Discourse Markers in the Genre of Formal Letters Written by Intermediate Students of English as a Foreign Language

Q2 Arts and Humanities

Studies About Languages Pub Date : 2018-11-13 DOI:10.5755/J01.SAL.0.33.20672

Oleksandr (Alexander) Kapranov

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引用次数: 1

Abstract

This article involves a quantitative computer-assisted study of the use of discourse markers in the genre of formal letters written by a group of students of English as a foreign language (EFL) at the intermediate level of EFL proficiency. The aim of the study was to examine how the group of EFL students uses English discourse markers in a written task involving the genre of formal letters. The study employed a quantitative computer-assisted methodology of computing the frequencies of discourse markers by software program WordSmith (Scott 2008). The results of the data analysis indicated that the group of EFL students at the intermediate level of EFL proficiency exhibited awareness of the genre conventions associated with the usage of discourse markers in the task. The EFL students’ genre awareness was manifested by the use of stylistically neutral discourse markers (e.g., also, but, however) concurrently with those discourse markers that are typically associated with a formal register of the English language (e.g., furthermore, hereby, therefore). These findings and their didactic implications to the teaching of EFL writing are further discussed in the article.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sal.33.0.20672

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对外英语中级学生正式信函文体中的话语标记

本文涉及一项定量的计算机辅助研究，研究了一群英语作为外语（EFL）处于中等水平的学生在正式信函类型中使用语篇标记的情况。本研究的目的是考察这组EFL学生如何在涉及正式字母类型的书面任务中使用英语话语标记。该研究采用了计算机辅助的定量方法，通过软件程序WordSmith计算话语标记的频率（Scott 2008）。数据分析的结果表明，处于中等英语水平的英语学生群体对与任务中话语标记的使用相关的类型惯例表现出了意识。EFL学生的体裁意识表现为使用风格中立的话语标记（例如，也使用，但同时使用），这些话语标记通常与英语的正式语域相关（例如，此外，因此）。本文进一步讨论了这些发现及其对英语写作教学的启示。DOI：http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sal.33.0.20672

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来源期刊

Studies About Languages Social Sciences-Linguistics and Language

CiteScore

0.60

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

32 weeks

期刊介绍： The journal aims at bringing together the scholars interested in languages and technology, linguistic theory development, empirical research of different aspects of languages functioning within a society. The articles published in the journal focus on theoretical and empirical research, including General Linguistics, Applied Linguistics (Translation studies, Computational Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Media Linguistics, etc.), Comparative and Contrastive Linguistics. The journal aims at becoming a multidisciplinary venue of sharing ideas and experience among the scholars working in the field.