,

andmoney). The participantswere allowed to use

languagereferencetools(dictionaries,grammarbooks,

etc.). Learners’essaysweretypedandtheiroriginal

work(e.g.,spellingerrors,grammaticalmistakes)was

kept unaltered.

Inorder torate thequalityof theessays in

thecorpus,theessaysweregradedfollowingthefive-

level scale of iBTTOEFL for independentwriting,

whichevaluatesessaysonfivemainareas(i.e.,topic

development,organization,unityandcoherence,use

of language andword choice), by two raters,who

received intensive rating training. The correlation of

scores between the two raters (r = .79)was strong

(Weigle,2002).Scoresawardedtotheessaysranged

from0to4.However,duetothesmallnumberofthe




essayswithscores0and4,onlyessaysofscores1to

3were included in this study.For thepresentstudy,

twenty-fouressayswererandomlyselectedfromeach

scorelevel;therefore,therewere72essaysinthefinal

learner corpus used in this study. The total word count

ofthelearnercorpusis24,211words;theaverageessay

lengthofeachscoreis227.38,365.08,and416.33for

Scores1,2,and3respectively(seeTable1).

Table 1. NumberofLearnerEssaysandTotalWordsineachScore

US student corpus.86nativeEnglishspeaking

students enrolled in compulsory freshmen composition

classesin2005and2006atastateuniversityintheUSA

were contacted and asked for permission to include their

argumentativeessaysinthispresentstudy.However,

only12studentsvolunteeredandgaveconsenttouse

them.Therefore,thecorpusofUSstudents’writing

consistsof12untimedargumentativeessays.Theessays

wereclassassignments.Similartothelearnercorpus,the

topicswereofstudents’choices(e.g.,teenpregnancy,

religion,andanimals).ThetotalwordcountoftheUS

studentcorpusis31,394words(seeTable2).Similarto

otherpreviousstudies(e.g.,Chen,2006),theindividual

essays in the US student corpus were much longer than

thelearneressays(i.e.,approximately2,616.17words

peressay).Thismaybeexplainedintermsofwriting

proficiencyandcontextoflearning(nativeversusEFL).

To make the occurrences of linking adverbials within

thetwolearnercorporacomparable,normalizationwas

used;thiswillbeexplainedindetailsundertheanalytical

decisions and data analysis section.

Table 2. NumberofUSStudents’EssaysandTotalWords

Analytical Decisions and Data Analysis

Within the learnercorpus, theparticipants’

essayswerefirstexaminedtoidentifyanyoccurrences

of non-target forms using the framework which

combined frequent linking adverbials mentioned in

Biber et al.(1999) andHalliday andHasan (1976).

Thedecisiontoincludenon-targetfeaturesinlearners’

writing into the analysis was based on the fact that

someofnon-target features (e.g., in the other words

and eventually)wereusedtofulfillthesamefunction

asthetarget-likeforms(e.g.,in other hands to mean

on the other hand, eventually to refer to finally).(See

Table3forthecompletelistoftheanalysisframework.)



Table 3. Analysis Framework

BoththelearnercorpusandtheUSstudent

corpus were searched to identify occurrences of the

linking adverbial forms listed inTable 3.To count

overall frequencies of the six categories of linking

adverbial in the learner corpus and the US student

corpus,aconcordancingsoftwareMonoConc was used.

An automated search tool provided by the program,

calledabatchsearch,wasusedinaccordancewithhand

editingofKWIC(KeyWordinContext)concordance

lines. After lists of automated counts were generated

bytheprogram,theyweremanuallyexaminedinorder

to eliminate items which do not function as linking

adverbials.Thejudgmentsweremadebaseduponthefact

that one word can have multiple syntactic functions. For

example,theword“so”canbeusedtofulfillthefunction

ofa linkingadverbial to link two ideaunits (e.g.,Oh

well you’ve seen it, so I won’t put it on),anamplifier

modifyingadjectivesoradverbs(e.g.,Oh, it’s so nice),

oraclausalsubstitution(e.g.,I don’t think so).

