A Corpusbased Study of Connectors Research from the

A Corpus-based Study of Connectors: Research from the CAS Learner Corpus of English Essays Haiyang Ai, Gong Peng Graduate University, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Outline of the talk ü Introduction ü Previous Studies ü Methodology and Corpus Building ü Results and Discussion ü Conclusion and Pedagogical Implication

Definition of connectors ¡ Connectors are devices used to state the relationship between units of discourse (Biber et al, 1999) ¡ Including conjunctions, some adverbs (e. g. firstly, namely, alternatively), and some prepositional phrases (e. g. in brief, in fact, of course)

Classification of connectors ¡ Quirk et al’s (1985) framework A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language ¡ Adding of corroborative category - (Granger & Tyson, 1996) - (Altenberg & Tapper, 1998)

Quirk et al’s (1985) framework enumerative listing additive e. g. for a star, finally equative e. g. in the same way, likewise reinforcing e. g. moreover, further summative e. g. in sum, altogether appositive e. g. for example, namely resultive e. g. as a result, consequently inferential e. g. therefore, in that case, otherwise contrastive transitional reformulatory e. g. more precisely, rather replacive e. g. better, again antithetic e. g. by contrast, instead concessive e. g. in any case, however discoursal e. g. by the way, incidentally temporal e. g. in the meantime, meanwhile

Connectors investigated (68 items) ¡ Listing: first, second, third, firstly, secondly, thirdly, finally, furthermore, in addition, moreover, lastly, last but not least, to begin with, for another, in the first place, in the second place, similarly, for one thing, for another ¡ Summative: to sum up, to conclude, in summary, in short, in brief, in conclusion, overall, all in all, altogether ¡ Appositive: that is, that is to say, in other words, for instance, for example, namely, e. g. ( eg), i. e. ( ie)

Connectors investigated (68 items) ¡ Resultive: consequently, hence, therefore, thus, as a result, as a consequence, in consequence, ¡ Inferential: otherwise, in that case ¡ Contrastive: however, although, (even) though, on the other hand, instead, after all, on the contrary, in contrast, besides, nevertheless, anyway, still, by contrast, nonetheless, alternatively ¡ Transitional: meanwhile, eventually, subsequently, originally ¡ Corroborative: actually, in fact, of course, indeed, apparently

Rationales to use corpus data ¡ Corpus data are real and authentic => empirical study ¡ Combines intuitions of many, more objective (Mc. Energy & Wilson, 2001) ¡ Corpora are precious resources for testing out linguistic hypothesis (Meyer, 2002) ¡ Learner corpus serves as the meeting point of corpus linguistics and SLA (Granger 1998) => pioneer: Sylviane Granger, ICLE

Research questions ¡ What’s the semantic distribution? ¡ What’s the top 10 most frequently used connectors? ¡ Which connectors are overused? ¡ What’s the differences and similarities compared with related studies, and why (universal features vs. transfer-related? )

Hypothesis ¡ Hypothesis: Ph. D students at GUCAS would overuse connectors in their English writings ¡ Formulated based on l Previous studies from HK and Taiwan (Crewe 1990, Field & Yip 1992, Milton & Tsang 1993, Bolton et al 2002, Chen 2006) l The author’s own observation

Significance ¡ Systematic and corpus-based connector studies on Ph. D students writing of in GUCAS => shed some light on the everlasting cohesion & coherence problems in ESL/EFL writing ¡ Quantitative analysis can provide teachers (esp. at GUCAS) with a better idea on what needs to be done ¡ The construction of the CASCLEE computer learner corpus itself (Resources)

Outline again ü Approaching Connectors ü Previous Studies ü Methodology and Corpus Building ü Results and Discussion ü Conclusion and Pedagogical Implication

Previous corpus-based studies ¡ Milton & Tsang (1993) l ¡ Granger & Tyson (1996) l l ¡ high ratio of overuse of entire range of connectors (HKUST vs. Brown, LOB) 108 connectors, CIA method overuse <= L 1 transfer Altenberg & Tapper (1998) l timed + untimed essays l underuse (resultive, contrastive) <= prefer less formal connectors

Previous corpus-based studies ¡ Bolton et al (2002) l l ¡ Overuse exists in both groups, ICE-HK vs. ICE -GB Raised 3 methodological issues Chen (2006) l Latest, published on IJCL, Taiwanese EFL Learners l Slightly overused connectors l Increase learner’s register differences

Outline ü Introduction ü Previous Studies ü Methodology and Corpus Building ü Results and Discussion ü Conclusion and Pedagogical Implication

Corpus building ¡ Corpus name: CASCLEE - CAS Corpus of Learner English Essays ¡ Corpus Size: 494 essays, 120, 836 words, covering timed and untimed writings ¡ Data analysis: Word. Smith Tool 4. 0 + Manual Extraction ¡ Sampling & Representativeness ¡ Learner Background & Register of text

Method: CIA ¡ ¡ Contrastive interlanguage analysis (Granger 1996) l L 2 vs. L 1 l L 2 vs. L 2 Reference corpora l Informative Writings of BNC Sampler Corpus (L 1) l The ICLE French Subcorpus (L 2)

Outline ü Introduction ü Previous Studies ü Methodology and Corpus Building ü Results and Discussion ü Conclusion and Pedagogical Implication

Overall frequencies (normalised)

Semantic distribution

Top 10 most frequently used connectors Rank CASCLEE BNC Sampler-info. ICLE-French 1 first however indeed 2 second although however 3 however thus therefore 4 secondly (even) though of course 5 for example therefore moreover 6 although for example 7 (even) though of course for instance 8 finally indeed in fact 9 firstly instead thus 10 of course in addition on the other hand

Quantitative difference: Overuse ¡ Overused connectors l Group A (see Table 4) l Group B (see Table 5)

Comparing with related studies ¡ Altenberg & Tapper (1998) Overuse of furthermore, for instance, still, of course (CASCLEE also) ¡ Bolten et al (2002) overuse both exist in ICE-HK & ICE-GB ¡ Chen (2006) slightly overused

Major findings ¡ ¡ ¡ Ph. D students overused a whole range of connectors (hypothesis supported) They significantly overused listing and summative connectors Overuse of connectors exist both in CASCLEE and ICLE French subcorpus

Outline ü Introduction ü Previous Studies ü Methodology and Corpus Building ü Results and Discussion ü Conclusion and Pedagogical Implication

Conclusion ¡ ¡ Objectives and contributions l Build the CASCLEE learner corpus l Analyzing connectors based on Quirk et al (1985) framework Methodology: contrastive interlanguage analysis l L 1 vs. L 2 (CASCLE vs. BNC Sampler-info) l L 2 vs. L 2 (CASCLEE vs. ICLE-French)

Pedagogical Implication ¡ ¡ Pedagogical implication l Focus on contrastive, resultive and appositional connectors, over 70% l Listing connectors should be addressed l Correct forms of connectors Looking forward… l More large-scale, corpus-based studies on EFL learners’ connector usage l Probe into the possible causes for certain connector usage patterns

The End !