A Research of Logical Connectors Used by Chinese English Learners from the Longitudinal Perspective

Jiang+Junmei

【Abstract】Based on Corpus， the present study investigates the developmental features of the use of logical connectors. Chinese learners use all kinds of logical connectors in their English writing， but their frequencies are different. Chinese learners， especially high school students rely heavily on a few logical connectors， the used of adverbials lack diversity. As students learn English more， the use of adverbials present different developmental features. In， addition， there is a significant difference between ST2 and ST3 in the use of logical connectors， but there is no significant difference between ST3 and ST4.

【Key words】Chinese English Learners； Logical Connectors； Longitudinal Perspective

1. Introduction

Discourses are made up of sentences， and sentences become a unified whole by the use of appropriate cohesive devices. Logical connectors are important cohesive devices and do not have clear and definite meanings by themselves， their main function is to make the logical or semantic relations in the writing clear. people can understand the semantic relations between sentences， or even logically predict the subsequent sentences through the use of logical connectors （Hu Zhuanglin，1994：92）.

The present study is designed to examine the use of logical connectors in writing by Chinese learners across three learning stages from a longitudinal perspective. And it aims to be significant both in theory and in practice. In theory， it is intended to enrich the research on the use of logical connectors in L2 writing and promote a better understanding of the role of logical connectors in writing. In practice， it aims to reveal the developmental trend in the use of logical connectors in writing of ESL learners in China and provide insights into the teaching and learning of logical connectors in English writing.

2. Research Design

On the basis of Quirk （1985） classification of logical connectors， the present study investigates the developmental features of the use of logical connectors， specifically， the research questions examined in the study are：

1）What are the overall features of the use of logical connectors at three different learning stages and what are the top ten most frequent logical connectors respectively？

2）As students learn English more， what are the features and trends of the use of logical connectors？

The present study is divided into three steps：

Firstly， three sub-corpora of CLEC（Chinese Learner English Corpus）which are ST2，ST3 and ST4 have been chosen to stand for three different learning stages. Secondly，the three sub-corpora are searched to get the occurrence frequencies of logical connectors with the help of corpus concordancing software Wordsmith. Thirdly， quantitative and qualitative analyses and discussion are carried out to find out the developmental features of the use of logical connectors and reasons for these features

3. Research Results and Discussion

3.1 Overall features of the use of logical connectors

At different learning stages students use all kinds of logical connectors （11125）， but their occurrence frequencies are quite different， the enumerative adverbials （3893） are most frequently used， resultative （3721） or deductive adverbials come second， transitional adverbials （87） are least used. The reason for this finding may be that teachers overemphasize the role of logical connectors in the realization of cohesion and coherence so that some students deliberately mark semantic and logical relationship clearly by using logical connectors even though sometimes there is no logical relation at all.

2371， 4275 and 4479 logical connectors and 60， 99 and 109 types are used in ST2， ST3 and ST4 respectively. These numbers show that as learning stages improve， students use more and a richer variety of logical connectors. It is possibly because as students learn English more， they have a deeper understanding of the important role logical connectors play in the realization of textual cohesion and coherence， and at the same time， students have acquired more types and a large number of logical connectors.

The distribution of different semantic categories in the three corpora is roughly the same： the groups of students most frequently use categories of result/ inference， enumeration/ addition and contrast/ concession to make the relations clear in their English writing. They rarely use logical connectors of summation/ transition. And appositive and corroborative logical connectors are moderately used. This phenomenon may be caused by the influence of Chinese thinking mode and teachers or guide books writing instruction.

As students learn English more， the use of logical connectors present different changing trends and features. In order to test whether these observed differences are statistically significant， Chi-square Tests are carried out with the help of SPSS. In the comparison between ST2 and ST3， p = 0.022﹤0.05， so the difference in the use of logical connectors between ST2 and ST3 is statistically significant. The significant increase in the use of logical connectors from ST2 to ST3 is due to the following reasons. Firstly， in middle schools， both students and teachers pay no or little attention to writing， let alone the essays discourse structure and cohesion or coherence. Secondly， in order to do a better job in test， college students are driven to memorize more words among which logical connectors are easy to remember， and consult a lot of writing handbooks which have a fixed pattern.

No significant differences but similarities in the use of logical connectors between ST3 and ST4 are found. There are also some reasons accounting for this result， firstly， there are no English classes for juniors and seniors in college in China， so students just devote a little time on English study and their English proficiency is staying stagnant. Secondly， writing strategy adopted by the students in ST3 and ST4 also accounts for the similar amount of logical connectors. Thirdly， the writing pattern mastered earlier is very popular and deeply rooted with Chinese non-English major college students. So no wonder there is no significant difference in the use of e logical connectors between CET-4 candidates and CET- 6 candidates.

3.2 Resaech of the individual adverbials

The top ten English logical connectors in ST2， ST3 and ST4 are shown in table 4. For the convenience of comparison， the percentage of the total number of logical connectors is given.

As indicated in table 4， firstly， seven of the listed top ten logical connectors are identical in the three corpora， although their rank order differs a little. This means that students of the three different learning stages rely on roughly the same conjuncts. Secondly， the top ten logical connectors only account for about one-sixth， one-tenth and one-eleventh of the total number of types respectively， but they make up about two-thirds or even more than two-thirds of the total number of tokens used in each corpus. It indicates that students of the three different learning stages all rely heavily on their top ten logical connectors to achieve the realization of cohesion and coherence， so there comes the problem of monotony in the use of logical connectors by Chinese non-English majors. And as learning stages improve， the problem becomes less serious， that is probably because students have mastered more types and a larger number of logical connectors， or even more other cohesive devices.

4. Conclusion

Through corpus based contrastive analysis， it is found that， firstly， at different learning stages students use all kinds of logical connectors， but their occurrence frequencies are quite different. Secondly， Chinese non-English majors tend to rely heavily on a small number of logical connectors and the richness is not high. Thirdly， the distribution of different semantic categories is roughly the same in the three corpora. Thirdly， as students learn English more， the use of logical connectors presents different developmental trends or features. There is significant difference in the use of logical connectors between ST2 and ST3， but no significant difference between ST3 and ST4.

Like all empirical studies， this study also suffered from some limitations. first， the present study is a quantitative study， qualitative analysis is not enough， and the erroneous use of logical connectors is not taken into account. Second， students in the three different learning stages are not the same， and will it influence the research results？ All these issues would leave the field open to further fruitful research.

References：

[1]Hu Zhuanglin.（1994）.Discourse Cohesion and Coherence.Shanhai：Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

[2]Quirk，R.et al.（1985）.A Comprehensive Grammar of English.London：Longman.

作者簡介：蔣俊梅 （1980-），女，河南商丘人，河南師范大學外國語學院講師，碩士，主要從事語料庫語言學及應用語言學研究。