After thedataweredefined, thenumberof

instances of each linking adverbial and the total number

of adverbials found in each essay score were counted

and presented in percentage and normalization of

occurrences form. Due to the different lengths of

theThai learner corpus and theUS student corpus,

normalizationto10,000wordswasadoptedinorderto

accuratelycompareacrossgroups (fornormalization

methods, seeBiberet al.,1998).Toanswer thefirst

research question, the results from the two corpora

were compared qualitatively using descriptive statistics

(i.e.,rawfrequency,percentage,andnormedcounts).

Inaddition,anindependent-samplet-testwasusedto

compare the difference in instances of linking adverbials

per essay observed in the two groups. To answer the

second question, learners’ use of linking adverbials

wasanalyzedquantitativelyandqualitatively.AOne

WayAnalysis ofVariance (ANOVA) andPostHoc

comparisons using Tukey with an alpha of .05 were used

to compare the occurrences of adverbials used across

the three essay score categories. To further determine

thedifferencesbetweenessaysofeachwritingscore,

descriptive data as well as qualitative analysis were

used to examine types and semantic functions of linking

adverbials under each score.




Results

This section is structured to answer the two

posted research questions.

Research question 1: To what extent does the

use of linking adverbials vary between the learner and

native speaker in terms of overall frequency, frequencies

of semantic categories, distribution of syntactic forms,

positions of linking adverbials, and most frequent

words?

Overall frequency. Atotalof364and245linking

adverbialswere identified in theThai learnercorpus

andintheUSstudentcorpusrespectively(seeTable4).

Thai learners used twice as many linking adverbials as

USstudents(150.34and78.04timesper10,000words).

Itappearedtobethattheoverallfrequencyoflinking

adverbial instances that occurred in the US student corpus

(78.04timesper10,000words)wassimilartothatofthe

corpus-basedfindingspresentedinLGSWE(slightlyover

70timesper10,000words)(Biberetal.,1999).

Table 4. DescriptionsoftheThaiLearnerandtheUSStudentCorpora

Frequencies of semantic categories. Table

5 presents the frequencies of semantic categories in

percentage and in normed counts per 10,000words.

According to Table 6, result/inference adverbials

accounted for the largest proportion of linking

adverbials that occurred in the Thai learner corpus

(38.19%), followed by enumeration/addition/

summation(37.36%)andcontrast/concession(13.19%).

Transitionswererarelyfound(0.55%).Interestingly,

the pattern of linking adverbial use is similar to that of

USstudents.Thatis,USstudentsalsoshowedahigh

preference for using result/inference (31.53%) and

enumeration/addition/summation (25.16%), with

relatively infrequent use of apposition (3.19%) and

transition (0.32%). Samples of result/inference

adverbials that were frequently used by both groups

were so and therefore; enumerative/additive

adverbials were moreover and furthermore in the

Thai learner corpus and also and moreover in the US

studentcorpus.Whencomparedtothecorpus-based

findings, the pattern used by these two groupswas

slightly different from that presented in LGSWE.

Whereas appositionwas rare in the Thai learner

corpusandtheUSstudentcorpus,theLGSWEreports

that this was the second most frequent type of linking

adverbialusedinacademicprose.Inorderoffrequencyof

estimated percentages the results showed result/

inference (41%), apposition (25%), and contrast/

concession(18%).Appositiveadverbialswhichwere

relatively common features of the academic prose but

were not found in the two corpora were i.e. and e.g..



Table 5. RawCount,Percentage,andNormedCountper10,000WordsofSemanticCategories

In addition,when comparedwith theUS

studentcorpus,theThailearnercorpuscontainedtwoto

four times more linking adverbials under each semantic

category than theUS student corpus. Similarly, the

occurrences of linking adverbials in the Thai learner corpus

wereconsiderablyhigherthanthecorpus-basedfindings

inLGSWE.Forexample,result/inferenceadverbialsin

the Thai learner corpus were twice as many as the instances

ofresult/inferenceinLGSWE.Enumerative/additive/

summative adverbials in the learner corpus were six

times greater thanLGSWE.Enumerative/additive/

summative adverbials in the US student corpus were

threetimesmorethaninthefindingsofLGSWE.

Distribution of syntactic forms. Figure 1

illustrates the distribution of syntactic forms of linking

adverbials in the Thai learner corpus and the US student

corpusinpercentage.Inbothcorpora,singleadverbials

accounted for the largest proportion of syntactic forms

(78.3% and 88.03% in theThai learner and theUS

studentcorporarespectively),followedbyprepositional

phrases(19.78%and11.97%)andothers(i.e.,finiteand

non-finitesuchasfirst of all and that is)(1.92%and0%).

The patterns of syntactic forms found in the two corpora

were identical to those in the academic prose presented

inLGSWE.Interestingly,therewasnoinstanceofthe

thirdsyntacticformsatallintheUSstudentcorpus.This,

however,maybeduetothesmallscaledata.

Figure 1. Syntacticrealizationsoflinkingadverbials




Positions of linking adverbials. The results

revealed that Thai learners always placed linking

adverbials in the initial position (i.e., sentence and

clausal initial positions) (100%). In contrast, itwas

foundthatintheUSstudentcorpus,participantsused

boththeinitial(72.65%)andmedial(26.94%)positions,

thoughtheinitialpositionwasmostfrequent.Thefinal

positionwasfoundonlyonce(seeWritingSample1).The

results found in the US student corpus appeared to be an

identical pattern to that of linking adverbials presented

inLGSWE.LGSWE, however, reports that thefinal

positionisaconversationalfeature(Biberetal.,1999).

(1)USStudent:#1

ThisistheideaofChecksandBalances.

Bush has found a loophole from this,

though.

Most frequent words. Table6presents raw

counts, percentages of the overall use, and normed

countsper10,000wordsofthetopfivemostfrequently

used linking adverbials in the Thai learner corpus and the

US student corpus. The linking adverbial that occurred

most frequently in the Thai learner corpus was so,which

accountedfor23.90%oftheoveralluseand35.93times

per10,000words(seeWritingSamples2-4).Also,it

was found that so washighlyusedbyUSstudents,as

thesecondmostoftenusedconnector(16.14%,12.84

timesper10,000words)(seeWritingSamples5and6).

Inaddition,itwasfoundthatthetopfivemostfrequently

usedlinkingadverbialsaccountedforoverfiftypercent

of the entire linking adverbials used in the two corpora

(53.30%and66.93%intheThailearnercorpusandthe

USstudentcorpusrespectively).Thisshowsthatboth

groups of learners rely heavily on a rather small set of

linkingadverbialsintheirwriting.Itisalsoofnotethat

whiletheUSstudentsusedthesefivefrequentwords

fairlyequallyinnumber,theThaistudentsprofoundly

dependedonthefirsttopmostfrequentword(i.e.,so).

This may show that the Thai students were not yet

proficient in using a variety of linking adverbials in

their academic writing.

Table 6. TopFiveMostFrequentlyUsedLinkingAdverbials(per10,000words)



(2)ThaiLearner:Score1,#15

Butthewomenmustworkedathomeand

waited for her husband came back

home,so she didn’t had an opportunity to

out off the home.


Besides,wehelptheothersinclass,when

we are outside the class we are still friends.

So,Ifeelsowarm.


All students in a group will think carefully

before they give their answers to their

friends for discussion. So,itwillmotivate

them to be active all the time.

(5)USStudent:#3

Due to the fact that society looks upon

athletessoheavily,athletesfeelpressure

toperformbetter,so they turn to unnatural

methods to enhance their performance.

(6)USStudent:#12

Themagnetislocatedjustunderthescalp,

so it could be replaced later.

Itisimportanttonotethat,eventhoughso was

alsofoundinacademicproseinLGSWE,itsfrequency

normedcountper10,000wordswasonly2instances.In

addition,so is more a characteristics of spoken language

(i.e.,34timesper10,000wordsinconversation)(Biber

et al., 1999). This is also truewith then,whichwas

relativelyfrequentlyusedbyUSstudents(i.e.,10.02times

per 10,000words,while 9 timesper 10,000words in

LGSWEinconversation)(seeWritingSamples7and8).

(7)USStudent:#4

There were sites that would focus on one

subjectand thenjumptoanother.

(8)USStudent:#9

Ifwemustkeepbuilding then why not

look at different way to help lower the

cost of what it is doing.

Research Question 2: Within the Thai learner

corpus, do higher quality essays contain more linking

adverbials?

To answer this question, quantitative and

qualitative analyses were performed. The occurrences

of linking adverbial among the three writing scores

wereanalyzedthroughaOneWayAnalysisofVariance

(ANOVA).SeeTable7 for themeansandstandard

deviations per essay for each of the three groups.

Table 7. MeansandStandardDeviationsofLinkingAdverbialsUsed(perEssay)

An alpha level of .05 was used for all analyses.

The one-wayANOVA of standardized test score

(seeTable8)revealedastatisticallysignificantmain

effect[F(2,69)=12.14,p < .05] indicating that there

weresignificantdifferencesamongtheoccurrencesof

linkingadverbialsinthethreescores.Omegasquared

( )of .376 showed that approximately38%of the

variation in occurrences of linking adverbials is

attributable to differences between writing quality.




Table 8. AnalysisofVarianceforLinkingAdverbialUsage

PosthoccomparisonsusingTukeyprocedures

were performed to determine which pairs of the three

groupmeansdiffered.TheresultsaregiveninTable9

andindicatethatwritingScore3(M=8.875)contained

significantlymore linking adverbials than Score 1

(M=2.417)andScore2(M=3.875).Theeffectsizes

for thesepairwisedifferenceswere1.854and1.436,

respectively.

Table 9. TukeyPostHocResultsandEffectSizeofLinkingAdverbialUsebyWritingScore

Qualitative analysis of the semantic categories

usedwithineachessayscore(seeTable10)showedthat

inScore1, result/inferenceaccounted for the largest

proportionoflinkingadverbialuse(53.45%).Inaddition,

in the higher quality essays,more diverse types of

linkingadverbialsandsemanticcategorieswereused,

indicatedbythewiderspreadofpercentagefiguresfor

eachsemanticcategory.Inregardstopatternsofuse,

similar patterns of linking adverbial use between Scores

1and2werefound(i.e.,result/inference>enumeration/

addition>concession/contrast);buttherewasareverse

betweenthefirsttworanksinScore3.Itisinteresting

to note that result/inference accounted for a large

proportionoflinkingadverbialsuseinScore1,butnot

Scores2and3(seeWritingSamples9and10).Inaddition,

it is interesting that apposition makes up much more of

thetotaladverbialuseinScores2and3thaninScore

1(seeWritingSamples11and12).

*p<.01

Table 10. RawCountsandPercentageofSemanticCategoryinEachScore




If students are in schoolsoruniversity,

they must wearing uniform of school.

Then, wearing uniforms is culture of

Thailand.


Wearinguniformsinschoolisagoodidea

and the usefulness for everybody in the

daytocome,So we are the student ought

to proud of uniforms.


Manykindsoftechnologythatusemoney

in their process can impact on people and

environment. for example,carcancause

the air pollution,water pollution from

many factories.


Inadditionhasresponsibilityaboutfamily.

Womencandoworkoutside.That is they

can help family make money.

To further determine the differences among

writing scores, types and semantic functions of each

individual linking adverbial occurring in each semantic

categorywereexamined.Similartothefindingshownby

thequantitativedata,essaysofhigherqualitycontained

a wider range of linking adverbial forms and semantic

categories; the rangeof linkingadverbials in the lower

writingqualitywasrestricted(seeTable11).Forexample,

under thecategoryof result/inference, inScore1,only

threelinkingadverbialformswereused(i.e.,so, then, and

therefore),whileinScore3avarietyoflinkingadverbials

wereemployedtoexpressthisrelationship(e.g.,for this

reason, hence, as a result, consequently, accordingly, and

thus)(seeWritingSamples13and14).Moreover,inhigher

quality essays, the use of different semantic functions

oflinkingadverbialswasfound.Forexample,inessays

ofScores2and3,thenwasusedtofulfilltwodifferent

semanticcategories:enumeration/addition(asinWriting

Sample15),andresult/inference(as inWritingSample

16).Ontheotherhand,inScore1,then was only used

asaresult/inferenceadverbial(asinWritingSample17).

Table 11.TypesandNumbersofConjunctiveAdverbialsUsedbyLearners




(13)Learnercorpus:Level3,#2

Like in the society when we go to

workwith others; this skillwill help

us to consider the other’s mind or idea.

Accordingly,wewillbeabletodealwith

the problem and our colleague easily and

happily.[result/inference]


sothefourththatIwilltalktoismoney

make people render a decision from

exterior or make a pricestimat of human

frommoney, for this reason people

are becoming thematerialism. [result/

inference]


I think everyone should to have the

cooperation. The importanting they

should to decrease an angry and they

shouldtodecreasethegreed,then return

to make a good thing for our social.

[enumeration/addition]


Try to make use of studying in group

andapplytouseinrealsituations,then

teamwork will support you to reach

success.[result/inference]


Ifstudentsgotoshoppingortotravel,the

students can wearing freedom dress such

asundershirt,shortskirtandsingletbutif

studentsareinschoolsoruniversity,they

must wearing uniform of school. Then,

wearing uniforms is culture of Thailand.

[result/inference]

Discussion and Conclusions

The present study attempted to compare the

use of linking adverbials by Thai EFL learners and US

universitystudents,andexploredhow,withinagroup

ofEFL learners, linking adverbial use varied across

essays of different quality. The results showed that

Thai learners used more linking adverbials in normed

countsper10,000wordsthannative-speakingstudents.

However, the two corpora shared several similar

featuresof linkingadverbialuse (i.e.,preferencesof

certainsemanticcategories,mostfrequentwords,and

heavyrelianceoncertainlinkingadverbials).Inspiteof

this,someofthepatternsobservedwithintheEFLstudent

and US student essays differed considerably from

thepatternsofacademicprosefromthecorpus-based

findingsreportedinBiberetal.(1999).Theanalysisof

essay quality within the learner corpus indicated that

essays of higher quality contained a higher number

andvarietyoflinkingadverbials,andawiderrangeof

semantic categories than essays of lower level quality.

As a result of the analysis of the learner corpus and

theUSstudentcorpus,severalissuesareworthnoting.

First, the similar features between the two

learner corpora need to be carefully considered. As

seen,bothcorporacontainedahighnumberofspoken

linkingadverbials(e.g.,so)andfollowedsimilarusage

patternsofsemanticcategories (i.e., result/inference,

enumeration/addition/summation/, and contrast/

concession). The patterns, however,were different

fromtheLGSWE(i.e.,result/inference,apposition,and

contrast/concession).Thesimilaritiesanddifferences

revealtwointerestingpoints.First,theuseoftheungraded

US student corpus as a comparison corpus may be

inappropriate.Asseen,manyfeaturesoflinkingadverbial

use in the US student corpus revealed some features

of ineffective use of linking adverbials in academic



writing(e.g.,heavyrelianceonconversationallinking

adverbials).Itisquestionablewhetherungradedessays

written by native speakers that were commonly used in

corpus studies would represent a good writing model for

comparison.Therefore,itissuggestedthatthequality

of native students’ essays included in the comparison

corpus should also be graded and only high-scored

essaysbeincludedinthecomparisoncorpus.Second,the

identical patterns produced by the two learner corpora

mayimplythatthepatterns(i.e.,theuseofenumeration/

addition/summation adverbials)may be features of

learners’ argumentative essays since these linking

adverbials were also found to be highly used by EFL

learnersasfoundinpreviousstudies(e.g.,Chen,2006;

GrangerandTyson,1996;LiuandBraine,2005).

Another point concerns the quality of learners’

essays.Aswehaveseen,essaysofhigherqualitywere

different from lower quality in certain respects. They

contained a higher number and a wider range of linking

adverbials.Inmoreeffectiveessays,differentsemantic

functions of linking adverbialswere used.Granger

(1997, 2003, 2005) has brought to our attention the

comparison between second language learners corpus

and native student corpus through her extensive works in

learnercorpora.AccordingtoGranger,theinformation

from contrastive interlanguage analyses will help provide

a better description of learner language and guidelines

for the development of pedagogical tools and methods

that meet learners’ needs. As the results of the present

studyhaveshown,learners’writingofdifferentquality

contained varied features, implying different needs

oflearners.Accordingly,writingqualityshouldbeone

crucial concern in contrastive interlanguage analyses

in order to interpret the differences being observed in

a more meaningful way and to provide appropriate

rationale for the development of pedagogical tools and

methods that better meet learners’ needs.

In addition to the discussion onwriting

quality,severalstudiesclassifiedlearners’levelsbased

upontheirlevelofeducation(e.g.,AltenbergandTapper,

1998;Boltonetal.,2002;GrangerandTyson,1996;

Tanko,2004).Forinstance,GrangerandTyson(1996)

defined “advanced” as third or fourth yearEnglish

majorstudents.However,asisseeninthisstudy,the

participantsofthisstudywereEnglishmajors:graduate

and third and fourth year undergraduate students. Their

writingperformance,however,wasmostlyat lowto

intermediatelevels(Scores1to3).Whilethecriterionof

level of education may be suitable in European contexts

duetotheirhighexposuretothetargetlanguage,this

criterion may not be applicable in other contexts such

asinAsia.Therefore,thelevelofeducationmaynotbe

an appropriate indicator of learners’ levels. Learners’

actual performances on written tests should be a more

reliable measure.

Finally, the cause for learners’ heavy use

of linking adverbials inThai learners’writing (i.e.,

over twice as many linking adverbials in the overall

frequencyastheUSstudentcorpusandLGSWE)may

haveresultedfromdifferentfactors.Itmaybepossible

that the participants perceived linking adverbials as a

mainfeatureofargumentativeessays(Castellon,2004).

Therefore, theymay impose linking adverbials onto

their writing in order to make their papers sound more

academic (Crewe, 1990;Granger andTyson, 1996).

Also,learnersmightbeawarethatlinkingadverbials

are features that essay graders depend on when grading

papers(Chiang,1999,2003;Jafarpur,1991).Another

possibility is that this may be one characteristic of

learners’ language or interlanguage in linking adverbial

use. That is, learners tend to under use linking

adverbialswhentheirlanguageproficiencyislowand

tendtooverusethemwhentheirproficiencyisimproved.

Oncetheymasterthelanguage,theywillbeabletouse




linkingadverbialsmorenaturally(i.e.,lessinnumber)

andmoreeffectively.Asseeninthisstudy,theScore

3essayscontainedthemostlinkingadverbials,while

only a fewof themwere found in Score 2 and the

leastinScore1.However,sincetheinformationabout

learners’ linking adverbials of higher quality (i.e.,

Scores4and5)isstilllacking,theoptimalnumberof

adverbials(andalsothemostimportanttypes)isleft

unknown.As such,what exactly constitutes “good”

adverbial use is unclear. This may be the reason why it

is still unfeasible to properly determine whether learners

underuseoroveruseadverbialsinpreviousstudies(e.g.,

Boltonetal.,2002;Chen,2006;Tanko,2004).Learners’

underuse and overuse can be better determined and

described understood when variability of essay quality

is taken into consideration.

Pedagogical Implications

Pedagogical implications for eachwriting

score cannot be conclusively made due to the lack of

information about optimal use of linking adverbials from

essay scores 4 and 5.Untilwe aremore informed

about linking adverbial use in essays of higher equality

(i.e.,Scores4 and5),more appropriate implications

concerning how to help learners develop effective

ways of using adverbials in their writing cannot be

obtained.However,basedontheresultsoftheoverall

characteristicsofThailearners,someimplicationscan

besuggested.Itisnecessarytoraiselearners’awareness

of the register restriction of linking adverbials (i.e.,

academicversusspoken).Theyshouldbeprovidedwith

moreexposurestoacademicregister,whichcontains

features of argumentative essays expected to be

produced by learners, and be trained to use linking

adverbialsthatarespecificallyrequiredbysuchacademic

register.Also,learnersneedtolearntheflexibilityofthe

positionoflinkingadverbials(e.g.,medialpositions).

These two issues may be achieved through the use of

authentic texts via such techniques as concordances.

TheuniquefeatureofKWIC(i.e.,key-word-in-context)

offered by concordances may increase learners’ level

of attention and provide positive evidence for learning

(formore information about the positive effect of

concordancesonsecondlanguageacquisitionseeCobb,

1997,1999;Higginsetal.,1999;TsengandLiou,2006)

Finally, the high use of certain linking

adverbials,particularlythefivetopmostfrequentwords,

seems to imply that EFL learners considerably rely on

theuseoflinkingadverbialstocreatecoherence(i.e.,

approximately twice asmany as native-speaking

students).Learnersshouldbemadeawarethattheuse

of linking adverbials is not the only means to create

coherence and that their restriction to a single type

of cohesive device may instead hinder the reader’s

comprehension. Learners should be introduced to

othertypesofcohesiveties(e.g.,lexicalcohesionand

reference) and learn to apply them to strengthen the

coherence of text in accordance with the use of linking

adverbials.

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Studies

Thisstudyislimitedbythesizeofthetwo

corpora. The generalizability of the findingsmay,

therefore,belimited.Eventhoughitisnotclearhow

manyessaysshouldbeincludedinthistypeofresearch,

a great number of writing samples may provide a more

elaborative picture of EFL learners’ linking adverbial

usage. A further source of limitation is that the

participants of this study were homogeneous in terms

of theirfirst language.Thehomogeneityof learners’

linguistic background may have some impact on their

usage patterns and features found in each writing score.

For future research, studies with larger-

scale,corpus-baseddataonforeignlanguagelearners



will provide a more comprehensive picture of linking

adverbial use in this group of learners. Another possible

research direction is to probe into the investigation

of and the construction of an appropriate comparison

corpus forEFL learners’ linking adverbial use.One

important feature of a comparison corpus arising from

the results of this study is the use of argumentative essays

whichhavebeenratedashighinquality;thistypeof

comparison corpus has not yet been constructed and

researchedinpreviousstudies.Itishopedthatwiththe

knowledge of an appropriate comparison corpus and

theconstructionof suchacorpus, theunderstanding

of characteristics of foreign language learners’ linking

adverbial use will be enhanced. Since this study

analyzedlearners’essaysofScores1,2,and3,itwill

alsobenefitthefieldmoreifessaysofScores4and5are

examined and compared with the results from the lower

levels. The current study focused mainly on learners’

frequentuseoflinkingadverbials;itleavesspacefor

more questions regarding the effectiveness of learners’

use of linking adverbials and other types of cohesive

tiesinargumentativeessays.Finally,recruitingwriting

samples of EFL learners from different linguistic

backgrounds may provide a more complete picture of

EFL learners’ linking adverbial use of different writing

quality.Inaddition,comparisonsoflinkingadverbial

use across language backgrounds can be better made.

This will also contribute to our understanding of the

rolesofthefirstlanguageonlinkingadverbialusage.

Acknowledgement

IwouldliketothankDr.WilliamCrawford

for allowingme to use hisLearnerCorpus ofThai

learnersandDr.ErkanKarabacakandhisstudentsfor

their permission to use their essays in my study.

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